I know this invites a snappy answer, but in light of this Bob Woodward article (and everything else that we know about him): Just how crazy is Dick Cheney?
I’m thinking he makes Kim Jong Il look stable and might be able to give Idi Amin and Jim Jones a run for their money.
When I think back over the last 20 years, how many things has this guy fucked up completely?
Cheers
Splitting Image
69,105.
Gex
It is ridiculous to puzzle over why Cheney learned nothing from the Iraq war. I don’t know that he ever cared whether the intelligence was there. He wanted the war and cherry picked whatever intelligence made the case. Of course he knew the intelligence was ambiguous. He had to know because he had a special team that was throwing out anything that poked holes in his case.
JWL
How crazy is Cheney?
A better question would be how intrinsically corrupted in soul is Bob Woodward? The sonofabitch would have people believe that honest mistakes were committed by decent people (Cheney included!), and so war came.
handy
Go tell it on the mountain Mr. Woodward! Let your voice soar that all your fellow establishment cheerleaders can hear it.
What a tool (and I mean that literally and figuratively).
oldswede
Remember Cheney’s 1% chance policy. Basically, he said that if there is a 1% chance that terrorists can get hold of WMD, we must act as if it’s 100%. Little room for flexible thinking in that mind.
oldswede
Emma
Not crazy. I am beginning to believe in the existence of sin, in the original meaning of the word: an offense against God. A deliberate turning away from good.
That man is terrifying.
Dennis G.
@JWL: That is perhaps a better question. Without the Woodwards of the world, Cheney would just be another guy ranting on the corner. Woodward, Mustache of Understanding, and so many others have given this guy the “importance” and “seriousness” that he needed to piss all over the globe.
Cheney may be crazy, but Woodward is just a prick.
handy
@JWL:
And I see you said it before I did, only more to the point. The people who cheerled the Iraq war (Woodward included) just so desperately want the story to be the intelligence or the mistaken conclusions drawn from it. It’s just not possible a Serious Person like Dick Cheney or Paul Wolfowitz would lie to all the other Serious People in the village. That story can’t be told.
Bago
Shooting nigh flightless birds?
Dustin
As long as he doesn’t fuck up my late-night double batch brew I’m doing to test out my new carboy I’m golden…
Oh, wait, this was a serious question. We are talking about Darth Cheney, the guy who managed to get himself elected to VP, ordered civilian planes be shot down on 9/11 only to be ignored by the military because he wasn’t the president, conned a rube into starting the Iraq war, and is guilty of enough war crimes to see the inside of a cell for the rest of his life in a just universe? That guy?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Dennis G.:
Fix’t.
This planet will be a better place when Cheney’s batteries run out.
I hope that damned rabbit gave him a used set.
tkogrumpy
@Dustin: Ya, that would be him.
Roger Moore
I don’t think that’s the question. The question is, “Just how evil is Dick Cheney?” Let’s just say that if he had a death ray, a base inside a volcano, and a Persian cat, he would use the death ray on the world without bothering to ask for a ransom. He’d rather kill everyone than get the money.
trollhattan
Bachmann-Cheney Overkill 2012–we’ll get the rest of ‘er done!
WaPo also has 5 Myths About Dick Cheney. I’m not certain all five are myths.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-dick-cheney/2011/09/08/gIQA4W8lFK_story.html?hpid=z9
trollhattan
Bachmann-Cheney Overkill 2012–we’ll get the rest of ‘er done!
WaPo also has 5 Myths About Dick Cheney. I’m not certain all five are myths.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-dick-cheney/2011/09/08/gIQA4W8lFK_story.html?hpid=z9
Dustin
In that case yeah, pretty damn crazy. But then America seems to have permanently embraced the principle of IOKIYAR and Beltway pundits have been taking lessons in bootlicking for decades… so what else is new?
PeakVT
That fucker Cheney ruined a whole damn decade.
Bruuuuce
Dick Cheney is the love child of Machiavelli and The Joker, and he clearly got the worst parts of both parents.
(another) Josh
trollhattan, that “Five Myths” piece was written by Iraq Cheerleader and Weekly Standard editor Stephen F. Hayes, who’s not only Cheney’s and Wolfie’s official biographer but the author of The Connection: How al Qaeda’s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein has Endangered America. He seems to have been grown in a vat by Rupert Murdoch.
Yutsano
@trollhattan: Holy crap that was the biggest pile of bullpuckey I’ve read in a long time. The whitewashing and tongue bathing continues apace.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
He so crazy he dropped acid and the LSD had a bad trip.
.
.
Splitting Image
Now now. Machiavelli stressed the paramount importance of acting on proper intelligence, for reasons that the Iraq War made all-too-obvious.
Davis X. Machina
Woodward came to Washington a spook.
Like the Mafia, you can’t leave.
Dezinformatsiya, every word he ever wrote.
Batocchio
@(another) Josh:
Another Josh beat me to it. Hayes is a hardcore Bush/Cheney cheerleader and notorious hack. Sadly, he fits right in with many of the WaPo’s op-ed writers these days.
burnspbesq
@JWL:
An even better question would be why I should care even a little bit about your views on the supposed corruption of Bob Woodward’s soul. Please describe in detail your training and experience in looking into the souls of journalists you have never met and determining the extent of corruption therein.
The Dangerman
A shithouse rat would say to him “Dude, you’re fucked in the head”.
burnspbesq
@Davis X. Machina:
In order for that to be true, you have to prove that Bernstein wrote 100 percent of All the President’s Men. Can you?
Elliecat
@Emma:
I actually already believe in sin, and this is pretty much what I mean when I use the word. Sin is not about angering “God,” it’s about f’ing up your community and your relationships and doing wrong by other people.
From the “Five Myths About Cheney” article:
Yeah, neither am I when I say it. I wish I were. But it’s not funny. He is.
burnspbesq
There must be something about posts with typos in the titles that brings out people who absolutely know the inherently un-knowable.
Mark S.
@trollhattan:
I liked how Hayes redefines neocon as social conservative and then argues that Cheney isn’t a neocon because he’s somewhat tolerant of gays. This is the kind of shit Fred Hiatt thinks is well-reasoned and insightful. This was also priceless:
He even lies out of compassion! The man is a modern day St. Francis of Assisi.
KG
I don’t think he’s crazy. I think he is small and petty (thus his desire to nvade Iraq even before 9/11), because he didn’t get to do it a decade earlier. And I think he is a scared little man as well. That is all the 1% Doctrine could mean. Pure unadulterated fear was his main driving force
Suffern ACE
@Mark S.: Can’t deal. I don’t get the Woodward piece. What exactly was Cheney supposed to have learned? How exactly was he hurt by the failure to find WMDs? The the time the Press got around to going “oppsie, whoocouldanode” we were already a year into the mess.
You know who else doesn’t seem to learn? The Washington Post editorial board and a whole bunch of their pundits. Be cool if Woodward would go after members of his failed club that may be still around.
Spaghetti Lee
@Dennis G.:
You know, I think it’s the other way around. Cheney was the freaking vice president, and in a lot of ways the president as well. Would he have avoided the war he had been planning for decades if the New York Times and Washington Post decided to mock him instead of support him? This is the guy who responded to the news that 66% of Americans disapproved of the Iraq War with “So?”, remember? He didn’t and doesn’t care what the goddamn voters think, what the hell is a snippy editorial from the Washington Post to him?
The Village can range from annoying to destructive, but I’ve always wondered about some people here attributing to them these omnipotent, nigh-magical powers to completely control the national agenda. I think for the most part they’re just canaries in a cage, trend-followers and careerists, reporting breathlessly on whatever new trend is out there because that’s how you get invited to all the parties. You know…morons. If there weren’t people like Cheney and Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor in government, there wouldn’t be anyone for the villagers to spill ink over.
YellowJournalism
Watched the movie Morning Glory last night with Harrison Ford as a Dan Ratheresque media personality. In one scene he rattles off all the scary/crazy things he’s done as a reporter and he ends the list with “I had lunch with Dick Cheney.” Reading this kind of takes the joke part away, while also making that throwaway line funnier.
YellowJournalism
I also propose that people start writing up “Dick Cheney is so crazy…” jokes in the form of “Yo’ Momma” jokes.
ETA bunch of you beat me to it
Hill Dweller
@KG: Cheney is a coward. Every decision he ever made was borne of cowardice.
Steeplejack
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
This may be the
bestonly thing you have ever contributed to this blog. Kudos, sir.ETA: Fix’d.
m. Carey
You know, that is a good question to get a specific answer to. The list of things that he was involved with – and screwed up- must be a mile long.
Cheney was involved in many aspects of the Bush era- not just the warmongering that he is most famous for. I remember thinking after reading some item (probably from Josh Marshall), “again, there goes Cheney, messing things up again!” Everything the guy touched turned to shit.
For example, in about 2002, there was controversy about the Klamath River, a very rural area in northeastern California. The area is fairly dry, so the farmers want more irrigation water, and the enviros want more water in the river for the fish. Against the advice of the Fish and Game folks, Cheney ordered that the reservoirs were to give the farmers the water. There was promptly a large salmon kill along the river, as predicted, due to low downstream flows.
This was before the Iraq invasion, while they were more concerned about so-called “missile defense”, and ignoring warnings about airplane flying into buildings. .
Villago Delenda Est
@handy:
The gullible vermin of the Village? Played for chumps?
Unpossible!
Whatever good Woodward did back in the 70’s was obliterated when they got Robert Redford to play him in the movie.
The Will Ferrell portrayal of him in Dick is probably more on the mark.
Comrade Kevin
I may have mentioned this before but I’m really looking forward to it, so here goes…
The non-profit in charge of the Comcast local access-type channels offers classes in television production, and I have signed up for a studio production class, where I’ll learn the basics of camera operation, control deck, editing, etc. After the class is done, I can be put on the list for working on the crew for real programs that appear on the access channels.
It’s not paid stuff, but I figure that if I keep with it, it may lead to a paying job at some point.
Bruuuuce
@Splitting Image:
But that was Machiavelli’s BETTER side — the part that Biggus Dickus didn’t inherit.
Suffern ACE
@Comrade Kevin: Good luck. When you are a big time public access producer (right before Hollywood, New York or Mumbai comes calling), I hope you don’t become so big in the head that you won’t listen to my pitch for compelling local TV. (Hint: It involves school board wardrobe malfunctions; a ratings grabber in most places).
Comrade Kevin
@Suffern ACE: HA! Don’t worry, I will remember the “little people” when I hit the top.
Maude
@Comrade Kevin:
I did that years ago. You will have a wonderful time and learn so much. It can lead to a job in the future. Enjoy.
John Weiss
@Emma: Sin?
The man is nuts. I don’t know whether that has anything to do with sin, or evil. Cheney is batshit nuts.
Helen
Do not read the comments in the linked article. It’s all crazy neocon stuff.
Mike G
One thing no-one has brought up yet:
Repuke hack-economist Arthur Laffer’s original “supply side” graph, the magical-thinking delusion that cutting taxes increases revenues — and the excuse for decades of ideologically-driven ruinous economic policies and trillions of dollars of federal debt — was drawn on Darth’s dinner napkin.
As a sideline to his murderous warmongering, Dick Fucking “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter” Cheney was a major driver in ramming through the most disastrous, delusional, cynically politically-expedient Repuke economic policy in a generation.
Redshift
I just wish he had screwed up Bush’s re-election. Or election, even better. Sigh.
Anne Laurie
@Davis X. Machina: Thank you for beating me to this. When Woodward writes:
I hear: Don’t blame us — Cheney was just a rogue operator, a bad apple, something totally outside the sterling functionality of our National Security State’s guardians!
Wonder how long it will take our enterprising official media to compare/contrast Woodward’s writings, circa 2011, to his pro-Cheney-Regency cheerleading, circa 2003?
Jenny
Woodward was a Cheney fluffier primarily because Cheney was a big leaker.
What infuriated Woodward was that Cheney stopped passing him stories in 2006.
Anne Laurie
@burnspbesq:
Why? ‘Disinformation’, as opposed to lying, would include telling/releasing damaging truths about fellow security-staters who’d gotten too crazy / undisciplined to be useful. Even during the Watergate hearings, some wild-eyed hippie journalists said Woodward was a security-stater double agent, inserted into the Washington Post to feed the “right” information about Nutty Drunken Raving Paranoid Dick Nixon & His Goofy Bunch of CREEPsters to the media, while protecting still-viable important human assets from further scrutiny. Kissinger, for instance, scurried away with very little damage to his reputation (as a venal little scumsucker who’d trade his long-term associates for his own safety, but that’s the reputation Henry the K wanted, because Realpolitick). “We” didn’t know at the time that Cheney was one of the cockroaches sheltering under the refrigerator of Bob Woodward’s failure-to-investigate-further, but it wasn’t only the conspiracy theorists and far-leftists who assumed, quite publicly, that Gerry Ford got his asterisked spot on the official Oval Office occupants directory by accepting that “the American people” needed “to put all that behind us”.
Suffern ACE
@Helen: IDK. I like the idea that had we done in Syria in 2007, we wouldn’t be having problems with Iran today. Cause they’re pursuing nukes because they know we won’t bomb them. The idea that threats to bomb them might give them cause to want to have nukes even more? Nah.
Jebediah
@Comrade Kevin:
Good luck with that – if it goes well enough, eventually you can join local 700 – or the DGA if it goes really well!
srv
A nukular reactor is a nukular reactor, Cheney just had his emopants on.
Iran’s program went into overdrive the minute Bush’s Axis-of-Evil speech was finished, so I don’t understand how someone can argue bombing Syria 5 or 6 years later would make them behave.
RareSanity
@Mike G:
I still don’t understand why anybody, that is attempting to sound smart, uses that damn joke of a theory to base any opinion on. The one time some idiot mentioned it in my presence I looked him in the eye and said, “There are no fucking numbers on this! How the hell do you know where we are currently? What if we’re at the far left side of it right now and we actually need to raise taxes? That is if this were a real thing.”
This idiot, that had just tried to dazzle me with bullshit, was utterly speechless and clearly disoriented because I don’t think he even considered it before and now that he had, he realized he was looking at a useless picture instead of the brilliantly insightful “graph” he thought it was.
Elizabelle
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
that is funny
joel hanes
It’s easy to understand Cheney’s pathology; many powerful men through the centuries have suffered from the same sickness.
Cheney believes that Good is too weak to combat Evil, and so to survive, you must out-Evil your enemies.
The abyss has looked deep into this one.
Ecks
Credit where credit is due though, the WaPo has an article that cites a bunch of new academic work debunking the hoary idea that the “tea party is a grassroots phnenomenon that came out of nowhere and has is single handedly winning all the elections for the R’s”.
geg6
The 1% Doctrine is proof that Cheney, underneath it all, is nothing but a venal coward. In case his many, many deferments hadn’t convinced you. A small man. I’ll bet his pen1s is an inch or less. And he’s been trying to be John Holmes in reaction. I haave nothing but disdain for him.
drunken hausfrau
I was thinking Cheney is more of a Penguin-Dr. Strangelove-Mr. Potter love child. Bitter, evil, fanatical, convinced of his superiority. Unfortunately, not fictional.
Oh, and five deferments… and hiding in his bunker all day 9/11 — I forgot to add a chickenshit element to his gene pool — perhaps Sir Henry Simmerson from Sharpe?
harlana
the “heads exploding all over Washington” comment was telling, he does care about what people think, he wants people to perceive him as the guy who can strong-arm anyone into doing what they don’t want to do, usually things that would be termed “evil” That’s how he gets off. I got nothing to offer as to why that is.
Aimai
Read Angler to find out how evil Cheney Is. He got all the top republican contenders for the vp slot to answer hundreds of personal questions and reveal all their private secrets, finances and scandals under a promise of confidentiality and then hevand David addington used that info to keep their political opponents in check. Ruined careers and threatened others.
Aimai
Read Angler to find out how evil Cheney Is. He got all the top republican contenders for the vp slot to answer hundreds of personal questions and reveal all their private secrets, finances and scandals under a promise of confidentiality and then hevand David addington used that info to keep their political opponents in check. Ruined careers and threatened others.
harlana
OT, but re 911 memorial stuff, did we do this sort of endless introspection and grieving 10 years after Pearl Harbor? Not trying to be an ass, just wondering. I’ll have to ask my mom, I guess. (and yeh, I understand about 24/7 media not existing back then, I just wondered what sort of stuff they did back then that would be somewhat equivalent to now)
harlana
good lord, Morning Ho is flipping out now, at least he’s defending the president
(ok, predictably he’s also defending Bush at the same time – “thanking” him for keeping us safe, yeebz)
harlana
oh and can Jon Meacham just go and fuck himself, plz? “intelligence failure” my white ass. can we stop with the bullshit?
guess not
Omnes Omnibus
@harlana: I successfully avoided almost all contact with news over the weekend.
On topic: At what point does evil become crazy or vice versa, because that is where you would find Cheney.
Dennis SGMM
@harlana:
I was only three years old in 1951 so I can’t say whether or not there was any of the kind of wallowing that has attached itself to 9/11. I can say that my dad was stationed aboard the USS Utah on 7 December 1941 and he credited being a good Catholic with getting up early enough to be able to swim ashore from the Utah before she capsized. He was a hard hat diver and one of the things he was tasked with in the aftermath of the attack was to dive on the Utah and recover bodies. Some of them were his friends. He had nightmares about that for the rest of his life.
He only spoke of that time once when I was in my late teens. My recollection is that on December 7 he would, if he was home (He was a career Navy man), stay very busy or go for a long drive. We lived on Navy bases for most of my growing-up years and the only observance I remember was that the colors would be raised in the morning and then lowered to half-staff.
harlana
oooookay, Meacham just basically compaired Bush & Obama to Kennedy & Eisenhower during the Bay of Pigs.
ummm, eeeehriiiight. i seriously want some of what he is smoking
Omnes Omnibus
@harlana:
I think it’s laced with rat poison. Don’t touch it.
cintibud
@joel hanes: Reminds me of the lyrics to a Jackson Brown song:
God is Great, God is good
He guards your neighborhood
Though it’s generally understood
Not quite the way you would
You try to take the slack
Stay awake and watch his back
Something happens every now and then
Someone breaks into the promised land
Yevgraf
CNN is heavy into their teatard debate promotion and President Perry fluffing, interspersed with the financial doom presented by those inaustere soc!alist Greeks. I switched back to local news.
schlemizel - was Alwhite
@RareSanity:
Actually the theory is sound, I’m sure if you made taxes high enough revenue would go down. Laffer didn’t put any numbers on his graph because he had no idea where the hell they would go. But, it should be noted, When Reagan and Boy Blunder cut rates revenue went down sharply, When Poppy & Clinton raised rates revenue shot up.
If these evil sacks of shit actually believed in the Laffer theory they would have to admit that tax rates are too low & need to be raised to hit that sweet spot.
ppcli
I look forward to the movie history of the Bush Administration: “Dr. Strangelove II: This Time Buck Turgison takes control”
bemused
Morning Joe gives me heartburn when he goes on a defending Republicans rant, bullying, browbeating, belligerently shutting down anyone on the panel attempting to offer a different and very timid remark. They all seem to be walking on eggshells when Joe is having a red faced tantrum. He sounded pretty rude to Mika this am.
schlemizel - was Alwhite
@Dennis SGMM:
We are the same age I guess. My uncles “Island hopped” with the USMC in the 40’s. They didn’t talk about the war until they were much older & then it was odd little stories. I do remember the 15th & every multiple of 5 after that for Dec 7. About the only ‘remembrance’ was a discussion in history class and a brief mention on the evening news.
The one who was on Ford Island that day used to say he got up that morning & “felt a little nip in the air” My aunt would give him hell when he said that & it took me several years (probably my first WWII movie) before I got his joke.
SiubhanDuinne
There seems to have been a nuclear power plant explosion in France. Just got a headline but no details.
Emma
@John Weiss: Nuts implies that at some level he can’t help himself. I don’t believe that. I think he did what he did coldly, clearly, and deliberately, fully knowing he was taking America into a war that had nothing to do with what happened on 9/11. That is sin.
SiubhanDuinne
@harlana:
I was born 8 months after Pearl Harbor and remember throughout my childhood being very aware of December 7. It was always dignified and respectful, never anything like the wallowing we do today (insert obligatory getoffmylawnyoudamnkids). I don’t recall that the 10th anniversary in 1951 was any more notable than other PH Days, although there may have been special newspaper sections or something of the sort.
justawriter
The question is unfair to Cheney. He was already crazy and evil when he was just a pustulant lump learning at his mentor Tricky Dicky Nixon’s knee.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
All of them, Katie.
JasonF
The thing that really gets me about that Woodward article isn’t the Cheney stuff — it’s the way all the other people in it are breaking their own arms patting themselves on the back for the amazing accomplishment of not bombing a country when there’s no evidence to justify the bombing. Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations. I’ve got a whole list of countries I don’t think we should bomb — can I get a cabinet position too?
kay
@Spaghetti Lee:
I generally agree with your assessment of ‘the village”, and it’s fine, as to Cheney, but it didn’t end with Cheney.
In 2008, they (heavily) promoted his daughter, Liz Cheney. Liz Cheney held no elected office, and didn’t even work in government at that time. She was a paid shill for yet another Right wing PAC-think tank-lobbying group, and she was everywhere for 6 months.
What was that about? Who is she that she merits all that attention and deference? Why was she given a HUGE media platform to promote that ridiculous and shameful attack on DOJ lawyers that she (and she ALONE) deemed disloyal? Thankfully, decent people pushed back and she was discredited on that issue, but why were we (the public) subjected to it in the first place?
I think it’s because they know her. Pundits and political reporters know her personally.
That’s why they decided to promote her heavily for six months, and that sucks. It’s a diservice to readers and viewers, because it’s about them, not us.
There is no other explanation for the heavy media promotion of the loathsome Liz Cheney after the 2008 election except a sort of insider clubbiness, and that turns my stomach.
Suffern ACE
@JasonF: You get the job. Heck, I’ll even let you have a side list of celebrity countries you can cheat on me with without penalty.
harlana
@bemused: he’s such a bully, and Mika B sits there with the “defeated 50’s housewife listening to hubby rant for the 567th time” look on her face
Hewer of Wood, Drawer of Water
You can use this as a guide to determine who is evil, stupid or crazy
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa68/Batocchio/Stupid-Evil-Crazy2.jpg
Per http://vagabondscholar.blogspot.com/2010/11/stupid-evil-crazy-vortex.html
Based on this, I would call Cheney crazy and evil, but not stupid
dww44
@kay: This!More of us should be asking publicly of the CNN’s of this world, why did you give Liz Cheney a platform?
I was listening late yesterday to ATC on public radio on my 1 1/2 hour drive home. During a discussion on the effects of 9/11 on America in the years since, the male host (name escapes me) talked about the onoing debate about the use of waterboarding as a tactic. Not once did he refer to it as the use of “torture”. That incenses me mightily and is just one more example of why I think NPR is just so afraid of losing additional funding that its hosts will skirt the harsh truth if they feel it reflects badly on the right. To even call it a legitimate debate provides cover to the Cheney’s and their ilk on the right.
Scamp Dog
@KG: Actually, Cheney said invading Iraq was a bad idea in the aftermath of the war to liberate Kuwait, for reasons that made sense.
They continued to make sense, so why he abandoned them during W’s term of office is beyond me.