Part 2 of Gellman and Becker’s Cheney series strongly supports my Grand Unified Theory of Bush scandals, which posits that the worst, most counterproductive and dumbest decisions of the Bush presidency all seem to start in Cheney’s office. As Steve Benen noted on reading part 1, even torture memos that everybody assumed “abu” Gonzales wrote actually came from Cheney fixer David Addington.
In my view Kevin Drum sums up the key nugget of Cheney Part 2: all of the worst power grabs of the Bush administration, including but not restricted to torture (sorry, “cruel” treatment) came from the vice president’s office. It’s roughly analagous to Iago seconding a presidential ticket with Falstaff.