Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Newsvine
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiDick Cheney Was Never a "Grown Up"
A hard look at how one man changed the face of neoconservatism.
This updated introduction is excerpted by permission from the 2008 edition of "The Rise of the Counter-Establishment: The Conservative Ascent to Political Power," published this month by Union Square Press, along with a new book, "The Strange Death of Republican America."
After Dick Cheney shot a friend in the face on a Texas hunting trip in February 2006, the national press corps began to speculate about him as one of the great mysteries of Washington, the Sphinx of the Naval Observatory, his official residence. Cheney had been known in the capital for decades through a career that carried him from congressional intern to the most powerful vice president in American history, but now his supposedly changed character became a subject of intense speculation. Brent Scowcroft, who had been George H.W. Bush's national security adviser, and had counseled against the invasion of Iraq, told The New Yorker magazine in 2005, "I consider Cheney a good friend -- I've known him for thirty years. But Dick Cheney I don't know anymore." Scowcroft's judgment was less about Cheney's temperament than his policy positions. The press, however, sought to disclose the sources of his "darkening persona," as a cover story in Newsweek described it. "Has Cheney changed? Has he been transformed, warped, perhaps corrupted -- by stress, wealth, aging, illness, the real terrors of the world or possibly some inner goblins?" A cover story entitled "Heart of Darkness," published in The New Republic, suggested that Cheney's heart disease had produced vascular dementia. "So, the next time you see Cheney behaving oddly, don't automatically assume that he's a bad man."
In 2000, when Cheney, as head of George W. Bush's search committee for a running mate, selected himself, opinion makers in Washington greeted the choice as proof positive of the younger Bush's deference to wisdom and therefore personifying prudence. Cheney's "manner gives him immunity from the extremist label," assured David Broder, the longtime leading political columnist of the Washington Post. "Voters who saw his televised briefings during the Persian Gulf War remember the calm voice and thoughtful expression that are his natural style ... By choosing a grown-up, Bush gave evidence of his own sense of responsibility."
Five years later, in 2005, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, by then the former chief of staff to the former Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking publicly at a Washington think tank, the New America Foundation, was less concerned with the press corps' obsession with Cheney's shifting images than with exposing his unprecedented manipulations. "What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made." Though he had had extensive experience in government, Wilkerson had never before encountered such "secrecy," "aberration" and "bastardization" in decision-making. "It is a dysfunctional process," he said. "And to myself I said, okay, put on your academic hat. Who's causing this?"
Previously fixed on the stereotype of the "grown-up," pundits projected a new stereotype of dementia. But had Cheney, in fact, been fundamentally transformed, becoming unrecognizable to those professional observers of the press who believed they knew him well? Both Scowcroft and Wilkerson had encountered Cheney within councils of state. Had even Scowcroft misjudged Cheney as a team player when he was Secretary of Defense during the Gulf War? Was Cheney a regular, conservative minded Republican who had just gone mad? Or, if he were a member of a "cabal," did it involve more than Rumsfeld?
George W. Bush jettisoned the tenets of traditional Republicanism -- fiscal responsibility, limited government, separation of church and state, and realism in foreign policy. Instead the doctrines that had been nurtured in the hothouse of the Counter-Establishment since the Reagan period achieved their most radical expression. At every point, Cheney exercised his power.
The supply-side theory of tax cuts -- that slashing tax rates especially on the upper brackets would produce a flood of new government revenues -- was applied with a vengeance even after the Reagan experiment had disproved the notion, having fostered extraordinary deficits. On Nov. 15, 2002, after Bush's tax cuts had passed, then Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill spoke at a White House meeting of the senior economic team about an impending "fiscal crisis" because of "what rising deficits will mean to our economic and fiscal soundness." Cheney quickly knocked down his argument. "Reagan proved deficits don't matter," he said. "We won the midterms. This is our due." O'Neill was soon fired. He concluded that Cheney and "a praetorian guard" governed Bush's presidency. "It's not penetrable by facts," he said. "It's absolutism."
Conservative lawyers were installed throughout the administration and appointed to federal judgeships while radical legal doctrines were imposed. As soon as he took office Bush ended the American Bar Association's pre-screening of judicial nominees, a practice that had begun in 1948. The ABA was considered a hopelessly "liberal" organization. In its place de facto vetting was now performed by the Federalist Society, a group that "has created a conservative intellectual network that extends to all levels of the legal community," according to its website. Founded in 1982 and infused with more than $15 million in grants from conservative foundations, the Federalist Society has become the principal network for lawyers on the right. Nearly every Bush judicial nominee, every Justice Department official, every general counsel in every federal department and agency, and dozens of senior cabinet and sub-cabinet secretaries was a member.
The congressional investigation into the political purge of U.S. Attorneys uncovered evaluation forms with a column to be checked about whether or not the applicant was a Federalist Society member. On every issue, from the gutting of the civil rights division of the Justice Department, where 60 percent of the professional staff was driven out and not a single discrimination case was filed, to the implementation of the so-called "war paradigm," including abrogation of Article Three of the Geneva Convention against torture, (which then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales termed "quaint" in a memo to the president), Federalist Society cadres were at the center. David Addington, Cheney's counsel and later chief of staff, directed the tight-knit group of "torture lawyers" within the administration.
Foreign policy was dominated by the neoconservatives whose agenda was galvanized after the terrorist attacks of September 11. The 2000 manifesto issued by the Project for a New American Century, a neoconservative group that advocated "regime change" in Iraq, contained a cautionary line that "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor." September 11 became that "new Pearl Harbor," providing long hoped for political momentum the neoconservatives channeled for an invasion of Iraq.
The influence of the neoconservatives over the national security apparatus was heavy-handed and pervasive. More than 17 signatories of the Project for the New American Century statement held posts within the Bush administrations, including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz (Deputy Secretary of Defense), Richard Perle (chairman of the Defense Policy Board), and John Bolton (Undersecretary of State for Policy and later Acting U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations). But these eminences were the tip of the iceberg. Neoconservatives also staffed the Office of the Vice President, comprising the largest national security team ever assembled by a vice president. Neoconservatives were strategically placed throughout the National Security Council-for example, Elliott Abrams, NSC director of Middle East affairs, a convicted felon in the Iran-contra scandal. And neoconservatives were packed into the Office of the Secretary of Defense and his Office of Special Plans, a new office created to "stovepipe" intelligence to the White House without having it vetted by the CIA or other intelligence agencies.
The Iraq war was largely a neoconservative production conducted under the guidance of Cheney and Rumsfeld. Cheney took command of the intelligence process, even arranging for Bush to sign Executive Order 13292, written by Addington, giving the vice president the same power over intelligence as the president. The disinformation campaign that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction was a joint enterprise of the Office of the Vice President and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, providing a steady stream of evidence that was later revealed to be false and fabricated.
The occupation of Iraq was undertaken as a grand experiment in conservative ideology. The experienced hands in nation building at the State Department, who had prepared for the complexities of Iraqi reconstruction, as well as senior professionals from the departments of Treasury, Energy and Commerce, were blackballed by Cheney, Rumsfeld and their neoconservative aides. The hiring for the Coalition Provisional Authority was run by Rumsfeld's liaison to the White House (mainly OVP), who gathered resumes from the slush piles of conservative think tanks, and subjected prospective employees to rigorous tests of political loyalty, asking whether they had voted for George W. Bush and were opposed to abortion.
Cheney's reliance on neoconservatives was essential in carrying out his long conceived project of creating an imperial presidency, an executive unfettered by Congress or the press, that under the banner of war could enact any policy and obey or ignore any law that it wished. Cheney's use of the neoconservatives to attain his aims -- the core goals of the Bush presidency -- was hardly happenstance or an alliance of sudden convenience. "Has Cheney changed?" asked Newsweek. The answer to that question required delving deeply into the hidden history of neoconservatism.
Richard Nixon was the first Republican president to cultivate the neoconservatives. They were considered a potentially fresh source of ideas to deal with racial turmoil, student unrest over the Vietnam War, and the discontents of the working and middle classes. Nixon's first encounter took place on March 12, 1970, when Irving Kristol was invited to dinner with the president. Kristol was a former Trotskyist who maintained a consistently cynical view of liberalism as he drifted to the right, acting as an editor at a succession of small journals. The diary of H.R. Haldeman, Nixon's chief of staff, records: "Tonight P (President) stag dinner with key staff and Irving Kristol. Got off to slow start and through dinner P talked with (George) Shultz (Secretary of Labor) about labor matters, Kristol just listened. Sort of a waste of time and talent. In Oval Room [Office] after dinner the talk heated up, about whole subject of condition of the country, focused on radicalization of large number of college students, strength of nihilistic groups (in influence, not numbers), and how to deal with it all ... Must say, Kristol didn't add much."
Nixon did not recall Kristol from that dinner. Kristol, after all, had been uncharacteristically quiet. Nonetheless, Nixon's aides kept sending him articles Kristol wrote on such subjects as pornography and censorship. After Kristol endorsed Nixon for reelection in 1972, causing a stir among the New York intellectuals, Nixon's most conservative aides, Patrick Buchanan and Charles Colson, recommended that Nixon hire Kristol as a domestic policy expert to replace the departing Daniel Patrick Moynihan. For whatever reason, whether Nixon's or Kristol's demurral, Kristol did not receive the appointment.
With Nixon's resignation and Gerald Ford's assumption of the presidency, a new aide arrived with the portfolio to gather ideas from conservative thinkers. Robert Goldwin was himself little known among intellectuals. He was a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, the oldest conservative think tank in Washington; founded to combat the New Deal, it functioned as the brain trust for Barry Goldwater's campaign in 1964. Goldwin had published no notable articles or books of his own and believed generally that intellectuals did not "even have much to say to the ordinary citizen." His notion was less an idea than an impulse, a deeply seated resentment against liberalism that took the form of anti-intellectualism.
Goldwin's gruff contempt expressed the common opinion of conservatives, even conservative thinkers, of the period. AEI was less a hive of activism than a small, stagnant world apart. Its scholars had not achieved distinction in peer-reviewed academia; nor were they known for interesting articles in major publications. Kristol was an experienced provocateur and organizer, whose neoconservatism was a Leninist strategy for the right: intellectual cadres would act as a vanguard to guide the masses of Nixon's "Silent Majority" against the class enemy.
Goldwin's first service to President Ford was to arrange an hour long private meeting with Kristol, who soon began recommending neoconservatives to positions on the National Endowment for the Humanities and Library of Congress.
Goldwin also called Kristol's work to the attention of Ford's chief of staff Donald Rumsfeld, who in turn handed it over to his deputy Dick Cheney. (Cheney had also been Rumsfeld's assistant when Rumsfeld served as counselor to President Nixon.) Cheney had earned a master's degree in political science at the University of Wyoming and pursued doctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin before dropping out to work as an intern for a Republican congressman from Wisconsin. According to documents in the archives of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Cheney wrote Goldwin on Jan. 25, 1975. "I greatly appreciate receiving the stuff you've been sending me... Anything like that that comes in from Kristol or others, I'd love to see."
Five days later, Kristol wrote Goldwin a letter explaining the political necessity of fostering a conservative Counter-Establishment:
"I do think the White House ought to do something for a relatively small group of men who are, unbeknownst to it, being helpful to this Administration, to the Republican party, and to conservative and moderate enterprise in general. I am referring to the men who head small and sometimes obscure foundations which support useful research and activities of a kind that the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations take a dim view of. I have got to know an awful lot of them these past years, and they never have received the barest recognition which I think they are entitled to. I am thinking of people like R. Randolph Richardson of the Smith Richardson Foundation, Donald Regan from the Merrill Trust, someone from the Earhart Foundation, the head of the Scaife Family Trust, and the head of the Lilly Endowment, etc. I say 'head' because, in each case, one would have to determine whether it is the chairman of the board of the executive director who is the appropriate person to receive this recognition. But it would be nice if, say, the White House were to invite these gentlemen and their wives to a State dinner occasionally. If you think this can be done, I'd be happy to draw up a list for your guidance."
On Feb. 14, 1975, Cheney wrote Goldwin, "Bob, why don't you come see me on Irving Kristol. We need to come up with a specific proposal as to how he might be utilized full time." Kristol was soon sending a flow of letters and articles containing his views on a wide range of subjects to Goldwin that were also shared with Cheney. One Goldwin memo, dated Nov. 18, 1975, appended to a Wall Street Journal op-ed written by Kristol on small business, "The New Forgotten Man": "In case you missed it, this Kristol piece is excellent and addressed very directly to us in this Administration." At Kristol's suggestion, Goldwin also launched a series of seminars for senior officials within the administration that included a number of neoconservative luminaries. Cheney, who had become White House chief of staff, and Rumsfeld, who had been named Secretary of Defense, were regular attendees.
After Ford's defeat in 1976, Kristol's influence in directing the funding of right-wing foundations made him the widely acknowledged godfather of the neoconservative movement. During the Reagan years, he moved from New York to Washington, settling as a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, which under his influence had shed its traditional Republican origins and become a neoconservative bastion. (In 2002, George W. Bush awarded Kristol the Presidential Medal of Freedom.) Kristol's son, William, meanwhile, continued the family business, serving as chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle, an isolated outpost of neoconservatism during the elder Bush's administration that its denizens called "Fort Reagan." William became editor of a neoconservative journal of opinion, The Weekly Standard, part of press lord Rupert Murdoch's media empire that included Fox News, where the younger Kristol holds forth as a regular commentator. Two years after establishing The Weekly Standard, Kristol co-founded and chaired the Project for a New American Century, whose office was housed at the American Enterprise Institute.
The abbreviated history of the Ford administration, reaping the whirlwind of Nixon's failed presidency, besieged on all sides by the Congress, the press and an insurgent Republican right, scarred Cheney. His encouragement of Kristol and the neoconservatives reflected his efforts to move the Ford administration rightward. Along with Rumsfeld he pushed for the creation of a parallel commission dubbed the Team B to second-guess the CIA on Soviet military capability. The Team B's report projecting a rapidly expanding Soviet threat turned out to contain faulty data. Then CIA director George H.W. Bush, who had acceded to Team B's creation, later condemned it as having set "in motion a process that lends itself to manipulation for purposes other than estimative accuracy." Nonetheless, Team B served as an important milestone in legitimating neoconservatism within the Republican Party.
Elected to the House of Representatives from Wyoming in 1978, Cheney quickly rose within the Republican leadership, becoming the party's senior figure on intelligence matters. As the ranking Republican on the joint congressional committee investigating the Iran-contra scandal Cheney issued a report (written by his then counsel Addington) that attacked the Congress for encroaching on the president's prerogatives in foreign policy, although the scandal involved secret offshore bank accounts, rogue sales of missiles to Iran and bribery of White House officials. This parallel and illegal foreign policy was constructed to avoid adherence to the congressional Boland amendments that prohibited covert military aid to the Nicaraguan contras. Cheney's minority report was a brief for the imperial presidency. It stated: "Congressional actions to limit the president in this area therefore should be reviewed with a considerable degree of skepticism. If they interfere with the core presidential foreign policy functions, they should be struck down." In 2005, he told reporters that the report best captured his views of a "robust" presidency.
When I published this book in 1986 it appeared just months before the Iran-contra scandal was revealed. I had set out to examine the ways that conservatives had created an infrastructure for institutionalizing and magnifying their influence in national politics and throughout the federal government. Then on the national staff of the Washington Post, I knew Dick Cheney as the House Republican Whip. But I didn't imagine then that his crusade for unfettered presidential power and a unitary executive would culminate during a subsequent presidential administration.
As Secretary of Defense in the elder Bush's administration, Cheney was always the most ideological member of the national security team. Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called Cheney's Pentagon senior staff "a refuge for Reagan-era hardliners." After the Gulf War, in 1992, the neoconservatives engaged in a new Team B-like operation under Cheney's aegis. Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, and his deputies, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby (later VP Cheney's chief of staff) and Zalmay Khalilzad (later U.S. ambassador to Iraq and the U.N.), after consulting with leading neoconservatives, produced a draft document for a post-Cold War U.S. foreign policy, simply called Defense Policy Guidance. The memo argued for unilateral use of U.S. force, preemptive strikes, preventing the emergence of powerful rivals including nations that were formally allied to the U.S., and pointedly did not refer to international order or multilateral organizations. Once the document was leaked to the New York Times, however, Bush administration officials killed it as contrary to their foreign policy. But Cheney was proud of the memo and issued a version of it under his name as a departing gesture in 1992 as the administration left office. "He took ownership of it," said Khalilzad. The ideas contained within it resurfaced in the 2000 manifesto of the Project for a New American Century (Wolfowitz, Libby, Khalilzad, and Cheney were signatories) and in 2002 as the basis for President George W. Bush's "National Security Strategy of the United States of America."
After the first Bush administration, Cheney became the chief executive officer of Halliburton and a member of the board of trustees of the American Enterprise Institute. His wife, Lynne, who as chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1986 to 1993 had been a fierce cultural warrior on the right, became a senior fellow at AEI. On January 23, 2003, two months before the invasion of Iraq, President Bush delivered a speech at the annual AEI dinner bestowing the Irving Kristol Award. "You do such good work that my administration has borrowed 20 such minds," he declared. The following year, Cheney did the honors. "Being here brings to mind my own days affiliated with AEI, which stretch back some 30 years," he recalled.
Cheney had not changed over the years; on the contrary, he could not have been more explicit and direct about his goals all along. There never was a real mystery about him. Early on, Cheney's notions for an imperial presidency and his relationships with the neoconservatives merged on to a single track. Since the beleaguered Ford White House, he sought out people to develop and implement such ideas, which became the governing policy of George W. Bush's administration. Only through Cheney was the rise of neoconservatism made possible. Now its next phase will revolve around finding a new sponsor to return them to power despite the catastrophic consequences of their ideas.
Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is the author of "The Rise of the Counter-Establishment: The Conservative Ascent to Political Power."
© 2008 Salon.com
48 Comments so far
Show AllCheney will be nothing if he leaves office, thats why he will try to extend the coup.
Cheyney is just about perfect for his role- lacking only a small squarish moustache to indicate what he really thinks- not about "The Jewish Question"- more what he thinks about the rule of law, human rights, democracy, civil society- all the things his somewhat spiritual mentor dealt with more from the point of a gun or garrot- but perhaps that will come in good time when perhaps Dickie may advise Mr. McCain in what he really should do, know and say to keep Neo-CONZ in power, money and sociopathology.
I would guess that Stalin's ghost also helps- though the political spectrum seems wrong- death, greed, destruction and contempt for most of humanity know not of left/right.
Don't forget the "Me only" positions of the Vegans, PETAs, Pro-Choicers, Anti-Gun extremists, and others more eager to kow tow to the Right's Framing ability than to a cohesive Left.
Here you see the main difference between Liberals and the Neocons from a strategic standpoint:
Most of the heavy lifting for the Neocons was done when they were out of power. They formulated their ideas and policies, pulled together a group of committed idealogues and prepared for their next opportunity. As much as I detest what Cheney, Irving Kristol and their coterie have done to this nation, they understand the importance of framing the issues properly and repeating simple concepts until they become "conventional wisdom." They didn't "move to the center", they moved the center - or, at least, the perception of the center.
Liberals seem to assume that the merit of the ideas will ensure their success. The last thirty years - and last 8, in particular should have disproved that notion.
Meanwhile, the Democrats (as opposed to Liberals) totally lost focus on ideas and became obsessed with winning. Therefore, they have been in a self defeating chase after the rightward drifting "center" - and, in so doing, adding more momentum to that drift.
Still, when people are asked about their values - without labels - they consistently select liberal values. At least, so far. We need to reconnect the perceived center with the actual center. We need to focus on the constitution and the ideals that founded this country. Unfortunately, we need to "sound bite" it to immunize the message against distortion by the media. And we need to "dumb it down" so that it resonates with a public that knows infinitely more about Paris Hilton than they do about the activities and positions of their own Senators and Representatives. Esoteric ain't gonna go real far with this crowd.
If its the Democrats that are able to do that successfully, fine. If it is some other group, fine. I really don't care but, so far, there's a total vacuum.
brissot -
You are totally on the mark. Every active Democrat should know this by heart!
Come to think of it, no one really knew Jeffrey Dahmer either....
People who enjoy killing and torture are hesitant to let those inclinations surface to the public...or even their best friend.
I wish Cheney's mother had spanked him and sent him to stand in a corner...for a hundred years...without possibility of pardon.
Mr. Blumenthal, The Praetors give and the Praetors can take away. Please write something about who the Praetors are and where
they might be found.
Sheer accident and bad luck could not have produced the disaster we face; it has to have been done by design. Who were the designers? Please name them.
mirf59,
I think Dean and Kucinich failed to get traction because of a number of factors:
First, as I noted above, I have not seen any aptitude on the part of Liberals – if one can even identify a monolithic liberal block – to frame issues in a way that works in broader society. Basically that means positive, short and – I hate this word – catchy; a set of tag lines. And these messages need to become a mantra, repeated over and over until they stick in the consciousness of the average American. (One problem is that most Liberals recognize the world is infinitely complex and it feels somewhat dishonest and demeaning to attempt to reduce it into sound bites.) This failure to, well, market liberal ideas contributes to the next two factors.
The Corporate, cable driven, echo chamber media is stacked against Liberalism on a number of counts. First, it is now clearly corporate and fully invested in the Corporate elite POV which makes it inherently hostile to Liberal positions. Second, the Media, as currently incarnated, does not do complex or in depth; it does sound bites. The failure of Liberals to come up with and repeat, repeat, repeat sound bites means that the Media - and the Right - will come up with their own sound bites to (mis)represent Liberal positions.
There is also a cognitive dissonance at play. Due, in large part to the Right's demonization of Liberalism, most Americans don't consider themselves Liberals. In fact, pluralities harbor outright antipathy for Liberals. This is true despite the fact that majorities consistently agree with Liberal policies when they are presented objectively, without labels. So, when Dean (who really isn't all that Liberal – mostly just anti-Iraq war) and Kucinich present Liberal messages, filtered through the corporate Media, most of the American public doesn't recognize them as the same values they hold. Liberals have not done the groundwork that would allow those messages to resonate.
In Kucinich's case there are probably a couple other factors – most of which amount to bigotry. They include his stature, his vegetarianism and the UFO stories. Quite frankly, I don't even know the substance of the UFO issue but these characteristics play right into the Right's favorite tool, ignore the message and attack the person. The Right has been fabulously successful in marginalizing Kucinich.
By the same token, the Right and the Media had pushed the "Dean is extreme" meme very hard. His primal scream in Iowa fit right into that narrative. Again, they had laid the foundation that permitted their take on the story to resonate.
Finally, as you often see demonstrated in the comments on this site, there really isn't a cohesive Liberal movement. Rather than focus on the things we agree on, Liberalism seems to be divided into factions. I think there are three that are particularly vocal and destructive. You have those purists that have various litmus tests and refuse to cooperate with anyone who isn't "Liberal enough." They feel pragmatism is betrayal and would rather accept a clearly worse outcome than one that is directionally correct but not ideal. (See Nader voters.) You also have some that insist on pushing what I would characterize as extreme ideas. (See "The WTC was demolished" theorists.) IMO, this group makes it harder to overcome the stereotypes the Right has constructed. And, of course, you have some who purport to represent Liberals but seem to do everything they can to run away from Liberal positions and the Liberal label, itself. (See DLC, in particular, and Democratic leadership, in general.)
I'm not a big fan of long posts like this so I apologize but I don't know if I could have answered your question accurately without the length.
So, the first step is not to support Hillary Clinton for the Presidency. I know that Sydney Blumenthal worked for and is a close friend of the Clintons, and its tough to criticize your friends. Still, Mr. Blumenthal's analysis of Cheney and the neocons is exactly right.
ALEX LAWYER: You provided the perfect metaphor for America's current outrageous political pornography.
REBEL FARMER: I don't think a healthy mind (soul) can really penetrate the makings of its antithesis. For someone like Cheney there is no point of satiation, no sense he has enough. There is a want to have it all, like a kid in the sandbox trying to draw every grain of sand only to himself. Needless to say this rapacious grab based on an ego with enough holes in it to make a template for Swiss cheese will destroy everything it lays claim to. THAT is the tragedy. That America's soul has been so gutted by the media's insistence that militarism (dressed up as hero worship) and materialism (intended to make people identify with things as their basis for feeling good) answer all ills has led to a body politic that's enabled the likes of these amoral neocons to SEIZE power. WE in this forum are fully aware of what's going on, the checks and balances on laws carefully conceived and constructed being cut like so many ties to sand bags... the crew aboard ready to take off in a flight that may leave the rest of humanity in ruins. HOWEVER it is always darkest before the dawn and a lot of very HIGH souls, the LIGHT workers, are really bringing in a new understanding about climate, about corporations, about the way human consciousness operates and a lot of people ARE waking up. Perhaps a climax is reached when it gets as bad as it could possibly get, which acts as a trigger to catalyze the awakening of those who have been slumbering, but are capable of GREATER.
TruOrange, thank you for the link to that great "New Yorker" article on one scary guy, David Addington. Whoa!
Dick Cheney was always GROAN up.
We received a letter from the Civil Rights Division of the DoJ in a particular case 2004, which if you read between the lines, pretty much told us the Adminstration was conducting-directing all affairs from the top down. In other words, the Department, like all other federal agencies the Adminstration had hijacked, was not acting as a separate entity from the GRF administration. They had basically dismantled the Civil Rights Division. And what they didn't dismantle they handed over to what would be considered 1950's era hard line communists. Essentially the suspension of all run of the mill law and order, in favor of what we now know is a bizarre ideology from their make believe world.
SRD
http://www.bccmeteorites.com/misconduct-planetary.html
Wanna see my insurgent?
Cheney was always evil and power hungry. Now he has just gotten into a position to do some real damage to the country. We should be more careful who we allow into powerful positions, elected or appointed.
Blumenthal: "The occupation of Iraq was undertaken as a grand experiment in conservative ideology. The experienced hands in nation building at the State Department, who had prepared for the complexities of Iraqi reconstruction...were blackballed by Cheney, Rumsfeld and their neoconservative aides. The hiring for the Coalition Provisional Authority was run by Rumsfeld's liaison to the White House...who gathered resumes from the slush piles of conservative think tanks, and subjected prospective employees to rigorous tests of political loyalty, asking whether they had voted for George W. Bush and were opposed to abortion."
I hope someone goes further into this detail. It's a perfect 'test case' (though NOT in the way Cheney would have liked it) of why noncompetitive bidding (even over ideology) doesn't work. The Coalition Provisional Authority KNEW they would be deemed a 'success' no matter HOW badly they sc*wed Iraq up. I dont mean they INTENDED to scr*w Iraq up. I mean that, when no competing views are allowed about how to proceed to take over and rebuild a country, the views that ARE put forward are 'lazy' and not subject to the rigorous review of ordinary competition. They never questioned their own decisions (because to do so was unpatriotic), so they never reversed them in time to stem the hemoraging of an entire country. Bremer got the Medal of Freedom, for gosh-sakes!
We now know that neoconservatives (like all fascists), consider a 'reversal of course' to be the ultimate sign of liberal 'wishy-washiness'. Decisions are therefore NOT to be questioned, and certainly not reversed.
I would guess that 3/4ths of our 4000+ war dead owe their deaths to this neocon incapacity for self-questioning in the face of competing views.
There's no doubt, Bush and Cheney would like to make it 6000.
"Only through Cheney was the rise of neoconservatism made possible" nahhh, invert that.
"Only through neoconservatism was the rise of Cheney made possible."
And what ideology? Attack first and tax cuts for the rich? And who labeled Kristol an intellectual? Shoot that person.
Today, NYT's 'Obama and Marx' by William Kristol.
And how PC we are not to mention israel. bravo.
Lenin Stalin Hitler Cheney
Cheney is rightly named Dick. He is supported by a Bush, is soft in public but hard in private, has a head with no hair, no brain, no vision and no hearing, has lots of balls and screws or pisses on anyone he can. Scooter Libby was his condom, protecting him when he screwed Valerie Plame then getting tossed away.
We, here, are citizens with opinions. The Neo-cons, being in office, hold the advantage of possession. It will be very interesting to see who is chosen to be McCains running mate. I repeat, "Vote for McCain and get more of the same".
The continuous flow of money into the hands of Congressmen and Representatives from the lobbyists and special interest groups must be stopped if you expect impeachment or bi- partisan acivities. Greed, a flaw in Humans, will keep those in charge loyal to those who pay them. All here are quite well schooled in the theory of who and why but powerless to act, alone, except to complain to those with their hands out. Catch 22.
Bit by bit; Little by little.
This isn't a whirlwind. It's a slow, planned errosion. And I'm suffering from information whiplash. Everyday it's something outrageous. My "outrage fatigue" was also planned by these monsters.
Sidney has helped me to understand the whole clothe that Cheney has wrought over his long career. All I could see before were the individual threads. And Cheney is not a madman. He is a study in calculated evil. What I still don't understand is why? What is his goal? It can't be just wealth. He already had that with Haliburton. Rumsfeld would have made sure the gravey train keep rolling to Halibutons doorstep. Is this just a game to win? A mountain to climb simply because it is there?
Just finished Naomi Wolf's "The End of America". Like Sidney, she brings all the pieces together in one place about how we are evolving into a fascist state. Very scary stuff. But I still cannot related to why these pigs have worked so hard to destroy democracy in America. Maybe I'll never know.
And, by the way, I would venture to guess that true conservative Repugs are none to happy with the neocon agenda either. Not good for business you know.
And don't forget that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
If we have a future, the word 'Cheney' will be used to scare children with.
"Now its next phase will revolve around finding a new sponsor to return them to power despite the catastrophic consequences of their ideas."
That statement is exactly correct. This election, we have something of a window of opportunity because the monsters in our midst don't have a candidate. Even the Republican is something of a moderate. They will find another one, make no mistake, and when that happens, we can expect a lot more destruction. But for now, they've backed off.
So if we are going to fight them, and stop them, for good, legislatively, now is the time. Improving the election process to make it essentially bulletproof is the first step. If they can't fix the election, their chances of getting in diminish.
Cheney didn't operate in a vacuum. He didn't use the force of his personality to gain infinite power. He doesn't have much personality.
No, the conditions in America were right for the sowing of Neocon ideas. People went along with them because they thought they would be advantaged. The 'We're born to Rule' attitude was already part of the American psyche, has been for scores of years.
How this will end is unknown. Perhaps America will do a Hitler! Thank heavens for countries like Russia and China and India. They provide some kind of counterbalance to out-of-control American imperialism.
www.dangerouscreation.com
Let's not forget Cheney's right hand man and legal brain, David Addington. He's just as conniving, evil, and scary as Mr. Cheney himself. If you haven't read it, check out the July 2006 New Yorker article on this secret behind-the-scenes power broker:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/03/060703fa_fact1
I'm guessing that it was Addington who told Yoo what to do and say and write.
The neo-cons have sown the wind. The US as a whole is now reaping the whirlwind. Military disaster in Iraq and Afhganistan, the partial collapse of the housing market, a burgeoning deficit, the trampling underfoot of your constitution and rule of law and the forfeiture of moral leadership of the free world.
God is not mocked: Whatever a man sows that shall he also reap.
Richard Nixon was the first Republican president to cultivate the neoconservatives. They were considered a potentially fresh source of ideas
Racketeers with fresh ideas for new rackets will always be in demand after the old rackets crumble.
Brissot,
Very well put.
How would you account for the failures of Dean in 2003 and Kucinich in 2007 -- two powerful candidates who were in close alignment with the real center?
The supply-side theory of tax cuts — that slashing tax rates especially on the upper brackets would produce a flood of new government revenues — was applied with a vengeance even after the Reagan experiment had disproved the notion, having fostered extraordinary deficits.
The way elites snooker the people is with arguments that make sense but only under conditions that remain unrealized and obscured. So the supply side argument MAY make sense but only when economic/political power is dispersed widely. The people are snookered when they fail to realize the necessary conditions. The elites' suppressing these conditions is one of the specific intellectual tricks enabling elite domination of people. The way for people to combat elites is to declare publicly that such policies are assured to fail when they are lacking the dispersion of economic/political power to all the people. Of course we may bypass the debate and simply act in our own best interests by shifting our individual exchange/association away from the power centers and toward our local communities.
I totally agree with Brissot who posted at 12:14 pm. A good place to begin "reframing" ideas might be the Rockridge Institute.
http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/
"Mein Kampf" redux!
Dick Cheney will be remembered by history as the real power behind the throne of the Bush presidency. He is, without question, the most powerful Vice President in US history. Sadly, he has abused this powerful position and was an architect of the Iraq debacle and is one of the primary obstacles to regaining the respect and trust of the rest of the world.
"So, the next time you see Cheney behaving oddly, don't automatically assume that he's a bad man."
Well, sorry but that doesn't work. If he is "behaving oddly" due to a drug interaction or side-effect, or for whatever reason, then he's not fit to serve and should be forced to step down. Given that no one in the GOP establishment is calling for his resignation, I can only assume that his actions are not the result of drugs, etc. but rather part and parcel of his neoconservative philosophy.
Is he a "bad man"? Well, I think that his record would speak for itself. Sure, he loves his children - even the lesbian one! - and his grandchildren. But I am sure that Stalin did, too. Yet no one is trying to turn Stalin into teddy bear, as will be the case with Cheney (a la Reagan) once his time in office is over.
In my view, Cheney has not performed his job in the way that a "good man" would. His record will bear witness to his misdeeds.
This is perhaps the BEST ARTICLE to ever appear on Common Dreams that I have read. If you want to understand where the USA is right now, and how it got to be so extremely bizarre and extremely fucked up, this article really goes back to the beginnings. Essential reading for those with a brain (which unfortunately are few and far between when I peruse the comments by CD folks below this article). But I digress. This article really ties it all together: Bill Kristol--son of Irving Kristol. Irving Kristol shmoozing with Nixon! Cheney has been a presidential insider since the mid-70s! He RUNS EVERYTHING in this administration. The neo-cons are the players and insiders nowadays, whether liberals and progressives want to face it or not. Cheney, et al kicked the left's butt. It was pretty much Cheney who completely routed the progressives over the course of this administration, to the point of irrelevance. Yes Cheney is a war criminal and absolutely terrible, but there are valuable lessons to be learned here. Blumenthal is a great writer. You'll rarely find this quality of information in Newsweek, Time, or other crap publications. Well done!
When I think of Cheney, or the Bushes or Rumsfeld or Powell, I think first of one thing. That is their responsibility in early and mid 1990s in driving up infant and young child mortality in Iraq to over 10%, resulting in roughly half a million deaths, and their responsibility in recreating the same conditions for the last 5 years.
Thank you Sidney for saying what needs to be said, "Cheney waged war on the constitution by reducing it to mere suggestions that he thought could easily be dismissed. He was wrong. Instead, he committed crimes against humanity that cannot be so easily dismissed as he thought, and he must be made responsible.
John Thomas Ellis
Hey Galen,You forgot to mention that he is retarded!
Cheney is no ideologue.
Young Dick fell in love with the power of oil while growing up in Wyoming.
I maintain that Cheney has used the neocons as an instrument for his goal of gaining global control of oil.
So
The Cheney story is an interesting storyline, but he is just the tip of the iceberg of the militarists. Consider what Chalmers Johnson said of the Department of Defense... "We need someone to state unequivocally that the Department of Defense today is not about defense. It is an alternative source of government on the south bank of the Potomac and is expanding its power and influence daily"
http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/03/int04013.html
At least Darth Vader repented.
Can't we choose combination of factors as an explanation, such as that Cheney never developed into a mature rational adult AND he now has a form of vascular dementia?
Here you see the main difference between Liberals and the Neocons from a strategic standpoint:
Most of the heavy lifting for the Neocons was done when they were out of power. They formulated their ideas and policies, pulled together a group of committed idealogues and prepared for their next opportunity. As much as I detest what Cheney, Irving Kristol and their coterie have done to this nation, they understand the importance of framing the issues properly and repeating simple concepts until they become "conventional wisdom." They didn't "move to the center", they moved the center - or, at least, the perception of the center.
Liberals seem to assume that the merit of the ideas will ensure their success. The last thirty years - and last 8, in particular should have disproved that notion.
Meanwhile, the Democrats (as opposed to Liberals) totally lost focus on ideas and became obsessed with winning. Therefore, they have been in a self defeating chase after the rightward drifting "center" - and, in so doing, adding more momentum to that drift.
Still, when people are asked about their values - without labels - they consistently select liberal values. At least, so far. We need to reconnect the perceived center with the actual center. We need to focus on the constitution and the ideals that founded this country. Unfortunately, we need to "sound bite" it to immunize the message against distortion by the media. And we need to "dumb it down" so that it resonates with a public that knows infinitely more about Paris Hilton than they do about the activities and positions of their own Senators and Representatives. Esoteric ain't gonna go real far with this crowd.
If its the Democrats that are able to do that successfully, fine. If it is some other group, fine. I really don't care but, so far, there's a total vacuum.
Nobody knows anybody. Think about the person you know best. If you knew everything about them you would not recognize them. It cost me two marriages and countless friendships to become convinced of this.
When we put a person in power who has proven himself to be a dangerous, sick child, as Galen says, why the surprise?
I challenge you all to look carefully at those you know best. Look past the fact that she is your sister, or he your buddy. Watch how they behave. Ignore the act everyone hides behind. Are you sure you know them?
Perhaps Cheney is getting a large dose of a statin drug. I've just been reading that too low a cholesterol level can result in irritability and aggressive behavior. Go figure.
"Cheney's heart disease had produced vascular dementia." – Something's wrong with him that much is for sure. He's one of the worst things to happen to this country and therefore the country is ailing from his influence. Impeachment would be good for him – better than he's due.
Why is who so surprised? Is somebody surprised?
Cheney like Bush, is a man with no conscience. They and their cronies,do not love America,the Constitution or the Bill of Rights; their love is $$,greed,power and what they think is prestige. Cheney would have been a great leader of Nazi Germany's SS!
All Cheney has done is taken off his mask.
This is who he truly is.
An evil, manipulative, bloodthirsty tyrant.
Why are you so surprised?