Massa To Esquire: Cheney And Petraeus Discussed 'A Coup D'Etat'

[kpete]

Source: Talking Points Memo

Massa To Esquire: Cheney And Petraeus Discussed 'A Coup D'Etat'
Jillian Rayfield | May 24, 2010, 12:42PM

Former Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY)

In a new Esquire profile, beleaguered former Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) claims to have inside knowledge of a series of secret meetings between General David Petraeus and Dick Cheney in which the former Vice President encouraged Petraeus to run for President. If Petraeus had been successful, Massa says, it would have been "the functional equivalent of the political overthrow of the commander in chief."

The profile also paints Massa (D-NY) as a somewhat frustrated and pathetic figure, "a disgrace in moccasins," who tried to kill himself twice following allegations that he had sexually harassed staffers.






Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/eric-massa-scandal-0610

---

The conference-room door closed, the congressman stirred his coffee and then folded his hands on the table before him, paused for a dramatic moment before beginning to speak. "Gentlemen, what we have here is a constitutional crisis," he said. "If what I've been told is true — and I believe it is — General David Petraeus, a commander with soldiers deployed in two theaters of war, has had multiple meetings with Dick Cheney, the former vice-president of the United States, to discuss Petraeus's candidacy for the Republican nomination for the presidency. And in fact, that's more than a constitutional crisis. That's treason."

One month before, in early January, Congressman Massa had called me and sketched out the bare bones of the tale he was now propounding. Four retired generals, he said — "three four-stars and one three-star" — had picked up disturbing reports that Petraeus, the commander of United States Central Command, whose portfolio contains the worst trouble spots on the globe, including Iraq and Afghanistan, had recently met with Cheney — twice — and Cheney was trying to recruit him to run in 2012. Were he to be the nominee, Massa said, Petraeus would be in the unprecedented position of a military man running for president against his own commander in chief.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/eric-massa-scandal-0610-3#ixzz0osAqyBEa

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. Sooo.... when Eisenhower ran for president, that was a coup too? n/t

[Captain Hilts]

3. And Jackson, and Grant also....NOT A COUP!

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. I don't think Eisenhower was in support of the industrial-military complex.

[JDPriestly]

17. Eisenhower did not run against his boss. He ran against

Adlai Stevenson who never served as president.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adlai_Stevenson

[Retrograde]

21. Unlike George McClellan

Lincoln's main general, who ran against his boss (well, his former boss since he had resigned by then) for president in 1864, promising to end the war and negotiate with the Confederacy. Still not a coup attempt, since he did run for election, and lost.

Massa's a loose cannon.

[Captain Hilts]

2. If Petraeus had run, been nominated and elected. It would not have been a "coup d'etat." nt

[emulatorloo]

5. Seems like Massa's brain got addled by all that naked Rahm screaming action n/t

[Captain Hilts]

6. For that, he has my full sympathy. nt

[emulatorloo]

7. LOL, but I think that was as much a Massa fantasy as this "coup'!

EOM

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. The claim is that Petraeus would have "thrown the war" to discredit Obama

and then would have run against him. However, it seems to me that would make him look more to blame for failures in war than Obama, and would have done him no good electorally.

if Petraeus were deliberately undermining his commander in chief, shouldn't somebody be bellowing about it?
...
Massa shot him a look. "I know something about the Uniform Code of Military Justice," he said. "And I want you to tell me how this is not a coup. You've got a commander with armies in the field, and he's plotting with Dick Cheney to bring down his commander in chief. How is that not a coup? It's >Seven Days in May!"

The difference with Eisenhower, etc. being that he is said to be preparing his political run while still an active general.

[Captain Hilts]

16. His fellow officers would not have permitted him to "throw" the war. nt

[Pab Sungenis]

18. Like McClellan and Lincoln?

Or (almost) MacArthur and Truman?

It would be nothing new.

And by the time they ran, Eisenhower, Grant, et. al., had resigned or retired from military service.

[marmar]

4. The man is purely evil.......

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. You captured his inner soul.

[SpiralHawk]

8. "Sneer." - xVP Dickie 'Five-Military-Deferments' Cheney (R)

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_haR0YHoRdfY/Rl50PN2eMAI/AAAAAAAAAeA/_JWpIGdbPrc/s400/Chickenhawk+Cheney.jpg

[Bette Noir]

9. Big whoop.

There's nothing to prevent any natural-born citizen over 35 years of age from running for President. It'd be a coup, and treason, if he tried to replace the CoC without an election.

[unblock]

11. i think the thin line drawn here is that it's problematic for an ACTIVE general to run for president

but it's not much of an issue if the general retires first and then runs.

afaik, every former general/president candidate in our history was retired at the time of his candidacy.



i agree that it would be extremely problematic for an active general to run for presidency. nevermind that running for office is a full-time job and they would have to neglect their official duties in order to do so, it calls into question any judgement they make on the battlefield.

but that's all academic as i have to think that betrayus would have retired first to avoid this kind of problem.

[HooptieWagon]

29. Good point.

Given all the time it would take to mount a campaign, I don't see how a currently serving General could possibly run. If he retired, no problem.

[WCGreen]

13. My little duce Coup....

[sabrina 1]

15. The coup in 2000 succeeded.

But I'm not sure what period he's talking about. I don't see how if Petraeus had run in 2008 he could have blamed anything on Obama. Bush was in charge of the war then.

[JerseygirlCT]

19. Makes for a juicy story. Considering the source, however, I'm not

buying it.

[sabrina 1]

23. Well, I do buy that Cheney is pushing Petraeus to run against

Obama in 2012.

It's odd that Massa was a highly respected military man, respected enough to have someone who knew him pretty well, Gen. Clark, campaign for him.

I remember some of the smears that were leveled at Gen. Clark himself when he announced his run for the presidency, and I remember fighting on his behalf. He was, eg, accused of genocide. He was accused of treason, of being fired by Clinton. A lot of that harmed his reputation with people who don't know much about things work in politics.

Other whistle-blowers have been destroyed including Scott Ritter when he appeared to be getting across to the American people that there were no WMDs in Iraq.

Massa is a gruff, outspoken career military man. I can imagine him slapping people on the back, having a few drinks, teasing them as he says, hugging his gay colleague after hearing of the death of one the soldiers he recruited and having that used against him.

His biggest fault that I can see so far, is he talks too much and seemed to be naive about how much you could say about Cheney in DC. I mean, were all of us not called crazy for opposing the Bush/Cheney criminal war enterprise?

I will never forget his excellent take-down of Cheney on TV after Cheney went after Obama on terrorism. It was a 'stand up and cheer' TV moment.

I don't, however, see this if true, as a coup, not in the legal sense. But many still don't see the 2000 election as a coup either. He can be hyperbolic. However it is possible that the four generals who approached him, if true, didn't tell him everything they know.

I remember eg, Sy Hersch saying in an interview after he was asked what we, the American people, should do about what was happening (after the torture revelations which he had been talking about even before the photos were revealed) and he responded 'Get a passport'! He admitted he was frightened.

This reporter spent way too much time with overly-dramatic descriptions of the Massa home, which is very typical btw, of homes in that part of upstate NY so I wasn't impressed with his attempts to make it seem different.

People have died for having information someone doesn't want them to have. I certainly find Cheney talking to Petraeus while he's under the command of this president, to be very disturbing but not surprising.

I would not dismiss Massa as easily as others appear willing to do. It's not hard to smear someone in DC, especially if you have Rove or Cheney working for you.

We'll see. I remember at least two other Generals who spoke out early in the Bush administration who also got 'the treatment' and we've never heard from them much since.

I like the guy, but if I were a friend of his, I would advise him not to talk to reporters. He's done what he can, if these Generals are worried about Obama being undermined by some in the military (which many have suspected anyhow).

And no one should ever forget that this happened before, to Carter. That was treason in my opinion, Gates who was in Carter's cabiniet, undermined him while working for him. And none of them were held accountable, so it's not at all unbelievable that they will keep doing it until they are stopped.

[JerseygirlCT]

27. Well, there's nothing evil that I wouldn't believe Cheney capable of

that's true.

But I'm not impressed by Massa and his behavior. As you say, best thing he could do is learn to shut his mouth when a camera is around - he seems incapable of managing the thought required to handle that.

[sabrina 1]

28. He has been smeared and lied about. He was pressured to vote

for something he didn't believe in. He refused to play the game that was expected of him in DC. He went after Dick Cheney the way Democrats SHOULD have done, and showed how it's done by people with the guts to do it.

I don't find his reactions odd regarding what he has been through. He had the support and respect of someone I respect more than any of those who are attacking him, like Boehner eg. And just months ago he showed the kind of spine sadly missing in this party, when he took on Cheney for his attacks on President Obama.

I am far more trusting of someone who is a bit rough around the edges than all the smooth-talkers we see on the news every night, whose real agenda they manage to hide.

Democrats, the one thing we are good at is throwing those who have fought for us under the bus.

In the beginning of this year, before any of this happened, when he was on the Ed Schultz Show, Ed and he both predicted he would be one of the most targeted congressman in DC this year.

We need more like him, and it's a disgrace how easy it is to destroy a man's entire service to this country, simply by spreading innuendo and calling him 'crazy'.

He served in the military and got to be 50 years old without any problems. He is a father of four with a wife he loves and who loves him. People don't suddenly go 'crazy' in just a few months.

This didn't sound like a crazy person to me. It looked like exactly what we need fighting the traitors to this country. He was effective, like few other Democrats have been.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPQaRJOylQ8&feature=related

Someone you'd want on your side in a fight. Sadly, because he refused to support the bailout of the Private Insurance Corps, the Dems stabbed him in the back, and they never had a better ally.

[Posteritatis]

20. Assuming this is true - what ridiculously hyperbolic bullshit language. (nt)

[Imajika]

22. So basically, not a coup...

This is silly stuff.

[Q3JR4]

24. The way I'm reading it, nope.

Not a coup.

Q3JR4.

[emulatorloo]

25. Well here's a question. Could Petraeus attract any votes, besides the same old 20%'ers

I don't think he would make much of a candidate, he has the charisma of a rock.

[Codeine]

26. By that standard every election is a Coup D'Etat.

Whackadoodle nonsense from a whackadoodle disgrace.

[Lagomorph]

30. Massa is saying that....

running for president is the equivalent to a coup?

Sounds like he needs to step out of politics. I doubt anyone but the most extreme political minority of the Right would support a general in the White House.

We had enough trouble with a few Texans.

Good God....

[struggle4progress]

31. True or not, it's simply useless: the natural question will be, "Why did Massa wait

until now to make this allegation?" and (right or wrong) the naturally suspected answer will be, "Because he's a wacko and a liar, who's trying desperately to regain some attention or traction"

This story automatically drops into the bullshit file