Cheney Uncloaks His Frustration With Bush

[steven johnson]

Looks like Dick Cheney is getting itchy typing fingers and wants to spill the beans. Stay tuned!

In his first few months after stepping down, former vice president Richard B. Cheney threw himself into public combat against the "far left" agenda of the new commander in chief. More private reflections, as his memoir takes shape in slashing longhand on legal pads, have opened a second front against Cheney's White House partner of eight years, George W. Bush.

Cheney's disappointment with the former president surfaced recently in one of the informal conversations he is holding to discuss the book with authors, diplomats, policy experts and past colleagues. By habit, he listens more than he talks, but Cheney broke form when asked about his regrets.

"In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him," said a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney's reply. "He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney's advice. He'd showed an independence that Cheney didn't see coming. It was clear that Cheney's doctrine was cast-iron strength at all times -- never apologize, never explain -- and Bush moved toward the conciliatory."

What is new, Hannah said, is Cheney's readiness to acknowledge "doubts about the main channels of American policy during the last few years," a period encompassing most of Bush's second term. "These are not small issues," Hannah said. "They cut to the very core of who Cheney is," and "he really feels he has an obligation" to save the country from danger.


www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/12/AR2009081203306.html?hpid=topnews

[damntexdem]

1. Even better than shooting a friend in the face.

And no one better deserves to be the target of Cheney's angry writing.

[SmileyRose]

2. if cheney wants to save America from danger

he'll stay home, shut up, get out of any business he's in, quit meddling in economic or world affairs and have his friends do the same.

[704wipes]

17. & move his fat white ass back to Wyoming

would be another step

[Orsino]

3. He oughta find the guy that ran "the main channels of American policy during the last few years."

That guy's a Dick.

[SharonAnn]

4. What, Bush "showed an independence that Cheney didn't see coming."?

I guess he thought * was supposed to be his hand-puppet for 8 years?

[Marr]

8. No kidding-- talk about strange.

That's pretty much an admission that all of the 'puppet president' rumors were true.

[theothersnippywshrub]

5. What a turd. Who was the last vice president to stab his president in the back?

Or who was the last vice president that complained about losing absolute control over the president?

[Glorfindel]

6. Aaron Burr?

n/t

[theothersnippywshrub]

9. Very good, although Jefferson and Burr were pre 12th amendment, so Burr wasn't chosen by Jefferson.

But I can see Cheney wanting to establish a monarchy in the western United States like Burr. And both Burr and Cheney liked to shoot people.

[UTUSN]

7. K&R #1 for, I can't believe this is #1!1

[UTUSN]

10. I can only kick ONCE?!1 n/t

[Stinky The Clown]

11. He can talk about bush softening all he wants. They're both lower than pig snot

(Sorry, pigs)

[bleever]

12. What a great American.

Except, he hates democracy:

But there is a sting in Cheney's critique, because he views concessions to public sentiment as moral weakness.

And he only regrets that he couldn't fuck up the nation even more:

"What impressed me was his continuing zeal," said an associate who discussed the book with Cheney. "He hadn't stepped back a bit from the positions he took in office to a more relaxed, Olympian view. He was still very much in the fray. He's not going to soften anything or accommodate shifts of conscience. There was no sense in which he looked back and said, 'I wish I'd done something differently.' Rather, there was a sense that they hadn't gone far enough. If he'd been equipped with a group of people as ideologically rigorous as he was, they'd have been able to push further."

He's our American Pinochet.

[Uncle Joe]

13. This line is utter bullshit.

<snip>

John P. Hannah, Cheney's second-term national security adviser, said the former vice president is driven, now as before, by the nightmare of a hostile state acquiring nuclear weapons and passing them to terrorists. Aaron Friedberg, another of Cheney's foreign policy advisers, said Cheney believes "that many people find it very difficult to hold that idea in their head, really, and conjure with it, and see what it implies."


What is new, Hannah said, is Cheney's readiness to acknowledge "doubts about the main channels of American policy during the last few years," a period encompassing most of Bush's second term. "These are not small issues," Hannah said. "They cut to the very core of who Cheney is," and "he really feels he has an obligation" to save the country from danger.

<snip>

Apparently the first term had a lot to be desired as well, and protecting nuclear secrets or guarding against nuclear proliferation under Cheney/Bush was a tragic and/or traitorous joke.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7347

<snip>

"Basically," she said, "I told them how Marc Grossman disclosed" that Brewster Jennings was a CIA front company to the target of an FBI investigation. "And it was under oath and that some lives may have been lost."

"Novak has nothing to do with it. Wilson has nothing to do with it. Valerie Plame has nothing to do with it. The whole operation has to do with something totally different and it had to do with the American Turkish Council and the Turkish clients who were about to hire Brewster Jennings as an analyst ... and Grossman found out about it, and tipped off his diplomatic contact who was a target of the FBI counter-intelligence, and that person notified the ISI (Pakistani intelligence agency), etc."

She says that Brewster Jenning was then "dismantled as soon as the FBI notified the CIA," after which "FBI requested CIA to do a damage assessment, to see if lives would be lost."

All of this, she re-iterated, was "long before, three years before," Novak outed Valerie Plame as a CIA operative in his newspaper column.

Brewster Jennings was "absolutely" dismantled in August of 2001."

<snip>

The question I have is, Was Grossman part of Cheney's "Shadow Presidency/Government," sort of like what "Frontline" covered?

[bleever]

14. As a wise man has said, Cheney was instrumental in protecting A.Q. Khan's nuclear WalMart.

And his wet dream of another terrorist attack on the U.S. isn't exactly a secret.

[Uncle Joe]

16. And one other question, When did Cheney's "Shadow Government" begin operating?

Did it begin after Bush was appointed in 2000 or did it begin in the 90s? Apparently it ended in Sept of 2001.

"And, as recently as last month, during our own recent interview with Edmonds while we were guest hosting the Mike Malloy Show (audio here, partial transcript here), she dropped details described as a "bombshell", about the U.S. having retained "intimate relations" with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda through Turkish proxies right up until September 11, 2001. That interview has made news across the globe over the last several days (e.g. the Times of India coverage is here), yet it made nary a peep in the U.S. corporate mainstream."

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7341

[Maru Kitteh]

15. You don't bring me flowers. ... .. .. You don't sing me love songs ... . ... .

[aquart]

18. I had that album. I wonder where it is?

[opihimoimoi]

19. Bush gave Cheney the mission to protect America...in Feb 01,....he never had a single meeting till

post 9/11

WTF?

Cheney is a giant anus.....

[lunatica]

20. So we have treason, drama, murder and intrigue

But no sex??? Where the hell is the sex? How do they expect this movie to succeed??

[peekaloo]

21. another chimp owner whose pet turned on him.

[Kingofalldems]

22. Cheney was definitely influenced by Limbaugh

The fake tough guy persona is Limbaugh to a tee.

[DailyGrind51]

23. "Just who did George think he was, the President or something?"

Dick Cheney must really believe that he, not Bush, was supposed to be in charge.

[Uncle Joe]

24. Kicked for people that might have missed this thread. n/t

[Rosco T.]

25. See.. mind control drugs DO wear off, takes about 4, 4 1/2 years.... n/m