The Cheney Legacy

This guy just has no self-awareness.

And, our society ... Letting him run around, shouting his mouth off ...

It is almost the level of, say, giving Jeffrey Dahmer airtime on the Food Network.



The background.

You remember this;

On Tuesday, Cheney, serving in his role as president of the Senate, appeared in the chamber for a photo session. A chance meeting with Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, became an argument about Cheney's ties to Halliburton Co., an international energy services corporation, and President Bush's judicial nominees. The exchange ended when Cheney offered some crass advice.

"Fuck yourself," said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency.

Not sure, in classic debating guidelines, that is acceptable, however, for Darth Vader, it is his proudest moment;

Cheney: Telling Leahy to ‘f*ck’ himself was ‘sort of the best thing I ever did.’

On Dennis Miller’s radio show today, Cheney suggested that his Leahy f-bomb was “the best thing” he had ever done:

MILLER: By the way, my, I also want to thank you, on the list of things I feel I should thank you for, almost kicking Patrick Leahy’s ass. Thank you very much.

CHENEY: Hehehehe.

MILLER: I love that move. One of my favorite stories. Muttering that.

CHENEY: You’d be surprised how many people liked that. That’s sort of the best thing I ever did.

Really?

I would have thought the mushroom clouds, or the never-happened Prague meeting lies would be up there ...

Or, shooting your friend in the face ...

Or, wait, wait ...

Exposing a covert CIA agent, for the purpose of getting back at her husband, for his exposing of your lies, would have grabbed the top spot ...

Your lackey, Little Scooter, almost went to jail for that one ...

The fact that you said this, with Dennis Miller, perhaps, and we'll have to check into it, the Has-Been Miller was simply auditioning new chimps to be his sidekick.

BarbinMD is shocked, that she actually agrees with Cheney;

Compared to the long list of heinous acts he perpetrated against this country, he's right. Being a total ass is the best thing he's ever done.

While Cheney can pat himself on the back, that using an invective was his greatest accomplishment, we, as a country, will have to wait a bit longer for ours.

That being, seeing this person, on trial, for his War Crimes.

I believe, when it's over, and he's carted off to prison, Cheney, and perhaps Miller, will be "surprised how many people liked that."


Bonus Darth Vader Cheney Riffs

James Mann: The Armageddon Plan

Source Says Secret Cabal Not In White House, But In Cheney Secret Bunker ...Wing of VP Hideout Dedicated To Iraq War, Neocon Strategy; Decisions Made Over Coffee and Krispy Kremes

Libby Trial Update - The Scooter and Cheney Show Theme Song

Top Ten Cloves: Slogans and Tag Lines For Caffeine-Free Diet Sprite – If Dick Cheney Was Pitchman

Thomas Friedman, Clearly, Is Eating Lead-Painted Toys From His Flat World Economy!

While he has long been on this path, it may be that, the effects of eating the lead-painted toys from his heralded "world is flat" economy must be taking over.

Thomas "My Head Is Flat" Friedman (or, as Barry Crimmins likes to call him, Thomas L. Freepass) uses his column space today ( "Channeling Dick Cheney") to advocate - self admittedly ("No, I personally am not a Dick Cheney fan, and I know it is absurd to even suggest, but now that I have your attention, here’s what’s on my mind ...") - that, if elected, Senator Barack Obama should retain Dick Cheney as his Vice President.

Okay, I'll wait a moment for you to pick yourself up off the floor.

Friedman quickly drops his absurdity to lay out that the Democrats are going to need to have - in their President or Vice President - a harsh, warmongering, crazy motha ..., "standing over his right shoulder, quietly pounding a baseball bat into his palm" kind of guy, to deal with Iran, and the Middle East overall

A kind of "Walk Loudly and Carry An Even Bigger Stick" foreign policy approach.

A kind of "Suck On This" Friedman-favorite approach.

A kind of same thing Friedman has been saying since the start of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, for which Glenn Greenwald, over at Salon, becoming equally-alarmed with the preposterous suggestion, points out that "The Tom Friedman of 2002 has not gone anywhere".

While Friedman paints (presumably loaded with lead, from his "word is flat" economy) a broad picture, let's take a look at some of the practical obstacles and hurdles that would have to be overcome in order for Darth Vader to stay in control of the galaxy.

The Axis of Evil List

Presumably, this AEL will expire on January 20th, 2009 - Will the new, presumably, Democratic President renew it?

Will the same players stay on the Axis of Evil List if it renewed? A new president may want to refresh the list, put some new countries on it, based on his (or her) agenda.

But, if we take into consideration Friedman's, as well as his rightwing, warmongering, Neocon buddies, a Democratic president will be, most assuredly, soft on terror ... A wimp, who will coddle and appease the terrorists.

So, almost assuredly, a new Democratic President won't have an AEL, which would leave the Vice President of Darkness with nothing to rail about. He can trade in his Louisville Slugger for a whiffleball bat.

Lawsuits

If the Congress hangs on to its' recently-grown spine, and keeps immunity out of any new FISA legislation, chances are Mr. Cheney is going to be busy, giving depositions, huddling with lawyers, going in-and-out of court.

He certainly isn't going to have time to shake his fist at Iran, or any other country, at least not while holding a subpoena in it.

This will be a nightmare for Friedman and his crowd.

The terrorists gaining an upper hand, winning because of our functioning, democratic, impartial legal system?

This certainly wont do, and Friedman will use his columns, and there'll be Weekly Standard an WSJ editorials, calling for more of our civil rights and liberties to be taken away. It will be like a warm, fuzzy dream when we think of how, under the Bush Grindhouse, we only lost Habeas Corpus.

(We also should factor in here, that in a third or fourth term as Vice President, Dick Cheney is very likely to continue with his hunting trips and, the chance that he may shoot - again - another fellow hunter, who won't be inclined to blame himself, or the local authorities will refuse to cover it up,. may bog down the Vice President's office)

Health

Considering the heated brouhaha over stem cells, what kind of outcry will come when we will possibly have a bionic Vice President?

Cheney is on, what, his third or fourth pacemaker, and warmongering is heavy-duty stressful work.

Constantly having to stay on message, having to constantly badger the CIA and other intelligence units, constantly having to lie, that takes stamina, and good, strong physical condition.

Will Cheney be up for that, capable of that?

Yes, we could bring back John Yoo, and have him, and David Addington, draft up new laws that "Organ Harvesting" of all those terrorist prisoners in Gitmo is not torture. Or, scanning the medical records of U.S. Citizens, a new round-up of enemy combatants could occur, taking into custody only those with healthy hearts that would be compatible with Cheney's (whoa, that's a frightening thought - that there could be another American with a dark, as black a heart, as Cheney)

The Shadow Presidency

Friedman, blatantly, overlooks one serious element of his equation.

It isn't a question of if a President-Elect Barack Obama would retain the current Vice President, but more, would the current Vice President allow a President-Elect Obama into his Shadow Presidency.

Will Dick Cheney give up his control of the Executive Branch?

We have to factor in another part of Friedman's flat world that may be giving the Lord of Darkness some ideas.

Pakistan.

On January 19th, or 20th, 2009, will Cheney step forward and officially announce he is in control of the government, abolish the Congress and the courts, start jailing anyone who opposes or criticizes the coup, all under the name of saving our democracy?

Granted, Friedman, and his rightwing power hawks would cheerlead such a Cheney coup, and that would likely generate another phony "mea culpa" column from Freidman, pointing back to today's dribble and how naïve he was, as he starts shouting to the new Dictator Cheney, with the decks all clear, to start having the Middle East "Suck On This"!

And we'll all be subjected to their nauseating anthem.

Neocon Days Are Here Again

So long New York Times
Go long LA Times
We are rid of you at last

Rowdy gay times
Cloudy gray times
You are now a thing of the past

Neocon Days are here again
The torture we had is cleared again
So let's wage a war and cheer again
Neocon Days are here again

All together, shout it now
There's no one who can stop us now
So lets dominate the world about it now
Neocon Days are here again

Your laws and rights are gone
There'll be no constitution from now on
Neocon Days are here again

Neocon Days are here again
The laws we had are clear again
So let's wage a war and cheer again
Neocon Days are here again

Happy times
No Civil Rights
Only our ways
Neocon Days are here again!

Bonus Thomas "My Head Is Flat" Friedman Links

Jules Crittenden - Tom Friedman: “9/11 has made us stupid.”

Hollywood Reporter - Columnist in biz with MSNBC.com

David Sirota - Billionaire Tom & More Education Mythmaking

FAIR - Media Advisory: Tom Friedman's Flexible Deadlines Iraq's 'decisive' six months have lasted two and a half years

Dick Cheney's Not Darth Vader ... He's Harry Caul!

Perhaps, when the regime's term finally ends, we'll find Vice President Dick Cheney sitting in his secret bunker, the floorboards torn up, the walls ripped out, light fixtures disassembled, the sharp bits of broken figurines littered about.

It could be his last, futile attempt at finding those mushroom-clouding WMD's.

In hindsight, though, we've all had it wrong.

Cheney isn't Darth Vader.

He's Harry Caul, the paranoid surveillance freak from The Conversation.

From Wikipedia;

"Caul is utterly professional at work, but he finds personal contact difficult. He is exquisitely uncomfortable in dense crowds and withdrawn and taciturn in more intimate situations; he is also reticent and secretive with work colleagues."

From Filmsite.org;

"Its claustrophobic themes of the destruction of privacy, alienation, guilt, voyeurism, justified paranoia, unprincipled corporate power and personal responsibility effectively responded to growing, ominous 20th century threats of eavesdropping to personal liberties."

Certainly more than a handful of the Vice President's characteristics in there.

Unlike Harry Caul of the movies, Cheney/Harry Caul isn't hunting for electronic bugs - He is looking for Iranians!

And, gosh-darn-it, he's gonna get his Iranians ... He's going to fuss-and-fume, and stamp his feet until he gets his Iranians.

Where does this new, cinematic revisionist view of the Secret-Energy-Meeting Vice President come from?

Iraqi fighters 'grilled for evidence on Iran'; Interrogator says US military seeks evidence incriminating Tehran

The Guardian Unlimited has a report filed today, indicating military interrogators are feeling the thumbs-on-the-backs-of-their-necks kind of pressure to come up with evidence of Iranian involvement in Iraq.

"US military officials are putting huge pressure on interrogators who question Iraqi insurgents to find incriminating evidence pointing to Iran, it was claimed last night."

"Other military intelligence officials in Iraq refused to comment, but one said: 'The message is, "Got to find a link with Iran, got to find a link with Iran." It's sickening.'

And then there this, from IPS;

POLITICS-US: Cheney Tried to Stifle Dissent in Iran NIE

It appears that our Cheney/Harry Caul is gumming up the release of the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, while he rips up the floorboards, searching out those darn Iranians.

"But this pressure on intelligence analysts, obviously instigated by Cheney himself, has not produced a draft estimate without those dissenting views, these sources say. The White House has now apparently decided to release the unsatisfactory draft NIE, but without making its key findings public."

In the move version, our Cheney/Harry Caul would be sitting with a tape recorder, wearing headphones, sweating, increasingly showing signs of agitation, as he plays and rewinds a piece of tape, back-and-forth, without getting his desired results.

"Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi provided a similar account, based on his own sources in the intelligence community. He told IPS that intelligence analysts have had to review and rewrite their findings three times, because of pressure from the White House.

"The White House wants a document that it can use as evidence for its Iran policy," says Giraldi. Despite pressures on them to change their dissenting conclusions, however, Giraldi says some analysts have refused to go along with conclusions that they believe are not supported by the evidence."

Hmmm ... Haven't we seen this movie before?

Send your refund request to the attention of Dennis Kucinich and the House Judiciary Committee.


Bonus, But Not De-Bugged, Links

David Swanson/AfterDowningStreet: The Low Down on Dick Cheney

McClatchy Newspapers: The confrontation with Iran - Experts: No evidence of Iranian nuclear weapons program

Seymour M. Hersh: Shifting Targets; The Administration’s plan for Iran.

Red Rover, Red Rover, Send Dickie Right Over ... Its' A Cheneypalooza!

One question I have this morning is where's Rumsfeld?

If he isn't leading a coup, or just bustin' everyone's balls, than it may be that our Vice President is showing overt signs of dementia setting in ... Senility or Alzheimer's, perhaps ... Could also be his notoriously bad heart (both literally and figuratively)

It may be that the days of the week are confusing him, and he thinks he's on one of his weekend Armageddon retreats.

How else to explain that he believes he is not part of the Executive Branch?

Long Past The Shock of Illegal, Law-Breaking Misdeeds

Who knew, last month, when The Garlic called for volunteers to become a "Cheney's Cheney" and join his team for the Iran venture that we'd see that the Darth Vader Man was already well ahead of the curve on it.

The Garlic also saw signs last November, when Cheney broke from the White House to form his own Iran Study Group.

And The Garlic had a feeling, earlier, back in November 2005, that Dick was quite the Magic Vice Prez.

He has his lavish Secret Bunker... The family, in particular the wife, is with him all the way ... He'll dress-down, and swear at, a Senator, or turn around and expose a covert CIA agent at the drop-of-the-hat ... And he shares with his boss/underling, The Commander Guy, a disdain for democracy ...

He's already long past the shock of conducting his illegal, law-breaking misdeeds, that there hasn't been any blaring sirens coming for him ... No scoldings, no detention, so he's looking around, his head spinning like Linda Blair's, and sees no one after him, so it's time to push that secret envelope out more, and more.

We should expect some type of fiat next from the VP Man, perhaps suspending the 2008 election, removing Bush, keeping the surge he sings praises for and, of course, leaving all Iran options on table - particularly the bombing ones.

Which Way Does It Go - Over The Cliff or Top of The World?

He doesn't give a shit about nose-diving ratings, he's got his hands on the wheel, his fingers on the buttons ... And he's going for broke ...

A Thelma and Louise, pedal-to-the-medal drive off the Constitutional cliff? ... A Cody Jarrett, Top-of-the-World-Ma scream, standing on a blazing and exploding Iranian nuclear reactor? ... Or a more fitting, Sam Peckinpah-inspired, Pike Bishop shoot out with Congress?

For me, I'd like to see, with a nice, lush, Bernard Hermann score, Cheney, sweating and panicked, on top of Mt. Rushmore, holding a trinket containing all the secret Energy Meeting Notes, and Secret Service Visitor Logs, being chased and hunted by Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson (hey, lay off, it's pretty close casting) and the good guys end up winning.

The only thing of it is, whose definition of good and evil do we go by?

Red Rover, Red Rover, Send Dickie Right Over ...





Cheney Defiant on Classified Material; Executive Order Ignored Since 2003

Rahm Emanuel To Cheney: Please Get The Heck Out Of The White House

Cheney: Neither Here Nor There?

Cheney Power Grab: Says White House Rules Don't Apply to Him


Its' A Cheneypalooza!















Kucinich announces impeachment charges against Vice President Cheney

White House Fiercely Divided; VP Cheney Wants State of Union Address Kept Private

Libby Trial Update - The Scooter and Cheney Show Theme Song

Libby Verdict Has Bush, White House Urging Cheney Into Rehab; Sources Claim 'Can't Be Trusted He Won't Break"; Iraq Comments "Last Straw" and "Were Not An Enormous Success"

Smearing Like It's 2003

Why Dick Cheney Cracked Up

Cheney Briefly Hospitalized After Television Appearance Yesterday; Vice President Complained Of Dizziness After Relentless Spin Session on ‘Meet The Press’

Top Ten Cloves: Slogans and Tag Lines For Caffeine-Free Diet Sprite – If Dick Cheney Was Pitchman

New White House Press Strategy On VP Shooting Deemed "Smashing Success"; Expect More Reports From Average Citizens, Local Papers Breaking News; President May Board Up Press Room

Bush To Change Legal Landscape; White House Primed To Replace "Miranda" With New, "Cheney Decision"; Says Still Tough On Crime; Won't Be Applicable For Rounded-Up Terror Suspects - "That's What Patriot Act Is For"

You Shouldn't Worry There, Dick ... Everyone Knows You're A Hard-Ass ... The Results - The Garlic Weekly Poll

So what the little puke in the Oval Office calls himself "The Uniter" or "The Decider", and even "The Commander Guy".

You don't have to be so sensitive about it, as our Garlic Poll Voters seemed to think.

Everyone knows you're a hard-ass.

You are, in the spirit of the immigration debate going on, muy macho. You kick butt and expose names. You have a Secret Bunker. You bully people to give you the intelligence you want, so you can launch wars. You nailed CNN's Wolf Blitzer and then sent your wife in to slap him around some more. You go away weekends, with you old pal Rummy, for Doomsday weekends.

You earned the moniker of "Darth Vader", for Christ Sakes. You even have a protégé named after you - Cheney's Cheney!

That's about as hard an ass a hard-ass can get.

So chill out on the overseas stuff. Pitch in, and save some energy (unless, from your muy macho super-secret energy meetings, you're getting a deal or something). Do more walking, it'll help that old ticker of yours.

And, one other thing. The guys overseas don't really want to tell you.

They're gonna "yes" you to death because they're just marking time, They know you're on your way out, via, either impeachment, or indictment, or, somehow, you ride it out until January 2009.

The Results - The Garlic's Weekly Poll May 13 - May 19, 2007

Vice President Dick Cheney's recent trip to Iraq and Saudi Arabia was really about ...

1. Telling everyone, despite what the President has said, he, Dick Cheney is really "The Commander Guy" Tally 33%

2. The wife's book sales are dipping and just out working the stump, beef up the sales Tally 30%

3. Needing a good alibi, in the event something happened to George Tenet Tally 24%

4. Not wanting to get yelled at by those 11 Republican Congressmen Tally 12%

This week’s Poll - President Bush will get rid of Crony General Alberto Gonzales by ...

Scroll up to the top right corner to place your vote

Bonus Links

Cheney's still dangerous

The Libby-Cheney Connection; Libby Testimony Raises More Questions About Cheney's Role In The CIA Leak Case

Libby Trial Update - The Scooter and Cheney Show Theme Song