Blumenthal: The imperial vice presidency

[kskiska]

New details about his secret mission to expand the power of the president show that Cheney, at the end of his career, refuses to loosen his grip.

By Sidney Blumenthal

(snip)

Even as the spotlight shines on the opaque Cheney, the light reflects on others as well. By shielding Bush from alternatives, Cheney has locked in certain decisions that Bush stubbornly defends as his own. The president's plight is not that of a removed ruler tragically kept from knowing what his government is doing in his name. He has had time to observe the consequences. He is aware of what Cheney says to him. The Decider decides that Cheney will decide what the Decider decides. This is not a case of if-only-the-czar-knew. In the seventh year of his presidency, Bush's decision making consists of justifying his previous decisions.

Of the Bush Cabinet secretaries, former Attorney General John Ashcroft most strenuously confronted Cheney about his seizures of power. Ashcroft was perhaps the most conservative member of the Cabinet, and it was out of a sense of his own constitutional obligation that he objected. When Ashcroft discovered that John Yoo, the deputy assistant in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, had been recruited by the Cheney operation to write memos on detainee policy that would deny any role in the new legal process to the Justice Department, he was outraged. At the White House he confronted Cheney and Addington. "According to participants ," the Post reported, "Ashcroft said that he was the president's senior law enforcement officer, supervised the FBI and oversaw terrorism prosecutions nationwide. The Justice Department, he said, had to have a voice in the tribunal process." But Cheney did not relent. Ashcroft received no meeting to discuss the matter with Bush. Cheney was the gatekeeper -- the decider for the Decider.

The narrative of Powell's internal struggle with Cheney remains largely unknown. From conversations I have had with former senior CIA officials, it is clear that Powell himself does not fully understand all the ways he was misled, manipulated and abused in order to get him to make the case for the invasion of Iraq. To this day, Powell still does not really know what the CIA and the White House knew about weapons of mass destruction and when they knew it, largely because Cheney was so successful in his rigging of the intelligence process.

Powell's performance on NBC's "Meet the Press" on June 10 demonstrated his continuing confusion. He wondered why the CIA didn't tell him before his speech to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, that the intelligence on mobile weapons laboratories wasn't solid, even now unaware that CIA director George Tenet had been informed by CIA officers but dismissed their information because it ran counter to the case the administration wished to make for going to war.

more…
http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/06/28/cheney/

[aquart]

1. People who have very little control of their body

Sometimes become excessive in controlling whatever else they can. Which is not to say I forgive him or have pity for him. I don't.

[kskiska]

2. Here's the scary part:

(snip)

Despite the recent round of punditry that Cheney's influence has waned, he remains a formidable force. These are Cheney's final days; this is his endgame. He will never run again for public office. He is freed from the constraints of political consequences. He now has no horizon. He lives only in the present. He is nearly done. There are only months left to achieve his goals. Mortality impinges. Next month, he will have his heart pacemaker replaced. He disdains public opinion. He does not care who's next. "We didn't get elected to be popular," he said on Fox News on May 10. "We didn't get elected to worry just about the fate of the Republican Party."

[ixion]

3. a note on Powell and what he knew when he gave the speech

Now, this is pure speculation. I am going on what I saw in Powell's face, compared to how I'd seen him present information previously. And way back then, the first thing that came to mind was that he was lying and he knew it. His face was pale, contorted and strained. Either he had a helluva hangover, or he was lacking truthiness, IMO.

[lanlady]

4. I agree

One of Powell's top aides -- I can't recall the name, but he has publicly broken with the Bush administration -- has come out said that they knew it was all a lie.

[Felinity]

5. Powell

Too little, too late.

Does he sleep? In peace, without nightmares with the tens/hundreds of thousands of souls screaming "Why?" from beyond their graves? Do the cries of misery from Guantanamo reach his ears at 3:00 am?

But Powell's complicity in bringing this nation to war is not his worst sin. His worst insult to this country is that it took him so long to come forward with any regret, and he is still to this day lying to himself and others about the circumstances.

I am stunned that he has never made amends; I no longer buy that he was an honorable and loyal man caught up in a fly-trap of Cheney's deception. It is clear now that he was fatally flawed, blinded by a false concept of loyalty and weakened by the Power Ambrosia that the * Administration exuded. He wanted acceptance more than he valued the truth, or even trusted his own ability to assess the situation. How may Pentagon officials and Military leaders did this guy have in his "Rolodex"? How many calls from them did he not return?

Cheney may have started the lies, but the complicity of the likes of Powell enabled this planet-wide blood-letting, and wantonly destructive power-grab.