Right about now former VP Cheney is revising his estimation of Bush's IQ

[grantcart]

Inarticulate, lacking intellectual curiosity and uncomfortable with sophisticated metaphysical concepts it was widely assumed that Bush was stupid. There is some evidence that Cheney also had a very low opinion of Bush's IQ.

Actually Bush had certain pockets of knowledge and experience that made him a much savvier bureaucratic player than many people realized.

When it came to national security moves that were clearly unconstitutional Bush (IMHO)took counseling from his father to not 'leave any fingerprints' and 'sign no memos'.

In this scenario Bush communicates with Cheney in front of others vague instructions that could have multiple interpretations and when he is one on one with Cheney tells him that he is "counting on you to hit these bastards hard, don't let anything slip by".

In the end all of the actions that were over the line will have stopped at the VP office. Bush will back off and spend his retirement giving short comments about how sad it was that Cheney "took on such a rogue mentality".

As the final minutes of the Bush/Cheney administration was winding down Cheney had a chance to see how ultimately Bush would leave Libby hanging (in Cheney's eyes) and knew that it was only a matter of time before key documents would surface.

Cheney has been trying to 'spike the muskets' these last few months by making the national security question a partisan one, that any action by the Obama administration a partisan action.

Obama passed, Holder appears to be acting like a professional and independent Attorney General, Bush is having a quiet retirement.

And former VP Cheney appears to be the fall guy who will end up holding the bag.

Couldn't happen to a better guy.

[eleny]

1. I never underestimated W's cunning

[Jackpine Radical]

9. Nor I. I always said that anyone who misunderestimated the low cunning

and sheer viciousness of that man was making a huge mistake. The mask of stupidity is a good cover for the face of pure evil.

[eleny]

11. I've worked with people who weren't that bright but their cunning saw them through

The ability to bamboozle by sussing out and playing to the weaknesses in others can carry the cunning to high places in organizations.

[Beetwasher]

35. I'd Call It Low Cunning

The sort of low cunning that makes one a good backstabber. You don't need intellect for that, just lack of morals and killer instinct.

[metapunditedgy]

2. Cheney should NOT be the fall guy.

He's just a distraction; the guilty parties were spread throughout the Bush admin, and should be exposed.

[DevonRex]

5. Are you kidding? He's an evil bastard who deserves everything he gets. nt

[metapunditedgy]

17. Yeah, but don't let him "take the fall" for everyone else.

The point is to keep investigating ALL the guilty parties.

In my opinion, Cheney is starting to look like a Lay or a Madoff... he's an old guy in ill health, after all. But there are a lot of other folks in the prime of their careers who made some very bad decisions, and they should be brought to light as well.

[Voice for Peace]

7. if he becomes the fall guy, I don't doubt he'll implicate others

we've already seen a little bit of that from him.

[Raine1967]

14. No, he is complicit --

These are all evil f*ckers. He isn't a distraction at all -- he was just as much a part of it as everyone else. That said:

This whole thing is starting to remind me of the movie Goodfellas

-- Remember towards the end when everything was falling apart -De Nero's character Jimmy Conway was gonna *off* Karen? They will all eat their own to save themselves.

[metapunditedgy]

18. Of course he's complicit. But don't let him dominate the discussion

so that he takes all the blame and 100 other folks (who are in the prime of their careers and have a lot more to lose) get away free.

[Raine1967]

19. I'm not.

You really think people are?

I never fell for the whole Dubya is a dolt Meme. He is a spiteful frat boy. Not real smart but willing to do what it takes to get what he wants, smart enough to get people to cover it up.


They are all like the characters from Goodfelllas -- I never felt bad for Henry Hill ;) He just grew up knowing how to take advantage of the system.

I think it is a damn good analogy.

[metapunditedgy]

21. Yeah, I think Cheney is trying to set himself up as the point man or the fall guy.

Meaning, if something does (hopefully) come of this, he'll take most of the punishment and the others will get away. (Madoff, Enron, etc.) That's why he kept showing up all over the media a few weeks ago. What about all the other folks that have been implicated, or should be implicated?

Cheney also has a lot more friends and resources to defend himself.

So, I think Cheney wants to be the center of attention on this.

I hate all these legal investigations that pick a fall guy and ignore the systemic problem.

Anyway, I haven't seen Goodfellas unfortunately.

[Raine1967]

23. I recommend it. That said, I really believe

he isn't setting himself up as a fall guy-- he is setting himself as a victim.

incredulous as it seems... this is what those in criminal syndicates tend to do.

[Cha]

16. If cheney goes down..he would not be

anyone's fall guy..he'd start squealing like pig hoisted with his own petard.

[Hutzpa]

20. C'mon..... get lost will ya

where did you spring from, anyway, if you could ever so kindly return
back to sender.


:banghead:

[metapunditedgy]

22. I don't understand. "Fall guy" means Cheney takes the blame and everyone else gets away free.

Is that what you want???

[Hutzpa]

25. nope....

Cheney and everyone else that was involved should get done, that means those who where
enablers in writing a law to give Dicky boy his popsicle.

[Frustratedlady]

3. I agree. Let Cheney fall. He's done enough evil to warrant it.

Bush has always shown a tendency to be a schoolyard bully. Incite, then stand back and watch the middleweights bloody the noses. When called on the carpet, he can stand back and act innocent. I'm sure he's pulled that all his life.

Cheney wasn't much better, only he worked behind the scenes. Remember, he never graduated from college...at least, I don't think he did. He was a pretty sorry example of an upcoming young man. I don't think Rove graduated, either. I don't see anything in Cheney's life that would make his momma proud.

Just sayin'.

[DevonRex]

4. Exactly. Anybody who thinks there's enough evidence to prosecute Bush is crazy.

The Bushes love Cheney - as a person they can use to do their dirty work. He's not of their social status; therefore, they're quite willing to let him be the fall guy.

W has been smart enough to use people his whole life. And the people around him all thought his cute little nicknames for them just proved how much he liked them and that he was a regular guy. In fact those names were evidence of his belief that he is better than everyone else, or at least than everyone else not named Bush. I'm sure he thought it was funny to show his disdain and contempt quite openly and that the peons were too dumb to get it.

Cheney is the lowest peon of them all. And I don't feel sorry for the bastard at all. Or any of the others who basked in W's "friendship."

[bonzotex]

6. nice observation!

I hadn't really thought of Bush using Cheney quite like that before. The entitled frat boy routine is well known, but it would be a wonderfully sick irony if he conned the Master with that shtick!

[Nothing Without Hope]

8. Not just the Bushes - it's the corporate leaders of the shadow government

who were at the head of the monster. Cheney was happy to push their agenda and utterly untroubled by illegality. I believe one of the reasons the government has been holding off real prosecution is that the ties to the REAL powers might be revealed, and they are STILL in power and able to frighten anyone who threatens them and their secrecy.

[glitch]

15. Agreed. Bush and Cheney are both employees, both evil, both cunning in their own ways,

yet thoroughly stupid, entirely humorless and wholly evil. IOW, they are to the executive branch what zombie banks are to banks.
We may yet see them knife each other in the back. :toast:

[Nothing Without Hope]

32. That would be gratifying. But Cheney knows that if he talks too much

he will be as dead as David Kelley and so many others who got in the way. With his bad heart, it would be very easy for the pros that do this kind of political assassination. Oh yes, he would know.

[Brother Buzz]

10. Shrub may have played the role, but there is NO way he scripted it.

Follow the money.

[grantcart]

27. no but he is well trained

[Brother Buzz]

28. Well trained is subjective, no? I suggest he was a poor study and stumbled from the get-go....

and never recovered. Professional, he was not.

[grantcart]

30. well trained in the "don't leave fingerprint" departments.

[Brother Buzz]

31. Ok.

I'll agree with that only because his minders were on him like shit on stink.

Speaking of stink, I bet his minders surely shat in their pants every time little Georgie went off script.

[alcibiades_mystery]

12. There is no direct documentary evidence for Hitler ordering the Final Solution, either

Himmler, Heydrich, etc., sure. But from Hitler only vague orders "open to interpretation." Chilling.

[DailyGrind51]

13. Ann Richards provided the same warning about "W".

[grantcart]

26. Yes she did

[Jennicut]

29. She knew what he was all about.

[sofa king]

24. You can have the same situation with an idiot.

Except where a smart Bush is deliberately maintaining plausible deniability, a stupid Bush simply can't articulate or maybe even envision the path to the moronic results he wants. In that case, responsibility again devolves to the Vice President and a small circle of other bureaucratically adept co-conspirators (*cough* Rumsfeld; Wolfowitz *cough*).

A narcissistic Bush, which the real Bush almost certainly is whether he's smart or not, doesn't give a shit about his underlings, and that's almost certainly why he left Libby un-pardoned.

Cheney, on the other hand, is much more sociopathic than he is narcissistic. It seems likely to me that Cheney's actions were communicated by memoranda to the President in large, multisyllabic, compound sentences, and they were officiously marked as "seen" by The Decider. Those will be Cheney's ace in the hole should he actually face trial.

[dionysus]

33. interesting take. k&r

[spooky3]

34. I think they'd make excellent cellmates. Prosecute both.

[Beetwasher]

36. I Always Knew Chimpy Had Low Cunning, No Morals And Killer Instinct

I still think he's an idiot, but even an idiot can be a good backstabber.