Washington Post Profile Reveals Stealthy Cheney Spies On White House Staffers

[Hissyspit]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/24/cheney-wp-profile

Washington Post Profile Reveals Stealthy Cheney Spies On White House Staffers

Today, the Washington Post unveiled the first in its lengthy four-part series on the unprecedented influence and power of the vice president.

Shortly after Bush was elected, “Cheney preferred, and Bush approved, a mandate that gave him access to ‘every table and every meeting,’ making his voice heard in ‘whatever area the vice president feels he wants to be active in.’”

According to the article, Cheney used that influence to bypass key presidential aides and thwart any dissent about Bush’s authorization of the unconstitutional military commissions to try detainees. The Post reports “almost no one” had seen the legal draft establishing the commissions, except Cheney’s closest aides. Cheney then took astonishing measures to ensure that internal objections would not reach the President, even resorting to spying on White House staff:

At the White House, Bellinger sent Rice a blunt — and, he thought, private — legal warning. The Cheney-Rumsfeld position would place the president indisputably in breach of international law and would undermine cooperation from allied governments. ...

One lawyer in his office said that Bellinger was chagrined to learn, indirectly, that Cheney had read the confidential memo and “was concerned” about his advice. Thus Bellinger discovered an unannounced standing order: Documents prepared for the national security adviser, another White House official said, were “routed outside the formal process” to Cheney, too. The reverse did not apply. ...

A White House lawyer with direct knowledge said Cheney’s lawyer, Addington, wrote the memo. Flanigan passed it to Gonzales, and Gonzales sent it as “my judgment” to Bush. If Bush consulted Cheney after that, the vice president became a sounding board for advice he originated himself.

The Post notes, “Stealth is among Cheney’s most effective tools.” The talking points for reporters drafted by Cheney’s office are “sometimes stamped ‘Treated As: Top Secret/SCI.’ Experts in and out of government said Cheney’s office appears to have invented that designation, which alludes to ’sensitive compartmented information,’ the most closely guarded category of government secrets. By adding the words ‘treated as,’ they said, Cheney seeks to protect unclassified work as though its disclosure would cause ‘exceptionally grave damage to national security.’”

MORE

[illinoisprogressive]

1. I was reading the article and there was so much evil things in it I couldn't choose.

what part do you choose to post? There is so much info and so much darkness and evil the man does.

[melody]

2. At the rate his atherosclerosis is advancing, he's probably losing his nut

More than he already has, I mean.

[Emit]

5. He reminds me of Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

An obese Gollum. The evil oozes from his character and seems to have changed him over time.


check out this photo essay and see what I mean:

http://www.time.com/time/personoftheyear/2002/photoessay/index_cheney.html

Compared to more recent photos:

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/09/11/dickcheney_narrowweb__300x472,0.jpg

[mcg]

40. side by side comparision of Cheney and Gollum

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/09/11/dickcheney_narrowweb__300x472,0.jpg

[Emit]

47. OMG! That's scary. n/t

[FloridaJudy]

50. Hey Dick: you know that picture in your attic?

I hate to tell you, but it's stopped working...

[aquart]

13. Which nut?

[soothsayer]

19. lol!

[Stephanie]

31. I think that's absolutely true. I think his heart disease & treatments have made him deranged.

Deranged and unfit. Heart surgery is known to cause depression in many cases. I can't imagine how many drugs he's on. He's got the implanted defibrillator. I have no doubt his coronary disease has caused his paranoia and depression. He had his first heart attack at 36! He's had at least four, that we know of. Allegedly he's built an operating room in the basement of the Naval Observatory. He's sick, sick, sick, on every level, and should be removed because he's unfit.

[FreeStateDemocrat]

39. Supposedly he is attended to by two cardiologists on call. The cost of keeping this evil

bastard alive must be staggering for the rest of us, the taxpayers. Yet the SOB would be among the first to deny similar care to other less fortunate Americans who do not enjoy wealth or privilege.

[Hekate]

3. KnR. Thanks for this, Hissy. nt

[shanti]

4. truly breathtaking...

:wow: is the media now deciding to throw the windows open on the Dick? what's in the dark, ALWAYS comes to the light.

[burythehatchet]

18. The Media" isn't doing a damn thing that their master hasn't authorized

[Harry Monroe]

26. It was the Washington Post after all..

...who blew the Watergate conspiracy wide open. Here's hoping there's a new generation of reporters in the mold of Woodward and Berenstein to courageously investigate this story and blow the lid off the whole evil rotten mess.

[mitchum]

6. The irony is that Poppy muscled in on Reagan's presidential territory...

hell, he didn't even want (or need) him as a running mate.

I guess the sins of the father really are visited on the son. Or son of a bitch in this case.

[Peace Patriot]

7. This is an orchestrated leak campaign, from Laura and Barbara being quoted

as telling Bush that Gitmo is bad for America's image, to the disclosure that Cheney stopped preserving papers in 2003, and his assertion that the VP's office is not part of the Executive Branch, to Colin Powell's recent disclosure that the torture/detention policy came by fiat from Cheney.

Something is coming. Some bombshell. And they are trying to get Bush out of the way.

Possibly related to Gen. Taguba's disclosures in the New Yorker (top brass including Rumsfeld involved in torture, Taguba prevented from investigating them, feeling threatened, feeling like the Pentagon had become the mafia). Rumsfeld and Cheney thick as thieves since the 1980s. Whatever Rumsfeld's into, Cheney's into, and vice versa. What were they torturing people FOR? (Anybody believe that it was to "keep us safe"?) Another possibility: 'Plamegate.' And another (my new theory): that Cheney and Rumsfeld were trying to oust Bush and install Cheney as Prez, for full on Nazification of our government and attack on Iran. Not the sort of thing that is likely to be exposed--no bombshell likely--but could be what is behind all this: Rumsfeld out (with no change of policy in Iraq), and now Cheney under serious establishment fire aimed at EXONERATING Bush.

Best guess: torture and murder for profit.

[southerncrone]

8. NO doubt something's coming

We just don't know WHEN or exactly WHAT, but it WON'T be GOOD!

[Emit]

9. Any mention of Cheney and Rumsfeld in one sentence reminds me of this

At least once a year during the 1980's, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld vanished. Cheney was still working diligently on Capital Hill, and Rumsfeld remained a hard-driving business executive in Chicago. Yet for three of four days at a time, no one in Congress knew where Cheney was, nor could anyone at Rumsfeld's offices locate him. Even their wives were in the dark; they were handed only a mysterious Washington phone number through which they might relay messages in case of emergencies... ...After leaving their day jobs, Cheney and Rumsfeld usually made their way to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington. From there, in the middle of the night, each man, joined by a team of forty to sixty federal officials and a single member of Ronald Reagan's cabinet, separately slipped away to some remote location in the United States, such as a discarded military base or an underground bunker. A convoy of lead-lined trucks carrying sophisticated communications equipment and other gear made its way to the same location.

Rumsfeld and Cheney were principal figures in one of the most highly classified programs of the Reagan administration. Under it, the administration furtively carried out detailed planning exercise to establish a new American "president" and his staff, outside and beyond the specifications of the U.S. Constitution, in order to keep the federal government running during and after a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Over the years a few details about the existence of this Reagan-era effort have come to light, but not the way it worked or the central roles played by Cheney and Rumsfeld... ...This was not some abstract textbook plan but was practiced in concrete, thorough and elaborate detail. The Reagan administration assigned personnel to three teams...Each team included an experienced leader, who could operate as a new White House chief of staff. The obvious candidates were people who had already served at high level in the executive branch, preferably with experience in the national security apparatus. This was where Cheney and Rumsfeld came in since they had previously served as White House chief of staff in the Ford administration. Besides Cheney and Rumsfeld, who were regulars, other team leaders over the years included James Woolsey, later the director of Central Intelligence, and Kenneth Duberstein, who worked for a time as Reagan's real-life White House chief of staff.

~snip~

... Reagan's secret program set aside these constitutional and statutory requirements under some circumstances; it established its own process for creating a new American president, ignoring the hierarchy of presidential succession established by law... ...Reagan established his continuity of government program under a secret executive order. According to Robert McFarlane, who served for a time as Reagan's national security adviser, the president himself made the final decision on who would head each of the special teams, such as Cheney and Rumsfeld. Within Reagan's National Security Council, the "action officer" for the secret program was Oliver North...Vice President George H. W. Bush was given authority to supervise some of these efforts, which were run by a new government building in the Washington area...and a secret budget...used to buy advanced communications equipment (apparently, some of the info about this secret program came about because of allegations of waste and abuses in awarding these communications contracts to private companies--Emit)


... Cheney and Rumsfeld were familiar with the Armageddon exercises of the Reagan era. They themselves had practiced all the old drills... ...except for Rumsfeld's brief stint as Middle East envoy, neither he nor Cheney ever served in the Reagan administration. Nevertheless, as team leaders Cheney and Rumsfeld played important roles in this project...Moreover, their participation in these Reagan-era exercises demonstrated a broader underlying truth about Cheney and Rumsfeld: Over three decades, from the Ford administration onward, even when they were out of the executive branch of government, they were never too far away; they stayed in touch with its defense, military and intelligence officials and were regularly called upon by those officials. Cheney and Rumsfeld were, in a sense, a part of the permanent, though hidden, national security apparatus of the United States, inhabitants of a world in which presidents may come and go, but America always keeps on fighting.

Rise of the Vulcans, James Mann, from Chapter Nine

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

35. Jesus Christ! YOU! ARE! SCARING! THE CRAP OUT OF ME!!!

:scared:

First thing that comes to mind: "Now I know where the bzillions the Pentagon lost went!!!" Second: "There is a war over WHO will be ultimate dictator!"

:scared:

:wtf: WTF IS GOING ON?!?!!!!

[Emit]

51. "WTF IS GOING ON?!?!!!!" is right.

I just added more info on COG, as excerpted from the same book by Mann, that you might be interested in:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1178793&mesg_id=1179603

[bleever]

10. I agree with Paul Revere.

:thumbsup:

[loudsue]

11. My guess is Bush will dump Cheney before elections 2008

so that he can appoint the "front runner" in the primaries as the VP. It's also a way to get the repuke's desired "good ole boy" into the VP slot, which could justify his re-election when they fix the voting machines.

It will give the corporate media time to fawn all over the new (brand, spanking new, shiny, still-on-the-honeymoon) VP, and all the newsters will have time to tell us how the "polls" are showing every state is turning red for the new VP.

It's Rove's game, and the repukes are all mad at bush for blowing their popularity.

If we were smart, we'd get out in front of the parade, and start impeachment proceedings. IF we were smart.....

:kick::kick::kick:

[aquart]

12. HOW would associating their candidate with Bush HELP?

It wouldn't. It would dirty him.

The assumption that Bush wants to help the Republican Party is contradicted in everything he does..

[Eurobabe]

14. It makes perfect sense, we were discussing yesterday

Dump the DICK (for health reasons) bring in someone shiny and new. I bet you dollars to donuts this will happen in late summer, look for September, when everyone is back from vacation. Big news.

[loudsue]

21. And right about the time Gore announces....???

I think the thing that aquart has missed here is the media....the other branch of our government.

The fact that the repervlikins have control of the voting process still evades most people because we managed to eek out a ONE VOTE majority in the Senate, allowing us to chair all the committees, but not much else. THIS WAS AN ERROR ROVE MADE, and he won't make it again.

Given that we still have a repervlikin executive, judiciary and media, we're still out-numbered, with our teeny tiny one vote majority. ESPECIALLY when you consider all the DLC republican infiltrators already placed in the Democratic party by the rightwing National Democratic Network (the money branch of the DLC) .

But when you imagine that a brand new vice president would take the media 24/7 to gush over, THEN is when they will be able to spin that the repervlikins are again in good graces with the American people, and when the election is stolen, yet again, there will be enough background to cover their lying asses.

:kick::kick::kick:

[JBear]

30. I bet its...

Fred Thompson they are going to install as the next in line to the king....

:bounce:

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

22. My first thought was, "this is coming from the WaPo". Something's up!!!

There is so much horror out there, it's easy to speculate what's about to hit the fan, next.

My first thought was that the GAO found some of that billions upon billions the Pentagon lost and found some pretty sick stuff involving the neocons.

But, I don't have a clue. So many crimes have been committed, it's hard to find a place to start in terms of speculation.

[autorank]

24. K*R A Washington Post-Dennis Kucinich Alliance - Cheney Must Go

Excellent post and also analysis by Peace Patriot.

Something big is coming as indicated by this and also that business about releasing the background history of the CIA.

1) Something big re; the war. This article begins: "Two articles, today and tomorrow, recount Chaney's campaign to magnify presidential war-making authority, arguably his most important legacy. Articles to follow will describe a span of influence that extends far beyond his well-known interests in energy and national defense."

So the something big is about the war, the beginning of the article goes on to describe the detainment policies, initiated by Cheney behind "everybody's back." Not"everybody" is, as you point out, covering themselves. "Wasn't me, was that Veep guy."

It's about detainment, GITMO, unlawfully kidnapping prisoners, torturing them and so forth which explains...

2) The biggie, I suspect, has to do with some quite tangible evidence of torture beyond our wildest imaginations. Thus we're doing things even the worst of our apologists can no longer front for. There may be a tape, a confession on tape, a planned press conference.

3) The man behind this is a "madman" - "man sized Mosler safes," all the secrecy, the isolation. That's the ground work for a "crazy Cheney" story. It's coming.

Thus, the Post has finally seen the wisdom of Dennis Kucinich's well thought out and on target demand for impeaching Cheney. Good for them. I knew they'd catch on.

Note: The release of the CIA's history that is to shock us is for the purpose of creating a "context" for the revelation. "Well, it's always been like this, you know." This is the same strategy that the WH used in the repeal of habeas corpus as a means of avoiding international and domestic legal culpability for this vile tiorture program. I'd like every Democrat in the Senate who endorsed that to apologize in public for cooperating with the WH. There was no excuse.

[catzies]

34. Your "Note" made me gasp as it sank in...

Note: The release of the CIA's history that is to shock us is for the purpose of creating a "context" for the revelation. "Well, it's always been like this, you know."

:wow:
:scared:

[autorank]

43. That's their bull shit respons.

There's a lot that doesn't change when power does. But the level of sickness in the torture program is beyond anyting that I'm aware. We even have an international network of torture hotels. They have to create an excuse so, what's their answer. Defame the entire modern history of the country. Doesn't matter to them, they only think of their own position and gain. Revolting isn't it?

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

37. "Creating a context"? Cheney's WHIP has ALWAYS 'created the contexts'.

Who are you talking about?

[autorank]

44. "context" - the release of a history peppered with horrors is, I'm thinking,

the administration's way of positioning their bad behavior as just one more example of bad behavior.

Cheney is a legend in his own mind and a horror in what comes out of it.

[loudsue]

49. But this is the WaPo. You know they've been taken over by the wingnuts.

So you have to ask yourself, "How is this going to benefit the wingnuts"? Because that is where this is headed....certainly NOT to make the Dems look like the good guys! And if it is to add support to Dennis Kucinich's resolution, the "aspens {that are} turning together" are doing it for some reason that benefits THEM in the long run, NOT the populist, "socialist" Dems.

You have to remember....the goal is for a permanent, corporate owned, repuke dominated America. Everything the MSM, as a major player, does, is toward that end.

So if the WaPo is throwing cheney under the bus, it's because they are positioning themselves for something that will benefit them BEFORE the election of 2008. (It is CERTAINLY NOT because they've "seen the light". ) They still have time to do that.... but of course, the Dems don't have time for impeachment. ( :sarcasm: )

:kick::kick::kick:

[OregonBlue]

15. Hints here and other blogs that it is $ 80 Billion that disappeared in the BAE fiasco and that

Dark Dick is involved. Maybe it's true and maybe it's gonna come out!

[marmar]

16. Can a human being be just pure evil?

:scared:

[zippy890]

17. front page Cheney expose at WP

he's not going to like that, he likes to hide in the shadows.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/


IMPEACH CHENEY

[PearliePoo2]

23. No..he's not going to like it one bit

attention WP mail room......

[Harry Monroe]

27. The light will destroy him...

...just like any other vampire. Or we could drive a stake right through that shriveled, frozen diseased heart of his. At least that's how they kill vampires in the movies.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

20. 'exceptionally grave damage to national security.’

Just means it isn't making Darthy any money.

[Hissyspit]

25. .

[FloridaJudy]

28. It's still going to be hard to get rid of him

He's hidden his horcruxes too well. That might partially explain his lack of a soul, though I doubt he had much of one to begin with.
(for those who don't know the reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horcruxes)

[Harry Monroe]

29. A soul??

No, FloridaJudy, that soul is contracted to the Devil himself!!!

[whistle]

32. Is there any doubt that Cheney is a foreign agent spying on the U.S.

...and giving information to foreign enemies who want to bring down this country.

"A White House lawyer with direct knowledge said Cheney’s lawyer, Addington, wrote the memo. Flanigan passed it to Gonzales, and Gonzales sent it as “my judgment” to Bush. If Bush consulted Cheney after that, the vice president became a sounding board for advice he originated himself."

[HCE SuiGeneris]

33. Bandar Bush's personal pillager... n/t

[Fiendish Thingy]

36. all we need now is the DC madam to announce that Dick was on her list...

and even the fundies will abandon him.

Call your rep. now and urge them to sign H.Res 333!!!

[defendandprotect]

38. LBJ maniacally pushed JFK for a co-presidency and . . .

would get himself delivered to the WhiteHouse every day, walk thru and then go on to his office elsewhere!!!

So -- Cheney isn't the first with the idea of knocking out the president by legal means . . .
in LBJ's case, evidently he had to resort to other means.

[Major Hogwash]

41. Is this as bad as it looks, or will it be dismissed by other political commentators?

Will this series even be mentioned on prime time news channels?

Do you think Katie will mention it?
Charlie?
Brian?

How about Chris Matthews?
Or Wolf?
Tucker?

Or do you think they will all ignore it?
The way the Bush administration has been "ignoring" laws.

[Hissyspit]

42. It's as bad as it looks. And it will be dismissed by other political commentators. n/t

[Lasher]

45. I didn't see it mentioned at all on the Sunday talk shows.

It seemed all the pundits wanted to talk about was the 2008 presidential election. In excruciating detail. If this WaPo article about Vlad Cheney was mentioned at all, I missed it.

[Emit]

46. kick n/t

[Spinzonner]

48. And, of course, don't forget who chose Dick Cheney to be Vice-President

Why, astonishingly, it was Dick Cheney

What a coincidence ...

Wonder who chose Dick Cheney to choose the Vice-President

[KoKo]

52. Thanks Hissy! The more we can post parts of this Investigation maybe

we can get attention to ALL of the Evil Deeds that have been going on in this Administration. There's so much in that WaPo four parter that the whole needs to be broken down into parts so that our brains can wrap around it and focus one by one on why Cheney MUST BE IMPEACHED NOW! There's no way to reign him in because he and Addington just manage to ooze their way under and over whatever blocks are put in their way.

[Rex]

53. Hey, it ain't easy running a criminal enterprise like Darth Cheney does.

He has to juggle a lot of things, all immoral or illegal and still have time to spy and watch and plot on how to control more of the world!

I think all those man-sized safes he keeps his shit in, are to keep George OUT. Not just us. I think Cheney about has everything he needs to control America.

FBI - check
SCOTUS - check check
Congress - told to fuck off
WH - check check check
CIA - check
Military - check
Huge corporate sponsor - check check