The twisted world of Liz Cheney
Several profiles, including this long one in the New Yorker, paint a picture of nepotism, merit-free career rides, almost pathological daddy worship and an increasingly twisted sense of reality, all wrapped up in one petite mother of five and “gutter McCarthy,” whom the extremist neocons on the right would dearly love to see as a United States Senator, or even as president. Meanwhile, the Cheney family legacy, waterboarding, is described in grisly detail in internal CIA documents, via Salon. A few chilling details: Read more
Yoda phones Darth Vader, wishes him well
Zen-master Obama must have the greatest self-control in the history of mankind. The Times reports he called his nemesis, Dick Cheney on Wednesday, to wish him a speedy recovery from his recent mild “heart” attack. Class act, that. No word on whether Cheney chided the president for not bringing back the guillotine and thumbscrews for use in the “war on terror” or repeated his snark about Obama not winning a second term during the call.
Shameful: Obama justice department’s epic FAIL on torture lawyers
Still licensed to practice law: John Yoo (left) and Jay Bybee, authors of the "torture memos"
Apparently, concocting memoranda that provide the fig leaf of legality for war crimes is nothing more than “poor judgment.” It pains me to say this, but shame on the Obama Justice Department. The only reason I can possibly come up with, why a senior lawyer at Justice, Assistant Deputy Attorney General David Margolis, would overrule the findings of the Office of Professional Responsibility, which would have found the three lawyers in question, sitting judge Jay Bybee and “unitary executive” inventor John Yoo guilty of professional misconduct, is that maybe the Justice Department fears that such sanction could provide fuel for the torture investigations taking place in Spain?. Who knows, but if that is the case, it wreaks of rank cowardice. Read more
Marco’s new friends (and bringing back Bush-Cheney?)
Dick Cheney made a surprise appearance at John Birch Society-sponsored CPAC conference today, so add him to the list of Marco Rubio’s newfound friends. In fact, Rubio’s fundraising fraternity, which includes Liz Cheney and Mary Matalin, his anointing by Jim DeMint, endorsements from Grover Norquist, (with whom he shares a belief in privatizing Social Security) and Karl Rove; his ties to Jeb Bush (even though apparently, like Iraq before he became president and was drafted into Jebbie’s neocon movement, George had no earthly idea who Rubio was just days ago,) and now his association with the Birchers, birthers, tea partiers and waterboarding fans at CPAC cement Rubio’s new persona: a very particular kind of right wing ideologue that the American people just ran out of Washington in 2008. Here’s Marco taking in the exultation of the torture aficionados:
Maybe it’s just me, but Rubio is looking less and less like some novel tea party confection and more like a Bush-Cheney restoration …
He’s not alone. During his CPAC speech, Romney was unabashed in his praise for the unloved former president. And with the Cheneys, Liz and Dick, being stars of the show along with Rubio, I think we’re seeing something truly remarkable: Republicans are full-on running on bringing back the Bush-Cheney era (well, at least the first term Bush-Cheney era, before Dubya came to his senses on the torture stuff …) from tax cuts for the rich, to torture, to deregulation, the whole hog. Hard to believe, but apparently true. Talk about chutzpah…?
Dick Cheney’s war on W
Peter Beinart updates a theme that’s been rattling around Washington (and that I’ve believed for some time): Dick Cheney’s seeming anger at Barack Obama is really anger at George W. Bush, for turning away from his authoritarian, pro-torture, really quite insane neocon foreign and national security policy ideas by the end of Bush’s first term. Read more
Dick Cheney doubles down: ‘a strong believer in waterboarding’
Dick Cheney wanted the Obama administration to waterboard the undiebomber. He wants to keep waterboarding people at Gitmo. For all we know, he wants to have his former White House colleagues waterboarded too, for defying his evil designs after the 2004 election (when he began to lose more intramural battles than he won, on closing Gitmo, getting out of Iraq, torture, etc.) So the question is, how many times does a guy have to openly admit to war crimes before somebody bothers to prosecute him? Read more
Politico mines the dark heart of Dick Cheney
Who else but Mike Allen and Jim Vendehei to channel the inner thoughts of Dick Cheney, in an attempt to figure out “why he does it” (going after President Obama, that is.) But this time, they also field emails from his critics, including Andrew Sullivan: Read more
Mr. Stenographer
Politico’s Mike Allen gets the shaming he deserves for his faithful transcription of all things Cheney. Andrew Sullivan sums it up:
“There he goes again … the mouthpiece for Rove and Cheney, believing his ‘access’ as a stenographer makes him a journalist. It doesn’t. It makes him a stenographer.”
Shut up, Dick Cheney
Why does the former vice president hate President Obama more than he hats the terrorists? The bathtub ring of the Bush administration crawled out from underneath his bridge again to make comment on the undiebomber, and revived his prognosis that the world is still coming to an ugly end:
“As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of Sept. 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war. Read more
Line of the day: ‘bathtub ring’
“Did anybody expect Dick Cheney to become the bathtub ring of the Bush administration?” — Chris Matthews today on his NBC Sunday show.
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