Dick Cheney

Fast forward to about the 2:30 mark and check out Alan Grayson’s little jab at Cheney. This guy is teh awesome!

Tonight Ed Schultz had Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY-29) and while talking about Cheney’s typical fear-mongering response, Massa decided it was time to call Cheney out. He challenges Cheney to a debate. When Ed told Massa Cheney would only do it on Fox, Massa said “so”. This was great and I wonder if Cheney will take him up on it.

For those not familar with Massa, he is a former Republican and retired Navy commander. While serving he was a top aide to General Wesley Clark when Clark was the NATO Supreme Commander. Massa was also a Republican, but left the party mainly over the issue of the Iraq War.

Massa has all the merits to debate how to fight and win this war on terror, so if Cheney feels he is so right about everything then he should have nothing to feat debating Massa. Can we get this scheduled now? I really think the American people deserve to hear a true debate about the war on terror.

Can we have more of this please?

There are numerous other such public statements that explicitly state we are at war. The difference is this: President Obama doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove it, and – unlike the last Administration – we are not at war with a tactic (“terrorism”), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies. And we will prosecute that war as long as the American people are endangered.

That is exactly the right statement to make. Cheney and Bush used terrorism as a political game, instead of taking it seriously. For proof of that look no further than Afghanistan. We need to remind the American people that the President, the very one that Cheney is accusing of being “weak on terrorism”, has expanded the war on terrorism after Bush and Cheney ignored the real front line for years so they could launch a pet-project called Iraq.

People also need to be reminded that chances are the co-conspirators of the Christmas day attempt were released from Gitmo under the Bush administration, and there is a big chance that they became much more radicalized (or maybe even just became radicalized) while in Gitmo. We have seen a serious trend of this happening in the past and the Bush administration chose to ignore it. They turned Gitmo into a terrorist factory, which is why it needs shut down.

We knew it was only a matter of time before Dick Cheney would crawl out from his undisclosed dungeon of torture and make some really absurd statement:

"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 9/11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.

“He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core al Qaeda trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, ‘war on terror,’ we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency – social transformation—the restructuring of American society. President Obama’s first object and his highest responsibility must be to defend us against an enemy that knows we are at war."

Let’s tear these apart.

“Low Key Response”

President Obama spoke three days after the incident. When an extremely similar incident occurred in December of 2001 it took Bush a week to speak. If Obama has committed a “low key response” then Bush is guilty of flat out ignoring an incident.

Putting Terrorists On Trial

Again – Richard Reid. This is a man who was tried in court and is serving his sentence out in an American court. All this happened under Bush, and we didn’t hear of these fears back them. Also the attempted Christmas bomber is in regular custody and supplying tons of information to interrogators. No need to torture and move to Gitmo. Using the system that this country has had for 233 years is working.

Releasing Terrorists

Which administration released two of the co-conspirators in this failed terrorist attempt? Oh yeah – it was Bush and Cheney. Enough said.

Closing Gitmo

Someone else wanted Gitmo closed. Remember who it was? Oh yeah – Cheney’s former boss, George Bush.

War on Terror

Again – the phrase “war on terror” was dropped under the Bush administration, but that is nothing but a game of semantics. Let’s look at something more tangible, the actual actions. Bush ignored Afghanistan for 7 years while the success we were having was deteriorating, giving al Qaeda time to regroup. President Obama is the one who has ratcheted up the effort and committed more troops to the war. Afghanistan was a Bush failure, and Cheney sat right there and let it happen.

Dick Cheney is the very reason the American people do not trust the right on national security. They are more worried about finger pointing and lying than addressing the actual problem. Dick Cheney is nothing but a liar and national disgrace. It’s time for him to slither back into his hole and not show his ugly little head ever again.

Adding…. It is becoming more evident that Mike Allen at Politico is nothing more than the press secretary for Dick Cheney. He just jots down everything Cheney says and never actually engages in journalism.

To keep the record straight on the details about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, I want to do a quick recap:

• In 2007, under Bush, two of Abdulmutallab co-conspirators were released from Gitmo and sent to Saudi Arabia. (source)
• Abdulmutallab was given a visa to the United States in June 2008, despite being on the terrorist watch list because he “attended a reputable school” and “had money” (source).
• This past summer House Republicans kept stalling a bill to give more money to the TSA for extra screening and bomb detecting devices. (source)
• Currently the appointed head of the TSA is held up in Senate by Republican Jim DeMint (source)

And somehow all of this is Obama’s fault.

I want to clear this up right now. I called for Janet Napolitano to either resign or be fired today and I still stand by that. Her comments yesterday showed an individual afraid to take any responsibility and we can not tolerate that. Will any of the blogs on the right try to hold Republicans accountable for their contributions to this? Any at all?

If we want to be serious about fighting terrorism we must stop using it as a political tool. If we don’t do that then al Qaeda will continue to have victories. It’s enough of these childish “it’s his fault” games. Both parties and administrations have some fault in this, and to deny that is to treat terrorism like a childish game.

I am really curious to hear how the wingnuts spin this one:

Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Northwest bombing in a Monday statement that vowed more attacks on Americans.

American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.

Released from Gitmo under Bush/Cheney. Well the explains why Cheney has been eerily silent about the events of Christmas day.

And this headline here is perfect humor to ease the health care reform fatigue stress:

Dick Cheney: HUMAN EVENTS' Conservative of the Year

Oh wait – let my get it all:

Dick Cheney: HUMAN EVENTS' Conservative of the Year
by  John R. Bolton

There – that’s better. Needed that byline in there. Nothing like naming your former boss conservative of the year.

Yesterday on Hardall, Alan Grayson had a strong message for the former vice-president – STFU!

Last night Chris Matthews referred to the former veep as a “troll”. I will give tweety credit on this line, as it was funny, as compared to his comparison of West Point as the “enemy camp”

And so I present us with the official Dick Cheney troll doll:

A hint about a possible Cheney run for the Oval Office was dropped yesterday by none other than his daughter:

I couldn’t think of anything better, except maybe a Cheney/Palin ticket. Take a man who no one trusts, combine it with a total ding bat and put it on the Republican ticket. If that happens I doubt President Obama would even need to campaign.

That’s the meme the wingnuts are trying to spin right now, following the lead of Byron York:

Vice President Joe Biden's favorable rating has fallen to 42 percent in a new Gallup poll, down from a high of 59 percent just after last year's election. Biden's unfavorable rating in the new poll is 40 percent, up from 29 percent last November. (Eighteen percent of those surveyed say they have no opinion of Biden.)

Biden's average favorable rating during his time in office so far is 45 percent -- well below the average 65 percent favorable rating for Vice President Dick Cheney during Cheney's first year in office. Vice President Al Gore's favorable rating during his first year, 55 percent, was also higher than Biden's. (Gallup did not measure vice presidential popularity before Gore.)

This really isn’t that shocking. Biden hasn’t been front and center on a lot of stuff. We just went from a period of imperial vice-presidencies, lead by Cheney, to returning the office back to it’s constitutionally intended place.

What’s really interesting though is how York finishes his post:

Finally, there is a greater gap between Biden's favorable rating and President Obama's than there was between Cheney and President George W. Bush and Gore and President Bill Clinton. Biden's 45 percent average favorable rating this year is well below Obama's average of 63 percent. Cheney's 65 percent average was near Bush's average of 69 percent, and Gore's 55 percent rating was close to Clinton's average of 57 percent.

Let’s examine what happened in the first years of all these presidencies. Clinton took office amid a recession, albeit a much more mild one as compared to the near depression level economy Obama had to contend with since day one. Bush and Cheney had something happen in that first year too. What was it? Apparently York has forgotten about it, but I don’t think none of us have. It was 9/11. Whenever a country is attacked people flock behind their leaders. Even the most bleeding heart liberals supported Bush and Cheney after the attacks.

So Byron – when Biden’s approval rating gets down to the 13% mark then I will grant you a victory lap.

OK this is beyond priceless:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday night accused the White House of dithering over the strategy for the war in Afghanistan and urged President Barack Obama to "do what it takes to win."

"Make no mistake. Signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries," Cheney said while accepting an award from a conservative national security group, the Center for Security Policy.

And how long did Bush “dither” when it came to Iraq? Which administration pulled Afghanistan from the brink of victory and plunged us back to a situation worse than when the war first started?

Those are serious questions that have very serious, yet obvious answers. There is even a more important question though – why is Cheney out there saying this? Doesn’t he know that this destroys the morale of our troops and becomes propaganda for our enemies? I mean if this was pre-Obama that’s exactly what Cheney would be saying if someone on the left said this exact same thing. As matter of fact that’s exactly what they did numerous times.

So the final question – why does Dick Cheney hate America and our troops?

I was reading the excellent post by Sully in which he describes Chris Wallace’s interview of Dick Cheney as “a teenage girl interviewing the Jonas Brothers”. While reading it I started thinking about all the Cheney interviews in the past, and believe me there wasn’t many out there.

When the going got tough, Cheney always took to the airwaves. He would jump into the lion’s den cuddly kitten factory known as Rush Limbaugh and FOX News. The man has never faced an actual interview. He hasn’t been pushed on any of his views or actions, essentially castrating the entire fourth estate.

Is it any wonder that Eric Holder is investigating torture? If Cheney would have actually defended the process instead of saying “we say its ok, so its ok”, then we might be in a different position today. Instead he exhibits the signs of a Megalomanic. Power given to such a man is a danger to any democracy, and we saw what it did to ours.

If Cheney really believes what he did was right then he wouldn’t fear facing actual interviewers. He would proudly take his defense to other interviewers like Jon Stewart or Rachael Maddow. But he can’t have his beliefs or power questioned, so instead he can only appear with friends. Dick Cheney is the biggest coward to ever serve this country, and people need to start calling him on it.

From CNN:

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey, released Monday, suggests that 70 percent have a favorable opinion of Powell, who was Secretary of State during President George W. Bush's first term, and who served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Persian Gulf War.

Only 30 percent of those polled have a favorable view of Limbaugh, the popular conservative radio talk show host, with 53 percent saying they hold an unfavorable opinion.

In poll numbers released Thursday, 37 percent say they have a favorable opinion of Dick Cheney, with 55 percent indicating they hold an unfavorable view of the former vice president.

So Powell’s approval rating is higher than Cheney and Limbaugh’s combined. This should serve as a sign to the GOP – drop Cheney and Limbaugh and embrace Powell. Powell is the kind of person who would help bring people into the GOP fold, unlike the divisive Cheney Limbaugh show. That’s what the GOP needs to become a party of relevance again.

Of course none of that will happen though. The GOP is ran by a pack of cowards. If one of them says anything that can be construed as negative against the Rushssiah then they must flock to his airwaves, kneel down and kiss his royal fat ass.

That brings us to what should be a new DNC tag line:

If the Republicans can’t stand up to Rush Limbaugh, how can we trust them to stand up to nations and terrorists?

Yup – that would be a crushing message.

While the media and right try to pin everything involving torture on Nancy Pelosi, today it’s time to go back to the real criminals involved – the previous administration. At a time when the American press abandoned their core principals and became nothing more than an echo chamber for the Bush White House, Cheney was working to generate even more reasons to invade Iraq, particularly a link between Saddam and 9/11.