"Watergate and a lot of the things around Watergate and Vietnam, both during the 1970s, served, I think, to erode the authority I think the president needs to be effective, especially in the national security area," Cheney told reporters traveling with him on Air Force Two. "Especially in the day and age we live in … the president of the United States needs to have his constitutional powers unimpaired, if you will, in terms of the conduct of national security policy."
Cheney Defends Domestic Spying
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December 21, 2005
No Lessons Learned
Comments
heard Cheney on the radio saying that with this kind of surveillance they could have stopped 9-11. Um, didn’t they have intelligence already in the summer of 2001?
He also noted that no attacks like 9-11 have occurred since 9-11, so it’s working.
yeah, ever since 9/11 I’ve been sacrificing babies so it wont happen again. My baby sacrificial program is working. And if you don’t agree, you’re with the enemy.
maybe 911 happened because of VP Cheney’s order TO STAND DOWN.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 21 2005 11:04 utc | 1
“He’s living in a time warp,” said Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer and Reagan administration official. “The great irony is Bush inherited the strongest presidency of anyone since Franklin Roosevelt, and Cheney acts as if he’s still under the constraints of 1973 …”
I just hope Cheney doesn’t find it necessary to nuke the Soviet Union.
Posted by: Anonymous | Dec 21 2005 12:28 utc | 2
Possibly OT but the black humor of it and all:
It’s not much of a cheese shop, is it?
by d r i f t g l a s s
Posted by: beq | Dec 21 2005 12:34 utc | 3
Report: Syria agrees to hide Iran nukes
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Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 21 2005 13:13 utc | 4
@ Uncle $cam
I agree, but take a look at
Moscow News , which may be telling us another reason for Porter Goss’s visit to the Ukraine. (Or, the Moscow News story may all be hogwash too.)
Posted by: Anonymous | Dec 21 2005 15:16 utc | 5
President Bush presents a clear and present danger to the rule of law. He cannot be trusted to conduct the war against global terrorism with a decent respect for civil liberties and checks against executive abuses. Congress should swiftly enact a code that would require Mr. Bush to obtain legislative consent for every counterterrorism measure that would materially impair individual freedoms.
. . . unlimited? by Bruce Fein, Associate Deputy Attorney General under Reagan
Thinking out loud for a minute…
I’ve mentioned before here, during Katrina, that as tinfoil-hattish as it sounds I’ve come to believe that this crew doesn’t ever think they’re going to give up power.
One way I thought they might try to hold on was with another major attack on a US city. But looking at the 2006 elections and the way they have their backs up defending the “what the president wants the president can do” approach leads me to a simpler thought:
At first glance it would seem Congressional Republicans have absolutely nothing to run on in ’06. But there actually is one thing, and it’s just the kind of thing they love. As long as Bush and Cheney look vulnerable and the Dems are making increasingly open and loud impeachment noises, they can blanket the country with shouts of “OH MY GOD, YOU DON’T WANT NANCY PELOSI AS PRESIDENT!!! YOU CAN’T VOTE DEM THIS YEAR” They’ll go with the usual scare tactics… ‘You’ll be taxed broke!’ ‘We’ll be invaded and converted to Islam, at least those of us who don’t get beheaded!’ etc etc.
And it will work.
I have no clue how best to avoid this, I’m just pointing.
Posted by: mats | Dec 21 2005 17:23 utc | 7
Hey it’s not like some of us (been there done that, thank you Franco) didn’t see it coming.
OK folks you basically have only three choices:
1) leave the country
2) get used to being angry (not too loudly) when the Leader speaks, the Leader lies, walking or driving by the Leader’s portraits, hearing the Leader’s slogans (“Support the Troops!”), sort of like in Putin’s Russia; it’s not so bad, you’ll see, I’m not talking Nazi Germany, as long as you don’t make shit, you can lead a pretty ordinary life
3) become what they call a terrorist
If you think there’ll be another choice in the near future, you’re kidding yourselves.
Posted by: Lupin | Dec 21 2005 17:52 utc | 8
If all the discussions about whether 9/11 was a conspiracy or a cock-up, no wmd was the result of a meticulously executed but incredibly mendacious disinformation campaign are put to one side, we are left with one appalling truth. That is the Bush Cheney doctrine of unlimited CinC power in times of war takes us to one inescapable conclusion..
That is that once a Prez is in a state of war it is impossible for him to ever end that war. To do so would mean the loss of the totalitarian powers he needs to use to conceal the true depths of his administration’s corruption.
The perpetual state of war Orwell spoke of in 1984 was used to keep the sheeple in line with fear and uncertainty.
This is different. This is giving one man, the president, the sort of power that meglomaniacs wet their pants dreaming about. The only proviso is that the citizens of the state the meglomaniac is prez of must die and be maimed violently in sufficient numbers to justify the continued state of war.
Did Congress actually ever declare war on Iraq? I know they voted in support of invasion and ‘the troops’ but I don’t know if there was ever a formal declaration of war. If there was shouldn’t it have been lifted in the ‘Mission Accomplished ‘phase?
These are not idle questions. If BushCo gets away with the canard of total C in C power with absolutely no constitutional safeguards in times of war; I’m afraid that in 2004 the US elected it’s first president for life.
Bad poll numbers will have repug strategists grinning from ear to ear because given the other half of the party’s talk of withdrawal and capitulation it is obvious that liberal propaganda has sapped the will of the people.
Therefore as a responsible CinC, W, relunctantly and with anger at the terrible destruction of our freedoms that these islamofascists have wrought, will have to suspend elections and unilaterally abolish the two term limit on preznints.
You will thank him for it in the long run. In the meantime you can thank the independent contractors who have bravely decided to stand guard on every street corner thereby ensuring the rule of law is maintained without having to deplete our military’s sterling effort to introduce freedom to those oppressed by islamofacists.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Dec 21 2005 19:09 utc | 10
The following essentuates Did’s wise words above…
Dick Cheney has put it on the table as bluntly and thuggishly as a mobster setting down a crowbar.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 21 2005 21:07 utc | 11
This is good (sarcasm) news, that Mr. Potato Head, aka Dick — Tater has finally come out with the essential true — ism of the full extent of elite victimization, post vietnam. That this democracy rubbish is innherently weak by its whinning and tether to endless squabbling and flaccid compromise, that has marginalized at every turn, the will to power — and virtue. It’s about time the truth be revealed, drooling out as it were, from between the facades of comity justice, and egalitarianism — unmasked now, and in the full sunlight for all examine, admire, embrace, and ultimately to consume. Thank you Mr. Potato Head for your rote wisdom and knowledge from the underworld, that you so willingly dredge up and served up, perhaps, “with a nice Chianti”, not only of the mind but also of the body of the other. And if the other is to include ourselves, well so be it, for a ravenous appetite should know no bounds in its glory of satisfaction. Thank you Mr. Potato Head, I like mine with lots of butter and chives.
Posted by: anna missed | Dec 21 2005 21:15 utc | 12
Back to Nixon era just as Cheney likes it:
New York Police Covertly Join In at Protest Rallies
Undercover New York City police officers have conducted covert surveillance in the last 16 months of people protesting the Iraq war, bicycle riders taking part in mass rallies and even mourners at a street vigil for a cyclist killed in an accident, a series of videotapes show.
In glimpses and in glaring detail, the videotape images reveal the robust presence of disguised officers or others working with them at seven public gatherings since August 2004.
The officers hoist protest signs. They hold flowers with mourners. They ride in bicycle events. At the vigil for the cyclist, an officer in biking gear wore a button that said, “I am a shameless agitator.” She also carried a camera and videotaped the roughly 15 people present.
Beyond collecting information, some of the undercover officers or their associates are seen on the tape having influence on events. At a demonstration last year during the Republican National Convention, the sham arrest of a man secretly working with the police led to a bruising confrontation between officers in riot gear and bystanders.
Let’s just clean up that quote from Cheney:
“Especially in the day and age we live in … the president of the United States needs to have his constitutional powers unimpaired”
what he means is
“since 9/11 the President is to have unimpaired powers”.
Posted by: ralphieboy | Dec 23 2005 6:07 utc | 14
thanks to all for this thread – I felt this way too – “unlimited powers” (chills down spine). And when you talk out in the Heartland to the folks like I do, who still support Bush and the war, they believe we should unquestioningly support Our Leader, also a hallmark of the future/flash of the past. But I disagree with mats, it won’t be that sloppy. Their election themes will be Strength and Morality, as they are already here in Ohio, and Right-wing buzzwords such as “Character”. They’re not stupid, people, if they were stupid they wouldn’t have this much power. They still make mistakes, as they’re still semi-human. But they are NOT stupid.
Posted by: francoise | Dec 26 2005 12:11 utc | 15