All of these revelations are seen through the writer's eyes as if he'd been there for every conversation, when no one really knows how these decisions were arrived at.... The quotes seem fabricated in the writer's imagination.
Criddic, the New Yorker article is referring to a series of Washington Post articles, which contain interviews with individuals--including Christine Todd Whitman--that reveal all of this dubious behavior. This is not some writer's imagination at work; these are primary sources revealing all.
It sure didn't read that way in the editorial.
What gave you that impression, Criddic? Was it the part where the article reads "For four days last week, the front page of the Washington Post was dominated by a remarkable series of articles slugged 'ANGLER: THE CHENEY VICE PRESIDENCY.' The series, by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker, occupied sixteen broadsheet pages and topped out at twenty thousand words. The headline over last Monday’s installment encapsulates the burden of the whole: “The Unseen Path to Cruelty" Yes, I can see how that could have confused you.
Or maybe it was this section "Some of the Post’s findings have been foreshadowed elsewhere. But many of the details and incidents that Gellman and Becker document..." that made you think the New Yorker writer was making everything up.
Or maybe it was this passage? "With an avalanche of examples, Gellman and Becker show..." Or was it the myriad "they show", "they report", "they reveal" peppered throughout the article? All of these references to the series in the Washington Post and the authors who wrote it, and yet you come to the conclusion that the New Yorker author speculated everything!
How disappointing, Criddic. I'd have figured you'd have a devastating reply to all the points I made a few days ago. But I come back Monday and I see you've allowed yourself to be distracted by a conversation about a New Yorker article.
It's not difficult to see why you let that happen. You responded to the article because you thought it was speculative. And so, it's a lot easier for you to address it than it is for you to address my arguments, which are concrete and backed up with quotes and other bits of evidence.
Since you decided to ignore my post, I therefore conclude that you concede my argument and you have seen the errors in your reasoning. You don't have the courage to admit it, natch. But this is a good first step. You'll be changing party affiliation soon enough.
cam wrote:criddic: I was giving you several days to think about it. Obviously, you have not thought about it for before you write. A very impatient man and impetuous as well.
As you so noted: "power breeds contempt". I believe THAT IS WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT AND HAVE BEEN ALL ALONG. Did you read the site that Damien pointed you to? Likely not. Oh well, it will not be long before you hide your head in disgrace.
Time to read "Animal Farm": One of the themes is that power corrupts(your words) and ABSOLUTE POWER LEADS TO ABSOLUTE CORRUPTION. Again: this is what we have been saying all along. Cheney is absolutely corrupt. Do you argue with that?
I said Power breeds contempt, but I was directing the contempt statement at his opponents. When Presidents assert their power, there is invariably an outcry about it. Investigations, a drop in polls, etc. But that doesn't always lead to a finding of corruption, even if some assume there is corruption to find.
This President has often reached deep into the powers of the Presidency that the general public, and indeed the media and even Congress, may not be terribly familiar with. Thus, we find all of these people assuming there is corruption in their usage, but that doesn't make it so.
I've yet to be convinced that many of these programs and policies are unconstitutional or illegal. In fact many of the things put in place by this administration prove useful and would benefit future Presidents who engage in the War on Terror. I suspect that most of those who oppose President Bush seriously (not just riding the tide of trends and polls) feel that the War on Terror is nothing more than another War on Drugs. While both were entered into seriously, the two terms couldn't be more different. The War on Drugs is a slogan meant to drum up support for stopping drug trading, etc., but the War on Terror is more than John Edwards' bumper sticker. There are real terrorists bent on killing anyone who opposes their radical beliefs. They have said so themselves.
Anyway, before I get accused of "towing the party line" by making a speech on terrorism, I will just say that you are so wrong about me, cam. But it doesn't matter, because this is a website and a message board, and you can blast away at me all you want. You have the right to do so, and I have a right to defend my beliefs, too.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
OscarGuy wrote:There's no point, Cam. As you notice, Criddic is still towing the company line regarding the warrantless surveillance program as being LEGIT...If he can't grasp the reality of the illegality of that program, then he's forever lost and will have nothing important nor competent to say about the political landscape.
A federal court just ruled against a lawsuit brought on the program, so that's not a true statement Oscarguy.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
Undoubtedly cridic reads neo-con posings somewhere else, and comes on the UAADB board to bug us. My feeling is that if he doesn't have anything "important"(OG) to say about the "political landscape", we should , as a whole, ignore him.
There's no point, Cam. As you notice, Criddic is still towing the company line regarding the warrantless surveillance program as being LEGIT...If he can't grasp the reality of the illegality of that program, then he's forever lost and will have nothing important nor competent to say about the political landscape.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
criddic: I was giving you several days to think about it. Obviously, you have not thought about it for before you write. A very impatient man and impetuous as well.
As you so noted: "power breeds contempt". I believe THAT IS WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT AND HAVE BEEN ALL ALONG. Did you read the site that Damien pointed you to? Likely not. Oh well, it will not be long before you hide your head in disgrace.
Time to read "Animal Farm": One of the themes is that power corrupts(your words) and ABSOLUTE POWER LEADS TO ABSOLUTE CORRUPTION. Again: this is what we have been saying all along. Cheney is absolutely corrupt. Do you argue with that?
Penelope wrote:Criddic, the New Yorker article is referring to a series of Washington Post articles, which contain interviews with individuals--including Christine Todd Whitman--that reveal all of this dubious behavior. This is not some writer's imagination at work; these are primary sources revealing all.
It sure didn't read that way in the editorial.
The decision by Bush to commute Libby's sentence is being treated in some quarters as being some great corrupt abuse of powers. It is no such thing, but these people love to make it seem that way, so that they can reinforce the image they have crafted for a long time in their respective media.
Whether it's his terrorist-surveillance program (despite it being legit, and useful) or his limits on embryonic stem cell research (he is the first president to allow any federal funding at all), some in the media twist each decision into some grave injustice to society. Why should this be any different?
I can see the public hanging onto every twisted notion in these editorials and responding negatively in polls, which will hurt the President, but I don't think history will be as unkind as some say. Power breeds contempt. This president has used some of the powers of the office that are rarely exercised and many people will be willing to view that as proof of corruption. What is amazing about that is it only proves how ignorant people can be about how the government is supposed to work. I'm confident that when President Bush makes an important decision he consults his lawyers and advisors to make sure that they are sound constitutionally and legally, because he knows their are political ramifications.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
Sunday, July 8th 2007, 4:00 AM
WASHINGTON - Moments after President Gerald Ford's stunning Sunday morning pardon of Richard Nixon in 1974, I encountered a top Ford aide just outside the Cabinet Room.
Asked for my opinion, I replied: "Howard, he just lost the 1976 election."
At that moment, Nixon's chief of staff, Gen. Alexander Haig, wandered past and begged to differ with my shortsighted analysis.
"He just made his first presidential decision," Haig corrected.
As history shows, we were both right: The controversial pardon of his predecessor sealed Ford's defeat by Jimmy Carter, but also helped heal a Watergate-weary nation.
President Bush's intervention to keep Lewis (Scooter) Libby out of jail may not be treated as kindly by history. And for the short term, he will likely get to relive the Ford experience after the shock of the pardon and see his popularity and moral authority plunge even lower. Republicans fear the odds of the next President being a Democrat have just risen exponentially.
The outraged reaction of Democrats, many of whom stared at their shoes when Bill Clinton's eleventh-hour pardons of cronies and contributors fouled the Oval Office, was predictable. But some Republicans - including former federal prosecutors aghast at the chilling effect on sentencing guidelines - were also appalled.
"The dirty little secret is that in his own way, Bush has shown as much contempt for the law as Clinton did," said Curt Smith, a speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush.
"We have now witnessed the evisceration of the Bush presidency by its own hand," lamented a mandarin of the Washington Republican establishment who supported Bush enthusiastically in 2000.
As a practical matter, Bush's moral standing has been further dissipated by the spectacle of a former law-and-order governor and a President benefiting a convicted felon who used to work for him - particularly after he'd vowed to deal harshly with whoever leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to the media.
When Libby was nailed for lying about Plame, Bush's partisans were reduced to arguing lamely that Clinton's pardons of fugitive financier Marc Rich and others were more craven.
In one sense, the decision isn't surprising. The Bush clan has always prized loyalty over competence, so voiding a stiff jail sentence for a man who used to be his senior aide as well as Vice President Cheney's consigliere is wholly in character.
What's more surprising is the contorted logic of a decision short-circuiting standard legal processes by the chief law enforcement officer of the land. Even Paris Hilton, after all, served some time.
"Thirty months in jail was absolutely excessive," a senior Republican political operative noted, "but zero is offensive to the average American. Commuting to 60 days in jail would have made this a lot more palatable to the average person."
There's no question Bush was totally within his authority to spare Libby. It's also entirely possible he has shored up his conservative base, openly rebellious over his middle-ground immigration posture.
As Bush's Supreme Court appointments have proven, he retains significant executive power. The net result of the Libby decision, however, significantly weakens his governing power. Vetoing bills and issuing executive orders are weak substitutes for passing an agenda, and helping Scooter has further depleted Bush's waning influence.
"He made one of those pure political decisions every President makes that costs you capital," a Bush confidant who talks with him regularly told the Daily News. "The problem is, he didn't have a lot of capital left to spend."
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
Criddic, the New Yorker article is referring to a series of Washington Post articles, which contain interviews with individuals--including Christine Todd Whitman--that reveal all of this dubious behavior. This is not some writer's imagination at work; these are primary sources revealing all.
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
I read the New Yorker article, which is an editorial which revels in descriptive language like saying Cheney is "pathologically (but purposefully) secretive; treacherous toward colleagues; coldly manipulative of the callow, lazy, and ignorant President he serves; contemptuous of public opinion; and dismissive not only of international law (a fairly standard attitude for conservatives of his stripe) but also of the very idea that the Constitution and laws of the United States, including laws signed by his nominal superior." The whole thing is actually very vague. It basically accuses Vice President Cheney of abusing the law and controlling what President Bush does.
Two specific charges the writer makes is that he forced Christine Todd Whitman out based on her refusal to sign on to one of Cheney's environmental policies. The means by which this was done seem rather cold. The quotes seem fabricated in the writer's imagination, conjuring images of a dictatorial Cheney running things as if he were a mob boss, while Bush is merely a figure head. The other instance is when he describes Bush "rebelling" against his vice president by choosing Harriet Miers without "consulting" him.
All of these revelations are seen through the writer's eyes as if he'd been there for every conversation, when no one really knows how these decisions were arrived at.
I suspect the truth is closer to the accounts of the series of meetings President Bush held with staff about how to handle the Libby case.
The style of the article seems to be a half-serious attempt to be funny, while suggesting a new play entitled "Bush/Cheney," in which we learn all the dirty deeds done by this administration. How enlightening.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
Cam, Criddic's response will largely be that there's no proof to any of the accusations and then go into lame republican talking points try to disprove any that he's heard "refuted" and then ignore those which he hasn't read about or heard some good defense of so he doesn't have to say anything original.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
Thanks, Damien for this, from all of us, who might not be able to get the New Yorker on a stand near where they live.
So, criddic, you have no excuse, you don't have to get dressed and leave the house, as when you do , I imagine you see Demo plots behind each drawn curtain. It's frightening out there for a Republican Cultist!
Read this. How does a died-in-the-wool Bushie defend this behaviour from a man "a heart's beat", etc.ct. Let's hear your reaction to the article by ,say, Tuesday, OK? We are genuinely interested in what you have to say.
