Dick Cheney

On the night of Wed. April 16, comedian Mo Rocca walked across the stage in the spacious auditorium at the Hilton Washington on Connecticut Avenue in Washington D.C. and thanked several hundred reporters, politicians, and celebrities for showing up at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner.

"I know that the White House Correspondents' dinner in about 10 days gets most of the glory," said the ubiquitous political satirist and sometime MSNBC contributor. "I think of this one as sort of the Nicky to that one's Paris Hilton. This is sort of the Jamie Lynn to that dinner's Britney. Well that dinner is sort of like CNN. This one is MSNBC."  read more »

Dick Cheney will be a featured guest at an April 21 fund-raising lunch for Vito Fossella, the city’s only Republican congressman, a sign that the national Republican Party is putting in a major effort to hold onto the seat.

Fossella represents parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island. The event is taking place at 740 Park Avenue in Manhattan, at the home of Republican contributors David and Julia Koch

The invite, which a reader passed along, reminds guests to get there early “to allow for required security checks”:  read more »

This morning at 6am, Don Imus kicked off his new morning show on WABC. It didn't take long for him to get back to old business.

"Not much has changed,' said Mr. Imus, roughly thirty minutes into the program. "Dick Cheney is still a war criminal, Hillary Clinton is still Satan and I'm back on the radio!"

via FishbowlDC

The Pentagon has launched a preventive strike against a target that military chiefs presumably regard as one of the most active current threats to U.S. and world security—namely, the office of the vice president of the United States.  read more »

Governor Bill Richardson has found the day's most creative way to attack the Bush administration.

In an email his campaign just sent out to reporters titled "Governor Bill Richardson Statement on New England Patriots Spying Incident,"  Richardson is quoted as telling voters in Iowa today that "The President has been allowed to spy on Americans without a warrant, and our U.S. Senate is letting it continue. You know something is wrong when the New England Patriots face stiffer penalties for spying on innocent Americans than Dick Cheney and George Bush."

 

For all the author’s heroic mike-pointing, he delivers at best a two-dimensional portrait of a genuinely complicated statesman.  read more »

In days, the calendar will turn to July, a month that will mark the eighth anniversary of the one decision that, it is only becoming more apparent, has defined the course of George W.  read more »

TEHRAN, IRAN—It wasn’t quite President Bush, the flight suit and “Mission Accomplished.” But Vice President Dick Cheney still managed to flex some rhetorical muscles from the hangar deck of the U.S.S. John C. Stennis on Friday. But in downtown Tehran on Monday, Mr. Cheney’s verbal comments didn’t seem to be having much effect.  read more »

“When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it w  read more »

Representative Charlie Rangel just called now to explain his strident and surprisingly personal objections to Eliot Spitzer's health care spending plan, which included an assertion that the governor has an anger problem.

In a brief interview with Rangel just now, he said, "We're going to have to clear the air if we're going to operate as professionals. Period. No further comment."

He went on to say that the whole debate is "very unpleasant for me," and "we're not going to be distracted by television ads."

The conversation also included this fun exchange:

CR: So, I don't want to get any further involved. I will be getting further involved, but not where you're taking me.

AP: I'm not trying to take you anywhere.

CR: Well you should, if you're a professional reporter...

The full transcript is after the jump.  read more »

-- Azi Paybarah

Day by day, witness by witness, exhibit by exhibit, Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor in the trial  read more »

Americans frustrated with the Democratic Congressional leaders for dithering over Iraq should never  read more »

Now that everyone except Dick Cheney agrees that Iraq has dissolved into civil war, I grabbed a couple of neocons' (and neolibs') books off my shelf last night to see how they treated the issue of Sunnis and Shi'ites killing one another, back when these brains were pushing for the U.S. to invade Iraq.

Here are Bill Kristol and Lawrence F. Kaplan (in The War Over Iraq, 2003):

"That things might be worse without [Saddam] is of course a possibility. But... it is difficult to imagine how... Nevertheless, Powell and others have argued that if the United States alienates central Iraq's Sunnis, say by overthrowing Saddam, Iraq could be plunged into chaos... But predictions of ethnic turmoil in Iraq are even more questionable than they were in the case of Afghanistan... Saddam has little support among any ethnic group, Sunnis included, and the Iraqi opposition [!] is itself a multiethnic force... Iraq was a multiethnic, multisectarian state before Saddam came to power... [T]he executive director of the Iraq Foundation, Rend Rahim Francke, says, 'we will not have a civil war in Iraq. This is contrary to Iraqi history, and Iraq has not had a history of communal conflict as there has been in the Balkans or in Afghanistan... Iraq will not fall apart and will not be dismembered...'"

Then there's Kenneth Pollack, in The Threatening Storm (the liberals' manifesto for invasion), arguing that urban Iraq is way past such differences:

The Shi'ite clergy could represent the small percentage of Shi'ites who favor an Islamic form of government, but they probably constitute less than 15 percent of the Shi'ite population... [T]ribal Iraqis living in tribal circumstances (Sunni or Shi'ah) now comprise a fraction of the population, probably less than 15 percent. On the other hand, 70 percent of the population is urban, and evne those city dwellers who retain some links to their tribes probably would not want to be represented by shaykhs who know nothing about life in Iraq's cities....[T]he mostly secular urban lower and middle classes... constitute the bulk of Iraq's population..."

Then there's David Wurmser, Cheney's brainy adviser, arguing (in Tyranny's Ally, 1999, published by the visionary American Enterprise Institute with support by Irving Moskowitz, who backs expansion of settlements in the West Bank) that liberating the Shi'ites would bring a modern, liberalizing spirit to the whole region, notably Iran:

"With totalitarian [Sunni] Ba'athism's subjugation of the Iraqi Shi'ite centers... not just Iraq but the entire Arab and Islamic worlds have lost one of their most important models of civil society. These independent [Shi'ite] institutions could have served much as Protestantism did in the Anglo-Saxon world, as a levee against the inundating absolutism of the state and as a foundation of liberalism and civil society...With no clerical freedom in Iraq... no Shi'ite entity has the freedom to challenge the narrow, controversial, and revolutionary form of Shi'ite politics practiced by Ayatollah Khomeini [in Iran]... Liberating the Shi'ite centers in Najaf and Karbala... could allow Iraqi Shi'ites to challenge and perhaps fatally derail the Iranian revolution. Comparably, in the Soviet Union, communism was undermined when the people's courts, the Politburo, and the cult of personality were abolished; without these weapons, power can again be diffused, civil society reestablished..."

I can offer only one comment on all this. Genius!

Eliot Spitzer has an op-ed about his budget priorities.

In my Executive Budget next week, I will propose a fundamental restructuring of New York's finances. We will drive more resources to needy schools that promise higher standards and greater accountability. And we will end special subsidies to entrenched interests in the health care industry so we can fund health insurance coverage for all children and make other investments that will help provide better care at lower cost.

Asssembly Democrats may hold a quiet election to pick a comptroller, according to Fred Dicker.

The Daily News editorial board looks at the "truthiness" of UFT President Randi Weingarten and the push for smaller class sizes.

Craig Johnson got the Times' endorsement.

Maureen O'Connell's voting record doesn't match her rhetoric on stem-cell research and abortion, according to Newsday.

The WSJ editorial board is surprised at Chuck Schumer position on tort reform.

"But the really big news is that Mr. Schumer endorsed a study declaring that tort reform is the single biggest key to retaining U.S. leadership in global finance. As political conversions go, this is like Dick Cheney endorsing a stronger Congress."

The New Yorker looks at the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Who (again) broke that story about Barack Obama's Muslim background?

And while we're at it, who was Hillary Clinton's joke about "evil men" really about?

Bill Clinton trimmed his business activities now that Hillary's campaign is underway.

Joe Lieberman may vote Republican in 2008.

And Judith Miller has a piece in the New York Sun with the opening line: "Words can kill." (Shudder.)

-- Azi Paybarah

In 1992, I wrote a short book about a number of things going on in this country that I thought we as  read more »

Hillary Clinton told supporters upstate that she is "so relieved and so exhausted" after this campaign season.

Not that she broke much a sweat anywhere during the campaign, but Hillary beat John Spencer in Yonkers, where he was mayor.

The Fix says she's the candidate most likely to win the Democratic nomination, but... "From a policy perspective, she may be vulnerable. Clinton's stance on the war in Iraq is out of step with many in the Democratic base, and she is clearly vulnerable to a challenge from someone who has been opposed to the war from the start."

Wesley Clark may announce whether he'll run for president in two months.

There are exactly 448,077 who voted against Joe Lieberman...in two elections.

The fate of the Times campaign blog, Empire Zone, is uncertain now that the 2006 races are over.

Also uncertain is the fate of Gifford Miller, who lost the 2005 mayoral election pretty soundly, but was just spotted chatting with likely 2009 mayoral contender Bill Thompson in Puerto Rico.

Ben has memories of people talking about impeaching George Bush and Dick Cheney.

Kos tells James Carville to quiet down after the Ragin' Cajun said Howard Dean should be replaced as head of the DNC.

Steven Malanga of City Journal says there is no pot of gold in DC for the city's congressional delegation.

New York typically ranked number one in per capita spending for social programs. By contrast, Mississippi (to take Rangel's example) received about 25 percent less per capita in social program spending than New York, though Mississippi has a higher poverty rate.

And pictured above is the upcoming New York Times Sunday Magazine post-election issue.  read more »

-- Azi Paybarah

Hillary Clinton said she received John Spencer's concession call and thanked him for a "spirited" campaign.

Dressed in a canary-yellow skirt suit with Bill Clinton looking on from behind her right shoulder, Clinton mocked Vice President Cheney for saying that regardless of tonight's electoral results, the administration would stay "full speed ahead" in the same direction.

Today, she said, the people said, "Not so fast."

--Jason Horowitz

Facing an antagonistic electorate and the strong possibility of losing the House, Republicans are desperately trying to motivate their base by propping Charlie Rangel up as its mid-term bogeyman. That only works if Rangel plays the part.

For a while, he was excrutiatingly careful not to take the bait. This week, he kind of blew it, calling Vice President Dick Cheney, his frequent sparring partner, a "son of a bitch."

"It doesn't help the cause," said Amy Walter, who follows the House races for the Cook Political Report. "What Democrats really need to do is make sure the focus and spotlight remains on Republicans period. If you are making a change argument, you only hurt yourself when you get involved in part of the debate."

Rangel's outburst has played right into the Republican gameplan - even though Cheney is not exacty a stranger to foul language. Rangel, achingly close to landing the dream job as chairman of the Ways and Means committee that would be the culmination of his political career, has apparently realized that he made a mistake and even expressed some unusual contrition.

But Walter doubts it will make much of a difference to the Democrats chances of taking the House, as Republicans have already pulled out every stop to get their base to the polls.

"They have already thrown in the whole kitchen sink," said Walter, "and it has not been able to get the kind of traction that Republicans would have hoped it would."

--Jason Horowitz

Naïve citizens may be surprised to learn that some of the most morally upright of our fellow Americ  read more »

Naïve citizens may be surprised to learn that some of the most morally upright of our fellow Am  read more »

PBS's "Frontline" aired a documentary last night called The Dark Side about the manipulation of intelligence by the vice president's office in the runup to the Iraq war. This is now an old story, but it was well-told. Frontline assembled a number of former intelligence analysts to show how the CIA's usual standards of accuracy were overrun in order to produce the result Cheney wanted.

Aluminum tubes... Yellow cake from Niger....Chemical labs in train cars....All the warmongering claims duly parroted to the world by George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell, thereby damaging themselves forever.  read more »

A month after he did so, I learn that Vice President Cheney gave a long toast to the neoconservative scholar Bernard Lewis at a lunch in Philadelphia. As usual, Cheney's speech is significant for what it doesn't tell us: anything specific about the ideas that Lewis brought to the White House. Though Cheney notes that he first met Lewis 15 years ago, and that Lewis has been coming to the White House to talk to the President in the last four-and-a-half years. I.e., after September 11.

Lewis's message to the White House is summarized in The Assassins' Gate, by George Packer:

For decades, even centuries, [Arab] civilization has steadily fallen behind as the West and the rest of the world progressed into modernity. This decay is a source of humiliation and rage to millions of Arabs and non-Arab Muslims. In recent years, the sickness has produced a threat that ranges far beyond the region. American power has helped to keep the Arab world in decline by supporting sclerotic tyrannies; only an American break with its own history in the region can reverse it. The Arabs cannot pull themselves out of their historic rut. They need to be jolted out by some foreign-born shock. The overthrow of the Iraqi regime would provide one.

I believe Edward Said named this, orientalism.

Note that in Michael Massing's superb dissection of the power of AIPAC in the latest New York Review of Books, he states that Lewis's son Michael is an editor of the pro-Israel lobbyist's "Activities Update"—"a compilation of dozens of press clips, speech transcripts, and minutes of meetings... periodically e-mailed to a select list of AIPAC supporters. This research provides the raw material for AIPAC's efforts to intimidate and silence opponents. "

Note, too, that the VP's comments in Philly included this nice turn:

Some years ago, Professor Lewis was asked why he was always writing about sensitive topics. This was his reply: "The sensitive place in the body, physical or social, is where something is wrong." "Sensitivity," he said, "is a signal the body sends us, that something needs attention, which is what I try to give."

Hours after I.  read more »

Something popped out of yesterday's Times report on the Libby-Cheney leak investigation: the name Joseph C. Wilson IV.

I thought the ambassador's name was Joe Wilson, or as his book, The Politics of Truth, is bylined, Joseph Wilson. I was curious about who all the other Joseph C. Wilsons were and I leafed through the book. Nothing. He says his mother's family was a big political family in California, but only says that his parents were "expatriate journalists and authors," though his father also "had a couple of jobs bringing American products to European customers, but the enterprises didn't work out." That's not very forthcoming. I have the strong sense that Wilson, former ski bum and diplomat, is a rich kid.

Yes, he was right about Niger, and we can hope this case brings Karl Rove and Dick Cheney down—but what sort of packaging is going on? Could the truthteller have a little more plain dealing about his own background?

Mark your calendars: This coming Thursday -- tomorrow -- is United Republican Party Meetup Day!

We just received an e-mail from Nasir Muhammad, the friendly New York City Republican Party Meetup Group organizer, reminding us to show up at Scopa, the East 28th Street restaurant with the 140-foot bar. So far it looks there will be plenty of room.

Just a quick automated reminder that The New York City Republican Party Meetup Group has a Meetup tomorrow.

What: The New York City Republican Party May Meetup

When: Thursday, May 25 at 7:00PM

Who: At least 4 Republicans

Still, we did some research on those four Republicans, and they're quite a bunch. In addition to liking George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld, they're into wine-tasting, sailing, Flamenco, and Sean Hannity 2008.

The event fee is $5.00.

-- Lizzy Ratner

Let's talk about the neoconservative network, and make a few connections, then a theoretical leap. Start at the top. Lately Vanity Fair has reported that Vice President Dick Cheney travels everywhere with a biological and chemical suit. No more specifics than that. It's not like Cheney invited VF into his closet. (He's more closeted than his daughter.)

The bio-suit is consistent with the belief that Cheney is "paranoid," the assessment of Col. Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, a month back, at the Middle East Institute. Wilkerson said that after 9/11, Cheney changed profoundly. It was like he went into his room and threw away the key.  read more »

The bio-suit also brings us to—

Under this heading, from time to time I'm going to dig up some of the sage advice the neocons and their fellow travelers offered us as they pushed the country toward war in Iraq.

First at bat is David Wurmser, last said to be working as an adviser on the Middle East to Vice President Dick Cheney. In this passage, he mocks the argument that invading Iraq would cause chaos:

"We are gulled by erroneous assertions about the evils of Arab Shi'ism and by the oft-chanted mantra of the 'danger' of the breakup of Arab states that would follow the decentralization of power." [From Tyranny's Ally: America's Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein]

Huh. Now what was that mantra? And who was gulled? More to come.

The American Enterprise Institute has been all over the New York Times this week. First it was Sally Satel, resident scholar, on the Op-Ed page Monday, saying Let's have a free market for the sale of human organs. Then yesterday it was Christina Hoff Sommers, giving the lead quotation in a House & Home section about men fighting for hideaway spaces in their homes.

The AEI is bacccck! The thinktank that has suffered such thinkability issues, that gave us Dick Cheney and John Bolton and Richard Perle and on and on and helped bring somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths to Iraq, that George Bush said had given him more brains than any other organization—the AEI is putting its best foot forward. Maybe its only foot: its women scholars, the softer foot, the one that stamps the ground about political correctness.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be in the Times. Let 100 flowers bloom. But maybe their i.d. slug should say, the AEI,whose scholars promoted the war in Iraq.

A kind reader points out that Nation Magazine's Washington correspondent, John Nichols, has written a a bio of Dick Cheney. Dick: The Man Who Is President (Dick Cheney). New Press, 2004.

Chris Matthews made a giant breakthrough tonight: He pronounced Dick Cheney's name right. CHEE-knee. Rhymes with Meany. That's how Cheney's family pronounces his name. I heard his wife say it that way at the 2004 convention. And after Cheney's hunting accident, when the Wyoming legislature had him in as a form of political succor, the speaker welcomed him with the same pronunciation. Chee-knee. Everyone else says CHAY-knee.

There's a larger point. Six years into the most disastrous administration anyone can remember, with a vice president regent, or so it's alleged, and we don't know his name. Cheney likes it that way. "I'm a private person," he told NBC's Kelly O'Donnell yesterday. Go to the New York Public Library website; there are no biographies of Cheney. None. The only thing that comes close is James Mann's Rise of the Vulcans, and it's about a lot of people.

I'd like to know more about Cheney getting thrown out of Yale, Cheney working as a lineman in Wyo, and, most important, Cheney's life in the American Enterprise Institute, what happened there to alter his thinking, just when he drank the neocon koolaid. And how, to again quote Col. Larry Wilkerson's talk at the Middle East Institute—how Cheney became a "paranoid."

Everyone talks about Cheney's power. The "toxic Buddha," Observer editor Peter Kaplan called him. Great image. But that's all we have, imagery and mythology, not knowledge.

In the last few days it's come home to me (a little late!) that we are in a deepening crisis. Have to hand it to you left wing alarmists, you were way ahead of me. My late wake-up call was Seymour Hersh's reporting on the Nuke-Iran option, followed by Larry Wilkerson's comment at the Middle East Institute that Cheney is a straight-up "paranoid." Both men are saying the same thing, and though Hersh is in some ways unreliable (due to an egomaniacal lack of proportion), his political values are unimpeachable. Wilkerson's temperament is much the other way, judicious. But the bottom line: Our leaders lost their minds...

Please, somebody—impeach Bush now. Or when will some Republican, any Republican, show some spine and finally join the Murtha team? (Lindsey Graham where are you!)  read more »

At a speech at the Middle East Institute yesterday, Colin Powell's former chief of staff Col. Larry Wilkerson described Dick Cheney as a dangerous "paranoid," the most powerful vice president in history, a man whose world view was locked in place by 9/11, and the key tossed aside. Wilkerson is an admirable guy. He is speaking out against the Administration because he is ashamed of his own role in promoting a disastrous foreign policy, and trying to do all he can now to avert further damage.

But when Wilkerson was asked why Colin Powell didn't do more to stop this juggernaut when he had a chance, he grinned and said his old boss had asked him not to respond to this sort of question. I will say, Wilkerson went on to say, Powell likes to work inside, behind the scenes, not outside throwing stones. (I'll put the exact quote in when the Institute sends me the transcript)

That's no answer. Powell's collapse in the runup to the Iraq war, so that he might continue to work on the inside, is one of the great tragedies of our time. If he really wants to help out, he should follow the fine military model set by Wilkerson and the many retired generals who have begun attacking Rumsfeld publicly, and say something about the war, now, when a change in policy might actually save lives.

I assume he is planning to wait 30 years ala Robert McNamara to wring his hands when it doesn't matter, and salve his conscience in old age...

Antonin Scalia, the loudest mouth on the highest bench, has indulged himself again.  read more »

Radio host, political satirist and possible senate candidate Al Franken is having a fundraiser in Manhattan on March 9th for his Midwest Value Pac.

Now the only question is which gets a bigger laugh: jokes about Dick Cheney or Bill O'Reilly?

--Azi Paybarah

Petition  read more »

Petition    read more »

Capitol Hill Blue reports that a written report by secret service agents stated that Dick Cheney was "clearly inebriated" when he shot Harry Whittington. —Nicole Brydson

For the unfortunate victim of Dick Cheney’s quail-shooting misadventure, the experience of bei  read more »

Other than a possible hiccup in the volume of telephone sex, did the revelation that the National Se  read more »

For the unfortunate victim of Dick Cheney’s quail-shooting misadventure, the experience of being b  read more »

Pow! After yesterday's misguided foray into White House damage control, the Post has figured out which end of the shotgun is which. Dick Cheney pointing a weapon into space is a menacing image, but not as menacing as the Post pointing a superheadline at Andrew Card's face. And the strip acros the bottom is an ideal teaser: Lotto winner bolts what why? Give the man a quarter and find out, in the New York Post!  read more »

Winner: New York Post Overall standings: Daily News 22, New York Post 22

In The Observer's political pages,I take a look at who's trying to start a Bloomberg '08 buzz, and why, and entertain the notion semi-seriously for a few paragraphs. (Um, Happy Birthday, Mr. Mayor?)

Also, E.J. Kessler is underwhelmed by Pat Manning and Joe Conason writes on Dick Cheney.

Elsewhere in the paper, Jason Horowitz looks into the Met's antiquities problems and Matt Schuerman finds a controversy on Brooklyn's Fulton Street.

The story is just irresistable.

And don't miss Jim Brady's comment, via press release: "Now I understand why Dick Cheney keeps asking me to go hunting with him." (via Political Wire)

Also, Drudge is now linking a story that has the victim in "very stable" condition. Protesting a bit much?

Only moments after the damning phrase left his lips, the President’s flacks and factotums were  read more »

Cruising  read more »

Recklessly and audaciously, George W.  read more »

It’s not every day that the Vice President of the United States accuses a veteran U.S.  read more »

The movie Good Night, and Good Luck has been playing to what appears to be mostly empty movie houses  read more »

It’s not every day that the Vice President of the United States accuses a veteran U.S.  read more »

Conservatives believe they know the best way to honor the sacrifices of our troops in Iraq: We must  read more »