Dick Cheney | The New York Observer

But Not a Drop to Drink: The Threat to America’s Drinking Water

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:41:52 -0400

For those of us who worked closely with environmental professionals during the eight years of the Bush Administration, we know that it was a time of declining resources and reduced political support for environmental regulation. It was demoralizing and more than a little scary. Last weekend an excellent piece of environmental reporting by the New York Times writer Charles Duhigg highlighted declining drinking water quality throughout the United States. While New York City’s drinking...

The 83 Waterboardings of Abu Zubaydah

Tue, 19 May 2009 14:04:09 -0400

The following is a transcript of notes taken at the interrogation of Al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah. It was released by the C.I.A. at the request of Vice President Dick Cheney in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of enhanced interrogation techniques approved by the president.

1. Ha! Is this waterboard supposed to scare me? You think I don’t know that you are constrained by U.S. and international law from ever actually...

Torture: Ineffective, Illegal, and Unprincipled

Mon, 04 May 2009 11:48:42 -0400

The issue of torture and security keeps reemerging in the news, as we debate matters of national survival and our core values. The issue is often posed in the following way: What if a terrorist had information about an urgent threat to American lives and the only way to obtain that information would be to torture it out of him? The responses range from: No, even if we were under grave threat, torture would...

Dick Cheney Isn't Helping

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:11:18 -0400

One of the more intelligent decisions made by the Bush White House was to limit Dick Cheney’s public visibility. He would grant interviews from time to time, but Bush and his strategists – and Cheney himself – recognized that, when it came to selling the administration’s policies, Cheney’s cold and dour demeanor, coupled with his immense unpopularity, were significant liabilities. It was Bush who did the public cheerleading for the schemes Cheney drew up...

In Presidential Ambition, Joe Biden Is No Dick Cheney

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 08:51:01 -0500

In considering what role Joe Biden will play in the Obama White House, the most important question hasn’t yet been answered: Does Biden, a veteran of two unsuccessful presidential bids, still want to serve as president someday? The answer to this question will shape every facet of his vice presidency profoundly.

In modern times, the main appeal of the vice presidency, an office with little official responsibility beyond presiding over the Senate and occupying...

Nixon Admitted What Cheney Won't

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:30:12 -0500

To understand the philosophy of government that Dick Cheney brought to Washington over the past seven years, it is most instructive to see Frost/Nixon, with Frank Langella's remarkable reanimation of Tricky Dick for a generation that never knew him. In Nixon's famous conversation with David Frost, there came a moment when the old reprobate uttered the truth—a truth that Cheney still prefers to obscure when he talks about illegal surveillance, torture and other violations...

Erica Jong Tells Italians Obama Loss 'Will Spark the Second American Civil War. Blood Will Run in the Streets'

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:04:46 -0400

It seems that the final days of the presidential campaign have made Erica Jong and her friends more than a little anxious.

A few days ago, Jong, the author and self-described feminist, gave an interview to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the choicest bits of which were brought to my attention by the reliably sharp-eyed Christian Rocca, the U.S. correspondent of Il Foglio, who published excerpts on his Camillo...

Biden Isn't Quite Obama's Cheney

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:52:01 -0400

Strictly in terms of the November election, it's fair to liken Joe Biden to Dick Cheney, who was tapped to serve as George W. Bush's running mate in 2000 in an effort to reassure voters who were made uneasy by Bush's thin national security résumé.

The ploy worked for Bush: Cheney, a stern former defense secretary who had overseen the first Gulf War, was celebrated by the media for his "gravitas" -- and he...

A Connoisseur of Doom

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:16:21 -0400

THE DARK SIDE: THE INSIDE STORY OF HOW THE WAR ON TERROR TURNED INTO A WAR ON AMERICAN IDEALS
By Jane Mayer
Doubleday, 392 pages, $27.50

In the autumn of 2000, I was visiting the United States and watched the televised debates with keen interest. Of the four men—two presidential candidates and two running mates—the one I really took to was Dick Cheney. Maybe the competition wasn’t so strong, what with the...

Obama and the Cheney Option

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 07:24:11 -0400

Many of the candidates most frequently linked to Barack Obama’s running-mate search are presumably interested in the vice presidency for the leg up it provides for a future White House campaign. But some of the other names making the rounds suggest something quite different: the Dick Cheney model.

Mr. Cheney is only the second elected vice president since the end of World War II to pass on waging a campaign of his own for the...

Cheney and Giuliani at State G.O.P. Dinner

Tue, 20 May 2008 14:23:22 -0400

Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani are among the special guests headlining the New York State Republican Committee annual dinner, which is taking place at 6 p.m. next Thursday at the Sheraton in Midtown.

In a public statement announcing the event, State Chairman Joe Mondello said:

"We are particularly honored to have such a distinguished group of Republicans-- led by our Vice President Dick Cheney-- who have served their constituents here in New York and across...

Dick Cheney Tops Mo Rocca at the 'Nicky Hilton' of D.C. Dinners

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:40:09 -0400

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....

Cheney Will Appear at Fossella Event

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:21:50 -0400

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...

Imus Returns, Calls Hillary Clinton 'Satan,' Dick Cheney a 'War Criminal'

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 09:51:54 -0500

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...

Taking Aim at the Cheney Threat

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 15:34:37 -0500

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. Thrusting back hard against Vice President Dick Cheney’s warmongering, the head of U.S. forces in the Mideast declared that an attack on Iran “is not in the offing,” and more or less urged the...

Richardson: Bush-Cheney More Odious Than Bill Belichick

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 14:32:22 -0400

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...

Cheney Undisclosed: Flattering Biography Never Lifts the Veil

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:43:18 -0400

CHENEY: THE UNTOLD STORY OF AMERICA’S MOST POWERFUL AND CONTROVERSIAL VICE PRESIDENT
By Stephen F. Hayes
HarperCollins, 578 pages, $27.95

“Untold story” is right. Weekly Standard senior writer Stephen Hayes prefaces this doorstop biography of America’s slant-mouthed branch-of-government-unto-himself with an admiring note on the breadth of his own research: “I conducted more than six hundred interviews,” including many with the subject himself; all this Cheney talk consumed “hundreds of hours of audiotape” and includes “numerous...

The First Bush Mistake: Choosing Cheney Over Danforth

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 07:33:09 -0400

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. Bush’s presidency—including the invasion of Iraq.

It was in July 2000 that Mr. Bush, then the Governor of Texas and the soon-to-be-nominated Republican presidential candidate, made his selection for a vice-presidential running-mate from two finalists: Dick Cheney...

Iranian Reformers Don’t Want Dick Cheney’s Help

Tue, 15 May 2007 16:33:17 -0400

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.

Speaking just 150 miles off the Iranian coast, Mr. Cheney proclaimed, “With two carrier strike groups in the Gulf, we’re sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike.”

He added, “We’ll stand with...

The Global War on Words

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 20:00:00 -0400

“When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.” —George Orwell Last week, the ink spurted vigorously from the usual tentacles of conservative alarm after a memo leaked out of the House Armed Services Committee requesting that staffers refrain from using “colloquialisms such as ‘the war on terrorism’ and ‘the Long War,’” and avoid...

Rangel: Not a Psychiatrist

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 11:05:00 -0500

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,"...

Last Throes of Cheney’s Credibility

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 19:00:00 -0500

Americans frustrated with the Democratic Congressional leaders for dithering over Iraq should never forget who actually drove us into the Iraqi quagmire. Even those Democrats who voted for the President’s war resolution in 2002 did so only after the President publicly and repeatedly promised—with the deepest insincerity—that he would only invade Iraq as a “last resort.” Responsibility for that lie and many others rests squarely with George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, their aides and...

Libby Trial Exposes Neocon Shadow Government

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 19:00:00 -0500

Day by day, witness by witness, exhibit by exhibit, Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor in the trial of Dick Cheney’s man, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, is accomplishing what no one else in Washington has been able to: He has impeached the Presidency of George W. Bush. Of course, it’s an unofficial impeachment, but it will also, through its documentation, be inerasable. The trial record—testimony, exhibits, the lot—will be there, in one place, for investigators, scholars,...

How Neocons (and Neolibs) Dismissed the Prospect of Sunni-Shi'ite Conflict in Iraq

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 05:34:24 -0500

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...

The Morning Read: Monday, January 29, 2007

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 04:03:49 -0500

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...

Spotlight on the Wealth Gap: Goldman’s Wretched Excess

Sun, 07 Jan 2007 19:00:00 -0500

In 1992, I wrote a short book about a number of things going on in this country that I thought we as a polity would be well advised to take a hard look at before they got hopelessly out of control. My focus was mainly on what I saw as the developing takeover of what I called “The Public Capital”—the right to draw on the full faith and credit of We, the People, the...

Elsewhere: Hillary, Empire Zone, The Future

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 13:25:00 -0500

Hillary Wins "Spirited" Race

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 17:54:46 -0500

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...

Rangel's Slip Up?

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 11:35:31 -0500

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,"...

Opponents of Torture Are True Patriots

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Naïve citizens may be surprised to learn that some of the most morally upright of our fellow Americans, at least by their own estimation, are also among the most enthusiastic endorsers of the practice of torture. Even more startling than their zeal to abuse detainees—many of whom are innocent of any offense—is their eagerness to exploit those abuses for partisan political advantage.

The President has sent legislation to Capitol Hill that would “clarify”...

Opponents of Torture Are True Patriots

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 20:00:00 -0400

"Frontline" Ignores Its Own Reporting To Paint Cheney as Crazy Ahab

Tue, 20 Jun 2006 18:47:06 -0400

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...

Cheney on Bernard Lewis

Tue, 30 May 2006 18:08:01 -0400

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...

Pardon Me, Mr. President! Libby’s Difficult Defense

Sun, 28 May 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Hours after I. Lewis Libby resigned from the White House last October, federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald broke the seal on an indictment charging him with five felonies. Now, as the pre-trial jousting in Mr. Libby’s case picks up momentum, the onetime loyal West Wing confidant—Dick Cheney’s Dick Cheney—will have to choose between protecting himself and protecting the White House. Specifically, insiders say, he will have to choose between a not-guilty verdict and a Presidential...

Will the Real Joseph C. Wilson IV Stand Up?

Fri, 26 May 2006 03:08:13 -0400

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...

Four Republicans

Wed, 24 May 2006 10:53:00 -0400

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...

Neoconservatism: A Brief Tour, With Paranoid Fumes

Tue, 23 May 2006 10:30:02 -0400

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...

The Unbearable Brightness of the Neoconservatives, Part 1

Sat, 20 May 2006 13:46:29 -0400

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...

The A.E.I. Bats Its Eyes in the Times

Fri, 19 May 2006 13:50:48 -0400

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...

The Dick Cheney Literature, C'ted.

Tue, 09 May 2006 12:32:00 -0400

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,...

The Cheney Nobody Knows

Mon, 08 May 2006 20:30:51 -0400

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...

The Crisis, and the Liberal Intolerants

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 07:23:14 -0400

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...

Colin Powell, Profile in Cowardice

Thu, 13 Apr 2006 18:15:12 -0400

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,...

So Who Put the Temper In Judicial Temperament?

Sun, 02 Apr 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Antonin Scalia, the loudest mouth on the highest bench, has indulged himself again. The idol of the far right has provoked fresh doubts about his temperament—and this time, unfortunately, the rest of the world is likely to notice. Surely as brilliant as his admirers claim, Justice Scalia’s intellect is too often overshadowed by aggressive bluster and rigid ideology. He suffers from an uncontrollable impulse to give insult and an insufficient respect for the opinions...

Franken Live

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 10:38:52 -0500

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...

New York World

Sun, 26 Feb 2006 19:00:00 -0500

Petition

We, the undersigned, call for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney, for shooting an innocent man (Harry Whittington) with a shotgun. Mr. Cheney’s explanation—“I mistook him for a quail” — is not acceptable, we attest. 1. Sparrow Phoenicia, N.Y. 2. 3. So far, actually, I really have eight signatures (including me and my daughter.) (My wife apparently won’t sign.) —Sparrow The First Cabinet: A Story...

New York World

Sun, 26 Feb 2006 19:00:00 -0500

Petition We, the undersigned, call for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney, for shooting an innocent man (Harry Whittington) with a shotgun. Mr. Cheney’s explanation—“I mistook him for a quail” — is not acceptable, we attest. 1. Sparrow Phoenicia, N.Y. 2. 3. So far, actually, I really have eight signatures (including me and my daughter.) (My wife apparently won’t sign.) —Sparrow The First Cabinet: A Story of Late Neo-lithic Age New York ...

Rumor Mill

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 11:04:01 -0500

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...

Too Quick on the Draw, Cheney Ducks for Cover

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 19:00:00 -0500

For the unfortunate victim of Dick Cheney’s quail-shooting misadventure, the experience of being blasted with birdshot and almost killed was all too real. For those of us lucky enough to be out of range, however, that incident may serve as a metaphor for the Vice President’s troubled tenure.

Withholding word of the shooting accident for as long as possible was, of course, all too typical of Mr. Cheney’s attitude toward the press. His...

Government Secrecy Inspires Conspiracy, Paranoia and Rumors.

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 19:00:00 -0500

Other than a possible hiccup in the volume of telephone sex, did the revelation that the National Security Agency is bugging our phones pack much of a wallop? It did among civil libertarians and privacy fetishists, but it appears that perhaps 150 million citizens of the United States face the possibility of being tapped without a court order with flaccid equanimity. They couldn’t care less. They are of the “I don’t have anything to...