The main thing you need to know about Cheney....

[Wetzelbill]

is that he believes in the power of the presidency. He doesn't believe the executive branch is all that accountable to the other branches of government, that the checks and balances can be overcome. Bush has always been no more than an empty suit, the people around him are the ones whose fingerprints you see on everything, none more than Cheney and Karl Rove. Conservatives always hated the idea that the presidency was too big for one man, that's why they like to say Reagan, another empty suit, disproved that. In reality, the presidency isn't all that big when it's run by a narrow ideology, that doesn't necessarily make the president all that good of a leader, though. So in the light of Cheney's belief of presidential powers, it's no surprise that this White House would find a way to spy on it's own citizens on it's own accord. They don't really believe in presidential accountability. You see it in everything from secret task forces, invoking executive privelege, delaying the release of presidential papers, WHIG, Guantanomo and now the new spying revelations. It's a pattern of ideology, they don't believe in presidential accountability, so they basically refuse to be accountable. That's the main thing you need to know about Cheney and the way this group works at least from power privelege standpoint. I don't mean anything regarding foreign or domestic policy ideology or whether they are good, evil or just stupid. All I mean is that in terms of how the government functions they believe that once a president, at least a Republican president, is in office, he essentially can get away with anything without repercussion, unless there is a major Nixonian screw up. That's why most Republicans don't really believe Nixon did anything all that wrong, his biggest mistake was he got caught, not that he abused his power, in their opinions.

[shraby]

1. Have you ever read any of Strauss?

Someone recently posted his philosophy and it fits what they do to a "T".

[Wetzelbill]

3. yes, Strauss defends the

ideas that Thrasymachus puts forth in Plato's Republic. He believes that Thrasymachus, not Socrates is the real mouthpiece of the work. Essentially Thrasymachus believes that justice is whatever the people in power believe that justice is. The leaders get carte blanche and everybody else just accepts it. Sometimes you need to bust out some rhetoric and narcotize the masses but, for the most part, they mainly succumb to power, and rightly so to his thinking. Leo Strauss is an apolitical philosopher. Some of his neo-con students like Bill Kristol and Wolfowitz et al, they take this literal and run with it. It fits the bill for Cheney for sure. Consolidate power behind the scenes and ruthlessly employ it without subjecting yourself to any type of accountability.

[lebkuchen]

2. Cheney talked about a mandate for the 2nd term

From the Washington Times, who helped to trumpet this "mandate":

"President George W. Bush won the greatest number of popular votes of any presidential candidate in history," marveled Vice President Dick Cheney while introducing his boss. "President Bush ran forthrightly on a clear agenda for this nation's future, and the nation responded by giving him a mandate."

Mr. Bush plans to use that mandate to enact an ambitious second-term agenda that includes an energy bill and the partial privatization of Social Security for younger workers. He also views his victory as validation of his aggressive prosecution of the war on terror.

End-arounding the FISA court to spy on Americans is pretty damn aggressive, but it's also illegal.

Bush said:

"I'm proud to lead such an amazing country, and I am proud to lead it forward."

Spying on Americans is Bush's definition of "lead(ing) it forward?"

"A new term is a new opportunity to reach out to the whole nation."

Tapping phone lines is now the US government's interpretation of "reach out and touch someone"?


http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:3FeKzO8VE8YJ:www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041104-121425-2090r.htm+bush+and+mandate&hl=en

[Wetzelbill]

4. he'd view it as validation no matter what

then he and others in the administration and allies in Congress and in the media would repeat it over and over and over until it became a contrived, but accepted fact. That's what happens when you believe you are above the law and can do basically whatever you want to do. The administration got too cute with this bypassing FISA to spy on U.S. citizens. They didn't think it would hurt them in the end, because the War on Terror has been an effective excuse and cure-all for the last 4 years.

[Wetzelbill]

5. Here is a Truthout article about what I just talked about

I caught it right after I wrote this. It's good reading.

Cheney Seeks 'Unimpaired'
Presidential Powers
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122105K.shtml

[laheina]

6. Nice word, "unimpaired"

Who wouldn't want anything to be "unimpared." I wonder who they have sitting around thinking up this bullsh*t.

[Wetzelbill]

7. I know, I thought that was an interesting word choice as well

:)

[emulatorloo]

8. You gotta read "The Long March Of Dick Cheney" by Sidney Blumenthal

an amazing article and right up your alley -- I'll go get a link to it in a sec.

ON EDIT:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/printer_112505N.shtml

A real good horrifying read if you havent seen it

<snip>


The Long March of Dick Cheney
By Sidney Blumenthal
Salon.com

Thursday 24 November 2005

For his entire career, he sought untrammeled power. The Bush presidency and 9/11 finally gave it to him - and he's not about to give it up.
The hallmark of the Dick Cheney administration is its illegitimacy. Its essential method is bypassing established lines of authority; its goal is the concentration of unaccountable presidential power. When it matters, the regular operations of the CIA, Defense Department and State Department have been sidelined.

Richard Nixon is the model, but with modifications. In the Nixon administration, the president was the prime mover, present at the creation of his own options, attentive to detail, and conscious of their consequences. In the Cheney administration, the president is volatile but passive, firm but malleable, presiding but absent. Once his complicity has been arranged, a closely held "cabal" - as Lawrence Wilkerson, once chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, calls it - wields control.

Within the White House, the office of the vice president is the strategic center. The National Security Council has been demoted to enabler and implementer. Systems of off-line operations have been laid to evade professional analysis and a responsible chain of command. Those who attempt to fulfill their duties in the old ways have been humiliated when necessary, fired, retired early or shunted aside. In their place, acolytes and careerists indistinguishable from true believers in their eagerness have been elevated.

<snip

[Skidmore]

9. Cheney developed PTSD during the Nixon and Ford

presidencies. An up and coming young professional, he was thoroughly traumatized by the Watergate era and set out to make certain it never happens again. He knows you can't impeach a king.