TIME: CHENEY - "THE ENEMY WITHIN - The Cheney Verdict"

[kpete]

The Enemy Within

"Cheney has become the Administration's enemy within, the man whose single-minded pursuit of ideological goals, creaking political instincts and love of secrecy produced an independent operation inside the White House that has done more harm than good."

........................

George Bush's sense of humor has always run more to frat-house gag than art-house irony, so he may not have appreciated the poetic justice any more than the legal justice on display in the Libby verdict.

Or, to be more precise, the Cheney verdict.

.................

Bush is making the decision, but the Veep is directing the process toward the decision that he thinks is the right one." In other words, Cheney had so rigged the process that important decisions were foregone conclusions, ones that had been reached by the Vice President well in advance.

.............

So when the verdict against Libby came down, it was also a rebuke to that hermetic power-sharing arrangement at the top of the White House. The legal outcome was never in doubt. Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had been massing evidence of perjury for months and then unveiled it piece by piece until even the defendant chose not to testify in his own defense. Libby's highly touted defense lawyers, meanwhile, seemed weak and scattered. Their promise to reveal how the White House had left Libby to be the fall guy for higher-ups was introduced and then abandoned. And it would have taken them down a road Libby steadfastly refused to travel-the one that led to the Vice President's door.

more at:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1597226,00.html

[wicket]

1. K & R

Another great post by kpete! :thumbsup:

[Ms. Clio]

2. K&R!!!

[Kikosexy2]

17. The art of ...

ventriloquism...the dummy (Bush) just spewing the words of his master/handler (Cheney)...once they leave office they can have a great gig in Vegas..

[pberq]

3. Way to go, kpete!

[blogslut]

4. kandr

:)

[Beetwasher]

Damn! LOVE The Title Of That Story!!!

Cheney most certainly IS "The Enemy Within!!" Wow, that's some good shit! :wow:

If this is a real shift in conventional wisdom about Cheney, then there may be light at the end of this long dark tunnel.

[ewagner]

5. K & R

n/t

[Blackhatjack]

6. More evidence to support the theory Cheney will resign soon....n/t

[hang a left]

7. Now if they could only get that title and chaingang's pic on the cover.

That is what we really need.

Everyone who goes through a check out line in America to see that.

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. So the decider was not deciding at all because the person giving

him the information to do the decidering, was limiting his decidering choices?

[Blackhatjack]

9. Bush has always been just the figurehead, with Cheney calling the shots...n/t

[Rydz777]

10. "Art-house irony"

Art-house ironies certainly abound in this case. Libby was a Philadelphia lawyer who got wealthy serving the likes of Marc Rich. Then he fell in with even worse company (Cheney), and now finds himself in debt to his eyeballs to other blood-sucking lawyers - and on top of that, heading towards disbarment and jail.

[demnan]

11. K&R

Impeach!

[FredStembottom]

12. If the conventional wiz is changing like this...........

I have to wonder if it reflects the fact that no one has mistaken notions about the Office of the Veep being some kinda precious, sacred area - akin to an American Vatican - like some do for the Presidency.

I mean, who has EVER given a crap about ANY Vice President in our entire history?

I am definitely from the school of thought that Cheney and his hench-men planned a secret government from the get-go and hunted up a dim-wit to be a ceremonial front man.

This has worked splendidly...... so far.

But maybe the same thing that has made it work is it's weakness, too.

If it should become clear to all that the VP is really the president - and that the Veep has done harm to the country, there is no natural constituency to defend him. Not even hooray-for-our-side types who merely want their party to be the party in the White House will have any reason to defend something as politically superfluous as as a VICE President.

And in the unique case we see ourselves in today - removing Cheney probably is all that is needed to save this country.

And this Time rant makes me think that doing so could even be quick and easy!

Haven't taken this out in months.... but willing to now::popcorn:

[GeorgeGist]

13. Shout out for the chickenshits:

Bush, Cheney, Libby, Rove, Wells, Fitzgerald et al.

[BuyingThyme]

14. I figured it wasn't worth reading.

I guess I was too quick to judge this wiener.

[IndyOp]

15. TIME CHANGED THE TITLE OF THE ARTICLE - and cut the first

sentence. "Enemy Within" is GONE...

[quiet.american]

16. Noticed that, too. n/t

[leveymg]

19. "Enemy within problem" was the term used by the Colonel on the J-5

Staff to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That's the term that he used when he described to me the systematic "stovepiping" of intelligence from certain offices set up within DoD by Rummy.

As the Administration prepared to invade Iraq, disinformation flowed up and out of the Pentagon, bypassing the JCS and DIA, as the deceptions and "cherry-picked" data moved up to the Office of the Vice President. And I heard that term, as well.

That conversation with the Colonel, friends, occurred on Christmas Eve, 2002 in a Mexican restaurant, about four miles from the Pentagon. It happened long before anyone on the outside had heard about Douglas Feith and the Office of Special Plans or about the "neocons." But, the Pentagon brass were well aware of that they had an "Enemy Within problem".

[Sir Jeffrey]

18. Excellent article...

even if they did take out the "enemy within" title.

k and r

(I've been "k and r"-ing a lot today)

[MasonJar]

20. Time said this? Amazing! n/t

[Uncle Joe]

21. Dick Cheney in Twilight sounds like a Christmas Carol

Now what entity does Time fail to mention in the following paragraph as repsonsible for taking the nation in to a deadly, costly and open-ended war?

"Everyone knows now that Bush and Cheney took the country into a deadly, costly and open-ended war on flimsy evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Yes, Congress went along. And yes, the public on balance supported it. But no one was more responsible than the Vice President for pushing the limits of the prewar intelligence that did all the convincing."

If you guessed mass corporate media including Time, you win.

<snip>

In this next paragraph Time is quick to point out nothing illegal has been done regarding the outing of Plame's identity and yet is puzzled as to why Libby would need to protect Cheney. However if Libby is protecting Cheney, how can Time be so sure nothing illegal was done!?


"None of that was illegal. So four years later, the Libby trial still prompts the question, Why did Libby get into legal trouble in the first place? Why did the Vice President's top aide not simply admit to what everyone knew was true — that he discussed the identity of Wilson's wife Valerie Plame, a CIA officer, with at least one reporter? Since most experts agree that Libby was unlikely to be prosecuted on a charge of revealing her identity, it is hard not to conclude that Libby cooked up his stories to protect Cheney."

<snip>

[Martin Eden]

22. Now I know why Bush is schizophrenic --

-- he has two brains: Rove & Cheney.

We've known all along he lacked one of his own.


on edit: spelling

[sam kane]

23. Time? Et tu, Time?

[Exultant Democracy]

24. This is a must read, and the last paragraph was just a gem.

I hope that Cheney can stay in the news long enough to suck some air out of Rudy's balloon.

[Solly Mack]

25. Spiro T. Cheney

[Vidar]

26. K&R.

[Disturbed]

27. Cheney is the new scapegoat.

Yeah, he should be Impeached ASAP. Busholini went along with every crime of Cheney and Rumsfailed. The Sock Puppet Prez. needs to be Impeached right afterward.

[Chemical Bill]

28. Notice how they try and make it seem like...

Darth is a rogue, acting against the wishes and best interests of the "real" President and all those good people in the White House?

Bill