(Former State Dept official Richard) Haass: Cheney Bugged My Calls Because I Wasn't a Hawk

[sabra]

Source: US News & Report

What was it about former State Department official Richard Haass that bugged former Vice President Dick Cheney? Haass, out with a new book, War of Necessity, War of Choice, says he was shocked to read in Angler, a book about Cheney, that the former veep ordered his phone calls tapped. An aide to both former President Bushes, Haass thinks the reason might have been that he wasn't hawkish enough while working with another moderate, former Secretary of State
Colin Powell. "To me it was just indicative of how ideological the administration had become," Haass says. For example, he pushed for a dialogue with Iran, rejected by the Bush-Cheney team. "The idea that something like that would be seen as somehow beyond the pale—that in many ways encapsulated my fundamental difference with this administration." When asked directly what irked Cheney enough to spy on him, he shrugs: "Ask the former vice president."

Read more: http://www.usnews.com/blogs/washington-whispers/2009/06/05/haass-cheney-bugged-my-calls-because-i-wasnt-a-hawk.html

[Psychic Consortium]

1. How many Americans did Cheney and Rove keep files on?

For what purpose?
How was the information used?

[sabra]

2. but Bush said they only spied on "terrarists"

:sarcasm:

[blm]

3. yep....terraists like John Kerry....Howard Dean....Al Gore.... any Dem who wasn't 'with' them.

We all know who they DIDN'T have to tap....those Dem 'leaders' who were helping them sell their war strategy and could always be counted on to defend that strategy on the news networks.

That would include.......

[Psychic Consortium]

5. You are correct.

Gore's campaign was a big target and inside info leaked back to the Bush
campaign. No doubt about it.

Obama was very careful not to let this happen to him.

[blm]

6. No...BushInc couldn't DO it... wiretapping story broke in 2005 after NYT held it for Bush in 2004

when they already had the story before that election.

Many of you here make the mistake of attributing powers to the 2008 campaign as if it happened in a vacuum - as if there was no attack on Social Security, Schiavo case and Katrina in 2005. As if there was no rebuilding of the Dem party infrastructure state by state by Howard Dean's DNC that actually got Dem votes allowed, cast and counted by 2006.

ANY Dem nominee was winning 2008 and both parties knew it by the fall of 2006.

[Psychic Consortium]

7. The GOP could do whatever they wanted in terms of dirty tricks.

Elections being rigged are only a small part of their activities.

And they believed that a female or black Dem candidate was
not electable.

So for the Dems, nothing was certain. Not by a long shot.

[blm]

10. I am certain you are wrong about that - Bush was FINE with Clinton taking over after him, because

Clintons could be counted on to protect their secrecy and privilege - Bill did it for Poppy Bush and his cronies throughout the 90s.

You do remember the BCCI report that was released Dec 1992 don't you? What happened to all the outstanding matters that would have been closely scrutinized if Poppy had a second term?

Bushes have NOTHING to fear from Clintons. Jackson Stephens made sure of that long ago.

[Psychic Consortium]

11. PC agrees with some of what you say. nt

[jbfam4]

8. We all know who they DIDN'T have to tap....

Maybe the Dem's. who voted for the war had already been bugged. Maybe Cheney had information on them that he would make public if they didn't go along with the war. I wouldn't put anything past Cheney. If he bugs people in his own administration why wouldn't he bug those in the other party.

[Psychic Consortium]

4. In their paranoid minds everyone was a terrorist.

It justified all their crimes.

[bluedigger]

9. When Bush said

"You're either with us, or against us!", he wasn't addressing the international community. He was talking to his own government. The decisions had been made, and the program would proceed. No internal dialogue needed, or wanted, and open dissenters monitored, very closely.

[HamdenRice]

12. I write this for the 100th time: The Guardian reported that Colin Powell's phone was tapped

several years ago. And this was disclosed to the congressional committee that was vetting John Bolton's nomination.

If the Bush NSA tapped Colin Powell's phone, doesn't it stand to reason that they tapped many other of official Washington's phones?

[No Elephants]

13. It's almost less about what actually happens than it is about which drums the media is willing to

beat.

And beat

And beat.

How much, and for how long, did we read/hear about Colon's phone being tapped?

How much, and for long have we been hearing about Sotomayor's having said that she would hope that a wise Latina would, more often than not, make a better decision that a white male without the same kinds of experiences? We will hear about that from her nomination until shortly after her confirmation. Then, we'll hear about it whenever the media can drag it in, like every time a discrimination case or an affirmative action case seems likely to get before the Supremes.

Are the two even remotely comparable?

And, while I do think the media has a right wing bias, I don't think that's the only reason. It's also about access. Dis the President and you won't get as much access to him or to "sources close to the President."

In other words, our bill of rights has been screwn in any number of ways.