Did Dick Cheney give Bush plausible deniability?

[maddezmom]

Did Dick Cheney give Bush plausible deniability?





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Did Dick Cheney give Bush plausible deniability?


Dick Cheney was an assistant at the White House when Watergate was unfolding. By the time the scandal forced Richard Nixon to resign the presidency in 1974, the young Wyoming Republican had returned to the private sector. The new president, Gerald Ford, called him back. Cheney became deputy to Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld, seen here on right when the two were named on Nov. 7, 1975. And when Rummy left (to run the Pentagon, but that's another story), Ford promoted Cheney. At 34, Richard Bruce Cheney became the youngest person ever to serve as White House chief of staff.

In his new book "The Way of the World," author Ron Suskind argues that Cheney concluded from his perch at the White House during those years that Nixon fell not because of his abuse of government -- he asked agencies such as the IRS and the FBI to shadow his enemies. Or because of the break-in of the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee by criminals with ties to CREEP (The Committee To Re-Elect the President). Or even because of the cover-up.

Suskind believes Cheney concluded that Nixon had been "overbriefed" and that his aides had failed to give him "plausible deniability." And so, a la Suskind, that is what Cheney set out to give George W. Bush.

Asked about it last night on Keith Olberman's "Countdown" on MSNBC, John Dean, White House counsel in the Nixon presidency, said Cheney has been so successful at this that it will prevent impeachment proceedings against Bush.

more:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/presidentbush/2008/08/fake-iraq-doc.html

[hisownpetard]

1. That makes so much sense. Cheney swears that the buck will stop with him, to enable Bush

to move forward without fear of legal accountability on all of Cheney's evil schemes for world domination
and total executive power.

The proof is in the pudding - and Bush's 'pudding' is smeared all over Washington, Iraq and the rest of the world.

[Demeter]

2. I Don't Know. There's a Good Case to Make That Bush Is Mentally Incompetent

and suffering from massive personality disorders that make him unfit for any position of responsibilty. And letting Cheney keep him in the dark supports my hypothetical case much better, too.

[MaryRN]

4. Could NOT agree more n/t

[Uncle Joe]

5. I agree, Demeter and I've always thought Cheney chose Bush, not the other way around.

Cheney had the connections to the power and the money, Bush had a name, was from a large state and had such an incurious, lazy mind as to make him a perfect puppet. I never believed Bush asked Cheney to search the entire nation over for the best Vice-Presidential running mate, and lo and behold, they decided Cheney was it. I always thought the supposed search was just a setup from the get go.

I also believe if the President isn't fully informed of the critical issues and or unsavory, even UnConstitutional practices of his administration, this borders on negligence of his/her solemn oath to defend the Constitution, if not incompetence and should warrant impeachment for both parties to this deal on those grounds alone if nothing else.

The ultimate truth is the American People elect the President to lead, not the Vice President and the President can't lead if he or she is not being informed, so if the Vice-President interferes with the relationship between the American People and the President, the Vice-President should be impeached.

[CJCRANE]

3. The whole Bush-Cheney MO

from anthrax to 9/11 to Saddam's WMD etc etc is based on "plausible deniability".

But most of it isn't very plausible, except to the MSM.