Earth to Bush: Ditch Cheney (Justin Raimondo)

[hang a left]

October 31, 2005
Earth to Bush: Ditch Cheney
How's that for a 'fresh start'?
by Justin Raimondo

The idea that George W. Bush is losing confidence in Dick Cheney is gaining traction, and Time magazine has the story:

"'The problem is that the president doesn't want to make changes,' says a White House adviser who is not looking for a West Wing job, 'but he's lost some of his confidence in the three people he listens to the most.' Those three are his vice president, Dick Cheney, whose top aide, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, has been charged with brazenly obstructing the investigation into who leaked the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame; Bush senior adviser Karl Rove, who while not indicted has still emerged as a player in the scandal; and chief of staff Andrew Card."

The White House was distancing itself from Libby's boss even before the indictment came down: Cheney, reports Time, was out of the loop on the Miers nomination. Now that Patrick J. Fitzgerald has Libby nailed <.pdf> – and has revealed that Cheney confirmed to Libby that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA – we're looking at a night of the long knives in Washington. As in this Washington Post piece on the indictment and its context:

"On June 9, the CIA faxed classified accounts of Wilson's assignment 'to the personal attention of Libby and another person in the Office of the Vice President.' Two or three days later, Grossman told Libby that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and had been involved in planning Wilson's trip. An unidentified 'senior officer of the CIA' confirmed Plame's employment for Libby on June 11, and Cheney told Libby the next day which part of the agency employed her.

"For Libby, according to a senior official who worked with him at the time, 'I think this just hit a nerve.' By June, he said, 'the blind, deaf, and dumb had to be aware that something was wrong in Iraq.' Uranium was 'always a side issue,' but it was also 'the beginning of the unraveling of the big story … calling attention to a huge mistake he was part of. So it's no wonder he took this personally.'

snip>

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=7845

[orpupilofnature57]

1. How about Earth to America, What Poppy being elected once has..

kept us safe from him? Dick and Shrub are from the same ditch.

[Boo Boo]

2. Conservatives of every stripe can't seem to stop projecting their

beliefs onto Bush. Raimondo excoriates the Neocons over the war, but seems to forget (if he ever knew) that Bush wanted this war, that Rove wanted this war. Bush wanted to be a War President, and openly talked (before becoming President) how if/when he got his war he would leverage it to accomplish his agenda, unlike his father. He obviously reveled in the role; he was fairly drunk on power. Rove told Congressional Republicans that the war would give them success in the mid-term elections; that was his sales pitch.

It is clear to me from remarks attributed to Perle, and from Wolfowitz' question during a WH meeting immediately after 9/11 ("Is it time to do Iraq?") that Bush had made an agreement in principle, probably prior to being elected, in exchange for their support. Gaining the support of Neocons meant gaining the support of AIPAC, which allowed Bush to split a key support group of Al Gore's: the Jewish vote.

I always wondered why the hell Gore picked Lieberman; the more I learned about Lieberman, the weirder in seemed---a truly odd couple. But, after hearing Pearle suggest that he and others had met with Bush prior to the 2000 election, and that Bush had "agreed" to all their terms... well, I wonder no more. Bush actually went to Israel and flew around over the occupied territories with Sharon. He agreed, before being elected President, to "let Sharon off his leash." He met with the Neocons while Clinton was in the middle of negotiating a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians.

So Raimondo is a sap. He implores Bush to save his Presidency, but Bush is a guy that sells us all out to Fundie Christians, and a Cabal of fantasist, pro-Likud radicals for no other reason than to satisfy his own quest for power. He made a faustian bargain and we are all now paying the price.

Bush is the President, Raimondo, you dumb fuck-nut... he's the one responsible for this. Do ya understand that concept? Bush is responsible for what happens in his administration. He did this; he just won't take responsibility for it. And you, Justin, for your own reasons, won't hold him accountable.

How big a dipshit do you have to be to blame Schwarzenegger's failed policies on I. Lewis Libby?

:finger: