Dick Takes Manhattan

[babylonsister]

Fear-mongering still. At least some of the pundits are no longer enabling him.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/197923


Howard Fineman
Dick Takes Manhattan

So now the ex-veep can't stop talking
Published May 16, 2009
From the magazine issue dated May 25, 2009


Dick Cheney hadn't planned to speak, but others at the dinner in Manhattan noticed him growing a grimmer shade of grim. He was listening to Nicholas Burns, a former State Department official in Cheney's own Bush administration, wax eloquent about the virtue of diplomacy: how a new joint effort with France, Britain, Germany and even Russia and China could prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and terrorizing the Persian Gulf region and the world. In other words, President Barack Obama's position. The host asked if the former vice president wished to respond. Yes indeedy, he did.

Cheney rose to his feet and began to speak in his fatefully avuncular I've-been-there-and-you-haven't tone. Diplomacy, he said, works only if the countries share the same objectives. Here, they don't. The Iranians are merely stalling for time to build the bomb. The Europeans are willing to accept a nuclear-armed Iran and want primarily to avoid military action of any kind, especially by us. There will be no progress unless the Iranians "believe the threat of military force is on the table." At that, he sat down again beside his daughter Elizabeth.

snip//

It's not clear that Cheney's prominence is a good thing for fellow Republicans. Conservatives applaud him for taking a stand in the face of Obama's popularity. "I look at him as Grendel, coming out of his den," says Hugh Hewitt, the conservative talk-show host. "I admire the veep, so I'm glad when he does it." By taking the lead, Rove tells me, Cheney has empowered other Republicans to come forward and put House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues on the defensive about their own knowledge of interrogation details. A GOP polling firm has conducted a survey showing voters have nuanced and divided views about harsh interrogation methods. "Democrats are opposed, Republicans and independents are in favor," Rove says.

Still, if you must resort to polls to make your case for slamming heads into walls, you've probably already lost the argument. "It's kind of hard to be seen as the guy defending torture right now," says Charlie Black, a longtime GOP operative. Another GOP strategist insisted on anonymity in order to be more blunt: "Cheney as the face of our party is nothing short of a disaster—a grumpy old man with a gun."

The deeper question is whether Cheney loose upon the land helps our security. He thinks so. His only goal, friends and family insist, is to defend policies he believes in (and, critics might well note, to be free to say "I told you so" if we are attacked again). Meantime, he and his circle think they are pulling Obama in their direction. They crowed last week when Obama reversed course and came out against the release of 2,000 photographs depicting prisoner interrogations. In reality, Obama hasn't been listening to Cheney, but rather to his own circle of trusted advisers.

Cheney could never be one of them. The reasons are obvious. He was wrong about Iraq—before, during and after. He had a tenuous relationship with the facts. He is right that we can't afford to be naive about the world, but he was the naive one, if he really ever believed that we could create a Hanging Garden of Democracy in Babylon. And he is right that diplomacy has its limits, but he never came close to testing them. So it's good to have Cheney around. We need someone to tell us hard, unpleasant truths. And it is useful to remind ourselves of the mistake we made in thinking that he was the man to do it.

[gratuitous]

1. But isn't it nice that all the popular media outlets will clear their schedules for him?

Almost as if he had something relevant to say and wasn't lying through his clenched teeth. But for some reason, it seems like every popular media outlet has lots of time and space for anything that crosses Cheney's mind, treating his oracles as if they were wisdom. But then, Howard Fineman never looks too deeply for his deeper questions.

[90-percent]

2. Cheney

I'd be orgiastic if Rupert Murdoch gave Cheney his own goddamned TV network! All Cheney all the time!

It should hasten Cheney's inevitable Mussolini like fate!

-90% Jimmy

[blogslut]

3. So, let me see if I have a handle on this

When he's doing evil things like sanctioning torture or outing CIA operatives, Dick is nowhere to be found.

But when he's huckstering for war or covering his wrinkly old butt, he turns into Chatty Cathy.

What a despicable man.

[spanone]

4. cheney would just as soon eliminate a nation as engage in diplomacy

[underpants]

5. Hewitt thinks that a comparison to Grendel is a GOOD THING?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grendel

Barring his lineage, all motives for his attacks are left up to the reader. Usually in most film or literature adaptions, Grendel attacks the hall after having been disturbed by the noise the drunken revelers have made. One cryptic scene in which Grendel sits in the abandoned hall unable to approach the throne hints that his motives may be greed or revenge

I didn't ask if it was accurate just if it is a good thing.