Footnotes on the Nuclear Option -- Part III

by Kagro X

Some very clear thoughts about the confluence of the Bolton nomination and the nuclear option came to me on my short walk home from dropping my son at school on Wednesday, but by the time I got back to the computer, they'd evaporated.

Steve Clemons recovers my memory for me today, after apparently suffering from a similar block:

I knew that the essential themes and players involved with the Bolton nomination had played out some time before. Sort of like a Shakespearean tragedy, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

All of this seemed all too familiar with Cheney pushing a questionable political candidate on Condi Rice who oddly acquiesced -- even though it was not in here interest to do so.

The story was right under my nose all the time and takes me back to the very important article written by Sidney Blumenthal about Brent Scowcroft when the distinguished General was somewhat unceremoniously escorted out of the Bush administration's center foreign policy circle. There has been some revisionism about what led to Scowcroft not being asked to continue as Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, but that's another topic for another day.

What matters is the story about another problematic "abuser": Robert Blackwill. Cheney pushed Blackwill's candidacy. Condi would not or could not say "no" despite serious abuse allegations by State Department staff about Blackwill's behavior. And in the end, it was Richard Armitage and Colin Powell who sent the White House and Condoleeza Rice an unambiguous message that if they failed to discipline Blackwill, then the State Department would take action on its own.

But my interest is not in the fact that both Bolton and Blackwill were pushed by Cheney, but rather that Cheney is also behind that other bit of potentially suicidal idiocy the GOP has committed itself to, namely the nuclear option.

It's become a tired joke at this point how often senior administration offcials have "failed upwards": Condi Rice to State, Alberto Gonzales to AG, George Tenet to the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Paul Wolfowitz to the World Bank, and now serial abuser, slanderer and withholder of national security information John Bolton to... not prison. Add to that the fact that the Senate, with Cheney's vote, is prepared to go nuclear to ram through the remaining few of Bush's judicial appointees not already enjoying the afterglow of this administration's 95% confirmation rate, and the picture begins to come into focus. Just for flavor, toss in the unprecedented meddling in judicial affairs over the Terri Schiavo case (and the lying it engendered), veiled threats to judges from top Republicans, and the not-adequately-veiled threats of Republican operatives, and you really have a seriously unsavory stew.

And while the president's favorability numbers are plummeting, does anybody know what's happening to Cheney's? Does anyone measure them? Should they?

I think so. And I think it's time to remind everyone just how closely tied to what the public is just now realizing as insane overreaching Dick Cheney actually is. As nonsensical as it may seem, Bush has been able to maintain relatively good numbers, considering the very public upward mobility of the administration's most spectacular failures. It is, perhaps, the single greatest benefit of being perceived as a "reg'lar guy." Cheney has no such charm. Plus, his connection to and responsibility for the administration's policies have the advantage of being grounded in truth, unlike the president's.

The bottom line is, we are in Iraq because of Dick Cheney. We suffer the indignity of being representated in the eyes of the greater global community by Condi Rice and Paul Wolfowitz because of Dick Cheney. Lunkhead John Bolton may yet join them in poisoning world opinion against us because of Dick Cheney. And next week, in an effort not only to pack the bench with conservative activists, but to move industry lobbyists from the committee dais to the Circuit Courts, Senators interested in a serious and independent judiciary will lose their ability to sound the alarm in time for the American public to sit up and take notice, because of Dick Cheney.

Comments

[DemFromCT]

and this is a problem because...

j/k

Let him run on his own next time. Oh, and add another notch on the "I owe Joe Lieberman' paddle. Joe, by debating Cheney so poorly in 2000, made him look like a moderate and sound like a grown-up.

[DemFromCT]

P.S. The Veep sounds like a typical clueless white male CEO when confronted with discrimination or abuse at his company.

link

Cheney was dismissive of what Democrats have portrayed as a troubling record that cast doubt on Bolton's temperament and credibility. "I have looked at all of the charges that have been made; I don't think any of them stand up to scrutiny," Cheney said.

[Kagro X]

They could put the crack team from the Abu Grhaib investigation on the case. That ought to clear things up some.

[kainah]

Hey, I'm still waiting for someone to investigate where Cheney was lying in 2000 -- when he signed an oath as a voter that he was a resident of Wyoming and signed a statement in TX for his homestead exemption that he was a resident of TX. He lied somewhere -- and i knew the press was incompetent when no one cared abt this in 2000. It still infuriates me. Even if Bush had been legitimately elected, Cheney should NEVER have been allowed to be VP. He shouldn't have received the TX electoral votes.

[dksbook]

While reading this diary, I couldn't get the picture of Cheney at the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz out of my mind - the not-just-grumpy-but-frighteningly-furious decaying man, so inappropriate in dress and demeanor. It struck me when I first saw it that this is a man who thinks no rules of any kind apply to him, not even the most basic rules of courtesy that smooth the way of humans as they interact. He actually thinks he can do any thing he wants and it is just O-fucking-K. Usually guys like him cultivate a veneer of civilized behaviors, the forms, because it reassures people that they are nice guys, considerate of the feelings of others; but Cheney doesn't even bother. And I am still pondering what this means in the reality-based world. Does it mean he has something on the Bushes? Does it mean he is so sick he doesn't care? Does it mean he is just a misanthrope with a lot of accidental power? What the hell does it really mean?

[Meteor Blades]

Thanks for remembering that bit of frustrating trivia, kainah. Old news, of course, but like so much about this administration - from Air National Guard duty to Geneva Convention violations to secret energy meetings - still unresolved old news.

Amazing that you can have two Cheneys - Dick AND Lynne - so deeply embedded in the what-I-say-are-the-rules-ARE-the-rules camp. Glad at least to know who's in charge of the country.

[NG]

When you read the following, do you think it implies that the party will be over sooner than later for the current group in power?

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
Abraham Lincoln