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December 18, 2006

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In my mind's eye, there are a few Saudi princes photoshopped in there, too.

So let's have 30,000 more troops for a "Surge" that's going to fix 4 years of non-management. Pthhh! I think this surge thing is partially a bating tactic. Get the dems to go along and use it in the next election when it doesn't work - OR better, The dems somehow squash it - things continue to go bad and use it in the next election. Positions available for Republican damned if you do damed if you don't catch 22's are more limited now and don't have near the punch, but they haven't changed thier habits. I say we tell ol' George, "Sure you can have your surge, but if it doesn't work out - You and Dick step down. Oh, you don't want to do that. Gee. We thought you were a man of conviction." I know this sounds a little obsurd, but it sure would play well in our sound bite world.

Most. . . depressing. . . .post. . . .ever.

[sigh]

Just as notable is the lack of presence of Condi Rice. I found it strange that with Rumsfeld getting out of Dodge, the sheer collapse of Iraq, the Iranians calculating their next move, that Condi has skipped the Sun talk shows altogether. It would seem she is out of happy talk.

didja also notice that gates is shorter than both bush and bigtime?

there's gotta be a reason for that.

Seems like also a conspicuous answer (namely "I'm not going anywhere") to the people who are expecting Cheney to step down "for health reasons" before 2008.

and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put humpty Iraq back together again

the rats are abandoning the ship, and the king cockroach has come out of his hole

anybody wanna bet that dead eye dick dissappears again about January 16th ???

So Gates was sworn into office with his hand on the Bible; a solemn rite that didn't make the slightest difference to two of the onlookers who made the same pledge but who have made a mockery of it. Mutter, mutter.

Teddy

Well, you got a point there--but it sure looks like Dick is wearing his platform shoes again. (Part of me believes we just can't see the fishnet stockings on account of the suit.)

The thing about Cheney ishe knew precisely what he was getting us into when he pushed for the Iraq invation, as the quote below from 1991 attests:

"I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we were going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think we'd have had to hunt him down. And once we'd done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have had to put another government in its place.

"What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or Shi'i government or a Kurdish government or Ba'athist regime? Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists? How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable?

"I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that the President got it right both times, that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq."

In 2002, Cheney pushed to do the very thing he previously argued against, with, as events have unfolded, some rather insightful analysis and prescience.

So why would Cheney come 180 degrees on the invasion of Iraq, from highlighting its pitfalls to doing everything short of declaring himself dictator to make it happen and continue?

The energy task force tasked him with a policy of divide and rule in Mesopotamia? Seems plausible, to me: "Deadeye" Dick Cheney, tool-in-chief of the Houston oil barons and Beltway Bandit merchants of death.
Cheney KNEW what we were likely getting into in Iraq, yet he pressed hammer and tongs for it anyway. Mentally degenerated since 1991? Perhaps. Incompetent in execution? Do the name Valerie Plame Wilson strike a familiar note? But incompetence borne merely of ignorance - Bush, yeah, I'd say so - but Cheney? No, evil genius of the comic-book variety, etc., fits for him.

I vascillate back and forth. When Bush choked on the pretzel was it because he was in relapse?? Then crashed his bike a few months later? Was he in full relapse and incapacitated and then did Cheney make his move and start running the show? I want to scapegoat Dick but it is so hard to imagine that he has done such an about face from serving with Bush 41 who clearly knew the danger of Iraqi occupation. I just cannot imagine the scenario. Or did it go more like Bush jr wanting to up stage his dad and show em he was wrong. Cheney being v.p goes along and then Bush falls off the wagon and cheney is forced into a position of close oversight and control, like a good co-dependent?? Knowing the way the disease works it seems way to easy to blame Cheney. I think the Bush family has been trying to control Jr. for a long time through Cheney and so it looks like Cheney is in charge. (and there are times when he must be because Jr. is incapacitated at time). Looking at those old photos of Bush Jr. it seems so clear to me that he is a very sick man. I think Cheney is also an alcoholic but not on the level of Bush Jr. I think no one tells Bush Jr. what to do.
That's how the disease works. It's like beating your head against the wall, alcoholics do not listen to others. They think with emotion, wants, desires, and they control the world around them. If I were Cheney I would be having heart trouble too. It's not that I think Cheney is a great guy, it's just that listening to him it is clear that he is capable of flexible thinking, that his disease is not at the level of Jr. And it is such a turn around from where he seemed to stand during his time serving with Bush 41. I believe Bush 41 was dirty as head of cia and Iran contra affair, but the Bush 41 team clearly seemed to understand the ramifications of destabilizing the middle east. Cheney strikes me as a man with no true religious believes. (somehow that's comforting). Bush Jr is the one with religious zeal that would make the destabiliztion of the middle east in line with his religious beliefs. Cheney is no evangelical.

I don't know, I just can't quite buy in to the Cheney is the biggest devil here. Something in my gut says the pattern doesn't fit entirely. Greedy, yes. Stupid, no. Rational and immoral, yes. Irrational and religious, no.

I don't know, I think in the end Bush jr will be found to be far more controlling, scary and sick than we realized and I wonder if it isn't killing dick.

Remember Dick and Bush together at the 911 hearings? Bush couldn't talk to the commission by himself; he had to have a handler, and neither went under oath...

I'd say having Cheney swear in Gates in the Pentagon public swearing in -- the real one was in private at the WH earlier in the day -- was about a message to the uniformed military from Cheney. Something like "This Guy still reports to and through me" was the intention I suspect.

But Gates is an altogether different animal than was Rumsfeld -- he is also loyal to Baker and through him to Brent Scowcroft and Bush I -- and a swearing event is not about to change that. In fact given this whole change in personnel, it could be that Cheney's star role in the swearing in might be considered the booby prize.

Gates is soon off to Iraq for an on the ground review with the combat commanders of the situation. He'll hardly get back before Ike Skelton and Carl Levin will be asking for both private assessments and public testimony. With Rumsfeld's departure, much of his second and third level personnel are also on the way out, and Gates will have to bring in short term replacements. I would guess Gates will bring back some retired Bush I personnel -- he may even appoint Clinton Era types because he will be dealing with a Democratic Congress, and will be considerably less interested in political confrontations than was the case with the neo-con appointments of the Rumsfeld era. I frankly don't see Gates carrying much political water for Cheney or Bush.

Last night Biden's speech to the New Hampshire Foreign Affairs Association was on C-Span -- and he put the proposition that Reid stated over the weekend much more clearly and elaborately. If Bush wants to surge troops -- he has to twin that with a clear political strategy, for there is no military solution to the situation in Iraq. Since Sunday about eight Democratic Senators have said essentially the same thing, no surge if you don't put it in the context of a clear political strategy. I think they have selected the grounds on which they will contest the White House, and at least according to Biden, there are at least a dozen Republican Senators in agreement. If so, Biden and Levin are perhaps playing with a goodly bi-partisian majority of 60.

Biden said something else that intrigued me. He said that when meeting with Bush he had pointed out that he was a newly elected 30 year old Senator, just freshly appointed to the Foreign Relations Committee when William Fullbright took the committee to the WH to confront Nixon over Vietnam back in 1969. Biden said he pointed to the lowest ranking chair at the table, and told Bush that 34 years ago, he had been sitting "there". As Biden pointed out, he then proceeded to deliver to Bush a lecture on the necessity of proceeding in a bi-partisian manner, and spelled out to him what that would mean. (Cooperate with the 8 weeks of hearings Biden has planned, furnish all documents requested, make all witnesses available -- quite a laundry list.) If it happened as Biden told it -- Bush and indeed Cheney are in the corner.

We are, I believe, watching two games play out at the same time. I suspect there is bi-partisian agreement that the Senate must claw back from Bush and Cheney its place as a co-equal branch of Government -- and the Republican Senators are more than glad to play the supportive role in letting the Democratic Leadership take this on. I don't think the Republican Conference has a majority on this, but those 15 Senators Biden talks about may in fact agree on this, and the Democrats have perhaps nearly their full caucus in agreement -- so they do have the 60 votes necessary to take Bush and Cheney on around the meaning of co-equality. And that is absolutely fundamental, because the Rovian strategy was always to make the Senate as well as Congress essentially irrelevent.

The content for accomplishing this will be Iraq policy -- specifically, is there a political strategy for the way forward in Iraq. On this Biden flagged specific issues. First, he suggested that everyone read the Iraqi Constitution, making the point it was a Federalist document, fairly weak and limited central government (for instance, no power to tax), placed control of police at the provincial level -- but that everything Bush had been doing was about creating a strong central Government -- not in accord with the constitution. Biden said he was demanding a political policy in line with the Federalist nature of the Iraqi Constitution. Very very interesting as grounds around which to contest Bush Policy in the near future. Fit "Surge" into that construct if you can?

I realize many readers here do not like Biden particularly -- and I for one do not want him to get nominated for 2008. But I appreciate the Senator as a political operator within the Senate, and think in those terms he is super smart and knows precisely what he is doing. He has three goals. Re-establish the co-equality of the legislative branch by clawing back from the executive over the next two years, Do this in terms of creating a bi-partisian center within the Senate that demands co-equality in terms of Iraq Policy, at least on the level of honest consultation, and third, pick the right fights with Bush over the content of policy, and allow them to be quite public policy debates, in major ways carried out in the environment of the Foreign Relations Committee.

At the New Hampshire speech, Biden made several other comments of note. He said he did not view Foreign Relations as a policy setting body, rather as a public education one. He cited the importance of the Fullbright Hearings back in the 60's -- and then went on to discuss why support for Bush's Iraq Policy had gone so far south. He claims it never was constrained by enlightened public opinion because of Bush/Cheney secrecy and unilateralism.

Then someone asked him about the UN and John Bolton. Big smile. Biden then answered slyly "You'll notice he isn't there anymore." Biden had a look on his face like a cat who just ate the whole rat.

Hmmm. In light of the fact that a lot of us don't want to get into impeachment without building up to it with investigations and hearings, maybe in the nearer term we could start a "Fire President Cheney" movement?

mainsailset: Just as notable is the lack of presence of Condi Rice.

Didn't you listen to Laura? Condi isn't qualified, becuase she's an unmarried only child whose parents are dead.

Oh dear...

As an only child who is not presently married, and who spent a couple of years dealing with experimental Cancer chemotherapy, and then the following 13 years dealing with the illnesses of parents, I really find Laura someone who comprehends!!! It does not really fit one for hard diplomacy, but what a disqualification.

As Kitty Kelley put it, Laura had to take several donations of George's sperm and put it between her warming legs while she drove some miles to the place where she could get it processed with her own eggs. Since Kitty Kelley never gets sued for content, why not ask if it is true?

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