Doubtless, many long-time friends of Cheney's are similarly mulling over what transformed a responsible Secretary of Defense to Bush 41 into an increasingly pugnacious Vice President...

Well, you're no doubt aware that Cheney has had open-heart bypass surgery, no? And that there is increasing medical agreement that this surgery can cause a deterioration in mental function?

Is Dick Cheney suffering from "pump-head syndrome?" (Medically known as "post-perfusion syndrome")? Who knows. But it would fit some of the quirks we see with this Vice President. Especially the personality changes since 1991, observed by many people including Brent Scowcroft.

Skeptics should have no problem debunking this rumor by pointing to some publicly-available evidence of the Vice President's good health. Right?

Posted by: stickler at January 25, 2007 06:54 AM | Permalink to this comment

"all the neighbors said he was such a quiet man... loved children"

I just gotta wonder about this. It's not like Cheney hasn't blazed a wide open trail with little left as cryptic. Personality changes since 1991? Seems like Cheney's path through this life has been as obvious as Sherman's march to the sea.

Posted by: Azael at January 25, 2007 07:14 AM | Permalink to this comment

Ok, if Iraq has been an enormous success, then why is there a problem if we leave now? And if conditions now exist in Iraq so that America faces the prospect of a disasterous defeat if it were to leave, then how can the world really be better off. We weren't facing such dire consequences with Saddam in power, awful bastard that he was. We've created a potential disaster out of a situation that at worst was problematic.

It is almost impossible to describe Dick Cheney. He seems so disconnected from reality that you truly wonder if he has some type of mental disorder that renders him incapable of understanding the truth.

Posted by: Jim at January 25, 2007 07:17 AM | Permalink to this comment

It's not a terrible situation in Iraq?

I'd like Dick Cheney to leave his security escort behind and take a walk down any street in Baghdad, and then tell us about "enormous successes" and "not a terrible situation."

Posted by: tequila at January 25, 2007 09:41 AM | Permalink to this comment

one could argue that the performance was so oddly obstreperous, bilious even, that it must have been, well, a performance. Certainly it seems that either Cheney increasingly chaffs in his role as puppet master to an idiot president who now has the gall to seek out others to pull his strings - or this is all part of a rhetorical campaign designed to shift blame for failure using the 'surge' as the fulcrum.

Posted by: saintsimon at January 25, 2007 12:18 PM | Permalink to this comment

At some point, I fully expected for him to either (1) start raving about that upstart George Bailey or (2) after getting a tough question from Blitzer, hissing "GUARDS! SSSSSSEIZE HIM!"

Posted by: norbizness at January 25, 2007 01:41 PM | Permalink to this comment

It is almost impossible to describe Dick Cheney. He seems so disconnected from reality that you truly wonder if he has some type of mental disorder that renders him incapable of understanding the truth.

I think the guy is flat out delusional. Perhaps it's the result of his open heart surgery -- I have a friend who had a quad by-pass, and it definitely affected the way his brain functions, though hardly in the same hyper-aggressive way -- but regardless of cause Cheney is a dangerous lunatic at this point. I don't think this was a "performance": it's the real thing, and the scandal is that he comes off as someone right out of Dr. Strangelove. Think of it--this madman is the proverbial "heartbeat away" from the Presidency, and has almost certainly been the power behind the throne from the get-go. 2008 can't come fast enough for me. Posted by: Redhand at January 25, 2007 01:48 PM | Permalink to this comment

"Baghdad Bob? Allow me to introduce you to DC Dick..."

Posted by: jim in austin at January 25, 2007 03:36 PM | Permalink to this comment

What is more disturbing than Cheney's disconnect is how he transfers this disconnect to Bush. In Cheney's case his behavior is most certainly a mental illness. There may be some relationship to the various medical procedures he's been through and possibly some medication he is on right now. One notes the recent revelations about the mind altering meds Rhenquist was once on. Greg, we need a plan to partition Iraq. The Democrats need to come up with one; Bush-Cheney will never buy into this.

Posted by: FuManchu at January 25, 2007 04:07 PM | Permalink to this comment

At least he isn't talking about his precious bodily fluids. Yet.

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at January 25, 2007 06:00 PM | Permalink to this comment

Wow. Back in 2000 I thought that the best thing about Bush was his selection of Cheney as his running mate. I saw in Cheney everything that I didn't see in Bush -- intelligence, sobriety, seriousness and experience.

Over the past several years I've come to the same conclusions as the commenters. I consider this blog, and its commenters, to be generally people who avoid the glib remarks and easy partisanship of many other media outlets. Thus, it's really remarkable that so many serious people have honestly come to the conclusion that our Vice President (and perhaps the real power in the Executive branch) is mentally unbalanced.

These are odd, and scary, times.

Posted by: Tillman Fan at January 25, 2007 07:03 PM | Permalink to this comment

I'm somewhat shocked that so many seem to be assuming Cheney is off his rocker. Not that mental illness is unheard of in the White House, but it seems much more likely that he is, as he has done before, appealing to a certain hardcore element and keeping alive and vibrant the conservative storyline: we had the guts to do the right thing in Iraq the liberals didn't and they turned the country against us so if this thing goes south you know who to blame. When you match the rhetoric to the shaky details of 'the plan' it becomes clear that conservatives really don't believe the surge will work as a military adventure - but political adventure that's a different story. Why else would they so often be challenging the Democrats to put an end to it by pulling funds? If you really thought the surge was necessary AND doable you wouldn't be casually encouraging people to put a stop to it would you? You wouldn't actively be aggravating people into doing the exact thing you say you don't want them to do, would you?

Posted by: culltech at January 25, 2007 07:13 PM | Permalink to this comment

The ascription of mental illness to people with whose views one disagrees is common enough in our politics to make one wonder whether it does not betray a certain lack of imagination.

It really shouldn't be shocking that someone whose career had been spent managing process -- counting votes, managing paper flow, giving statements prepared by others -- would have judgment with respect to policy that is less than reliable. Nor should it surprise anyone that people wholly preoccupied with the mechanics of getting elected are liable to adopt strange ideas once the campaign ends and they find themselves holding the levers of power. And anyone who thinks an elected official, defending to the death a policy he has helped design long after it has gone off the rails, must therefore be mentally ill really is new to the game.

It would be comforting to think that Vice President Cheney, or President Bush for that matter, represent something unique in American government. In point of fact, in the last five Presidential elections at least one of the major parties made a decision to nominate a candidate who had accomplished notably less in government than at least one of the candidates it rejected four times (in 2000 both parties did; 1996 was the exception). Foreign policy was not a salient issue in any of the three elections held between 1992 and 2000 or in any of the elections for Congress during that period. Consequently the number of people in responsible government positions able to approach foreign policy with both deep knowledge and experience was, in 2000, much smaller than it had been 20 years earlier -- and on top of that was added the impact of 9/11, which deeply unnerved a great many people. President Bush in particular seems to have been badly frightened on that day, and has remained badly frightened ever since.

The business of the permanent campaign has long since overwhelmed the business of government in Washington, and what the campaign has not come to dominate has been absorbed in the older struggle for bureaucratic position. Once before, three decades ago, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld scored a seminal triumph in that struggle, in the process bringing most of American foreign policy to a grinding halt. Confirmed in their mastery of bureaucratic warfare, they confronted real warfare after 2001, a task for which much of their experience and talent were useless, serving a weak President unable to give them direction or use other subordinates to keep their bad ideas from becoming policy. Cheney now is doing what Cheney has done before: defending his position, not showing weakness, keeping any doubts he might have carefully hidden. In both the permanent campaign and bureaucratic warfare, these are great strengths. They are what Cheney knows -- in common, once again, with a very large number of other prominent people in Washington.

Incidentally, the last part of his CNN interview, the one that touched on his daughters, showed another trait of his shared in spades by President Bush and a great many other people in Washington, in both parties -- a really ferocious sense of personal entitlement. Cheney has really gotten off easy over the years with respect to his familiy connections; he put one daughter, the one who wrote the dimwit Op-Ed on Iraq for the Washington Post the other day, on the payroll as an Assistant Secretary at the State Department with little notice, and no one so far has thought to inquire about whether he had anything to do with the lucrative book contract given his other daughter, whose only notable quality is that she is a homosexual. Wolf Blitzer's very tentative inquiry in the interview was actually exceptional for Washington, where everyone assumes that Big Men will see that their relatives are well provided for and kept immune from public criticism. I saw no suggestion of mental illness in Cheney's irritated response to this either, merely evidence of the moral sickness endemic in Washington.

Posted by: Zathras at January 25, 2007 09:10 PM | Permalink to this comment

Regarding Cheney's comments that to pull out of Iraq would be doing what the terrorists want us to do: I agree.

But something I've not seen brought up in the media, and certainly not asked directly to this administration (though I could be wrong on both counts) is the IMO incredible likelihood that Al Qaeda wanted to drag us into a distracting war, trap us there, have it serve as a rallying cause to those opposed to us or on the fence, and overall put us in a lose-lose situation regardless of whether we stay or go (though if we're to go, at least we're choosing the time).

My first reaction to reading about the interview was also whether or not Cheney is delusional. At least others see it the same way. Though I see culltech's point too (not that they both couldn't be true).

Posted by: James at January 25, 2007 09:13 PM | Permalink to this comment

I'm somewhat shocked that so many seem to be assuming Cheney is off his rocker. Not that mental illness is unheard of in the White House, but it seems much more likely that he is, as he has done before, appealing to a certain hardcore element and keeping alive and vibrant the conservative storyline

Here's the conundrum: how many people do you think there are left in America who make up that "certain hardcore element"? The only ones I encounter are some zealots over at AOSHQ who go apesh*t and call me a leftist moonbat whenever my criticism of Bush and Cheney waxes sarcastic.

The reason I think Cheney is off his rocker is because only a "true believer" would buy his party line at this point. His rhetoric is so insanely divorced from reality that one really must question the stability of anyone saying such things. As a piece of domestic politics, it is equally NUTS for him to be saying this too. Ergo, he really is.

Remember, this is the same guy who doesn't think "water-boarding" is torture . I don't think that's playing very well in Peoria, either.

Posted by: Redhand at January 25, 2007 09:27 PM | Permalink to this comment

FWIW, I'll have to second culltech's assessment of VP Cheney's mental state over FuManchu's: old Shotgun Dick may have some notable personality disorder or other: but he is almost certainly "sane" by any sane definition of the term.

However, that does beg the point somewhat: assuming Our Veep is right in the head, why would he go on public record expressing views on the situation in Iraq which are so blatantly at odds with reality?

Does he really think that our occupation IS so much of a "success"? Does he truly believe the situation in Baghdad isn't "terrible"? Or are his remarks just so much stock rhetoric from the "hawkish" playbook; designed for facile quotability, and to buck up wavering pro-war supporters; and not intended to be credible to any but the hard core of True Believers in any case (dwindling though their numbers may be)?

The latter case - bad as it may to realize that our nation's high offcials really ARE the cynical sleazes we imagine them to be - at least has the positive aspect of being a little more connected to the real world. One hopes.

Posted by: Jay C at January 25, 2007 09:40 PM | Permalink to this comment

I have to say I like Zathras's comment. It makes sense, particularly as regards the obnoxious "sense of entitlement" Cheney has. But, on another level, whether or not Cheney is clinically sick is beside the point. At the very least, his rhetoric reveals someone fatally out of touch with the reality of what's happening around him, not to mention how that reality is perceived of the vast majority of Americans.

Posted by: Redhand at January 25, 2007 09:42 PM | Permalink to this comment

Cheney's aggressive comments to Blitzer are nothing more than a blatant swipe at the "liberal" media desperately designed to appeal to the base of true believers. Remember his wife Lynn's recent indignance at Blitzer about CNN's (questionable) use of terrorist videos? Same, obvious stuff.

Posted by: JCC at January 25, 2007 09:48 PM | Permalink to this comment

"Dangerously deceptive"?

I would use the term "insane" over that selection.

Posted by: Chris at January 25, 2007 10:54 PM | Permalink to this comment

As someone or another once said: "We are Dizzy with Success!"

Dr. Strangelove: Yes, remember Cheney said we would be victorious as long as we remain pure in our bodily fluids!

Awe Inspiring how few Republican lawmakers are rallying around the President regarding the Surge. Most seem to want put some distance between them & the Administration.

Posted by: David All at January 25, 2007 10:59 PM | Permalink to this comment

Before you question Cheney's claims of enormous success you have to get a grip on his goals.

Posted by: Davebo at January 25, 2007 11:10 PM | Permalink to this comment

I agree with Davebo.

I've often said, "They couldn't have pooched this worse UNLESS THEY WANTED TO. . . ."

Posted by: Barry E. at January 26, 2007 12:26 AM | Permalink to this comment

One of the previous commentators is correct in positing that it is highly unlikely that our current Vice-President is mentally unbalanced, in any clinical sense. One could if one were to search
various Presidential libraries, come up with various Presidents whose 'dis-connect' with reality were as bad as, if not worse than Mr. Cheney's. I think that the real 'dilemma' or 'mystery', is why someone, who seem to be a fairly intelligent (in every sense of the word), and, knowledgeable Washington hand (number two in the House on the Republican side when he became Defence Secretary); someone who performed fairly well at the Pentagon between 1989 and 1992 (as compared to say Les Aspin for example), and, who in his public comments prior to the 2000 elections, appeared to be quite a moderate character (as per his wanting to amend the sanctions regime against Iraq...admittedly for commercial reasons).

Since the 2000, elections, it appears that the Vice-President has basically gone off the rails. At least in his public comments. Perhaps, and, it is a very big perhaps indeed, his public comments
are meant to hide, and, do in fact hide, an entirely different point of view, and policy positions in private. That is possible, and, we have had several Presidents who have done the same (Eisenhower most famously). But, if it is so, it is contrary to almost all the available evidence that we possess about the goings on of this
administration. So, one must go with the notion that Mr. Cheney is in fact
sincere in his comments, and, my own surmise is that
he is defending, with the pugnacity of a bulldog, what he believes (rightly or wrongly - mostly wrong of course) is the correct
policy presecriptions that this administration has come up with. My heaven help us!

Posted by: Charles G. Coutinho, Ph. D. at January 26, 2007 01:56 AM | Permalink to this comment

I still can't believe the pass the media gave Cheney on the Haliburton no-bid contacts in this war he pushed for! The vaiue of Haliburton has increase 6-FOLD(at the public trough) since the start of the war in Iraq! What has that done to the value of the VPs "blind trust" hold his shares! This is a massive conflict of interset that has gone unreported and should be illegal.

With regard to Cheneys health having an effect on his dispostion, my grandfather ceased to be the person I knew after his heart problems.

Posted by: centrist at January 26, 2007 02:47 AM | Permalink to this comment

Incidentally, the last part of his CNN interview, the one that touched on his daughters, showed another trait of his shared in spades by President Bush and a great many other people in Washington, in both parties -- a really ferocious sense of personal entitlement. Cheney has really gotten off easy over the years with respect to his familiy connections; he put one daughter, the one who wrote the dimwit Op-Ed on Iraq for the Washington Post the other day, on the payroll as an Assistant Secretary at the State Department with little notice, and no one so far has thought to inquire about whether he had anything to do with the lucrative book contract given his other daughter, whose only notable quality is that she is a homosexual. Wolf Blitzer's very tentative inquiry in the interview was actually exceptional for Washington, where everyone assumes that Big Men will see that their relatives are well provided for and kept immune from public criticism.

Excellent post, Zathras. I only want to add that you forgot Cheney's ultimate act of entitlement, his magnaminous recommendation of himself as the "talent" best qualified to serve as young George W's running mate, back when he was head of the group appointed to select the GOP VP nominee for the 2000 campaign. It raised eyebrows, but that's all. Unfortunately this sort of self-dealing seems to be expected, nowadays.....

Posted by: sglover at January 26, 2007 03:38 AM | Permalink to this comment

I know this is my fourth post, and that I've probably gone off the rails here myself ranting about Cheney. However, I don't think there is a more despicable figure in Washington today. As VP he acts like a rogue cabinet secretary who can't be fired but who, unlike the President, doesn't even pretend to be accountable to the electorate. Thus he is free to utter the most outrageous and provocative things without consequences.

Of course this is a reflection of Bush's own pathetic weakness as Chief Executive: can anyone imagine LBJ putting up with this kind of nonsense from H.H., or even Bubba not keeping Al-Gore under control? But the problem of Cheney is not just what he says. The pathology between Bush and Cheney aside, the damage Cheney has done to our Nation is incalculable.

I think his extreme rhetoric justifying the Iraq débâcle is due to the fact that he is its principal architect. We have him to thank for 3,000+ dead Americans; tens of thousands of hideously IED-maimed servicemen with everything from traumatic brain injuries to multiple amputations -- if you want to be horrified, check out the military medicine article in the Dec. 2006 issue of National Geographic -- over $400B in wasted national treasure (aside, of course, from the defense contractor take); and a catastrophe-in-the-making as succeeding administrations will grapple with the fallout from the incompetence and hubris of trying to re-make the Middle East in a Western Democratic mold.

All we have really accomplished is to alter radically the balance of power in the region, by emboldening the Shite bad actors in Iran and making Iraq a killing field for Sunni-Shia strife. Meanwhile, we have also acquired a reputation as a state sponsor of torture, and for impotence into the bargain. Contrary to Colin Powell's famous, "You don't do this to the United States and get away with it," we have not settled the account with bin-Laden, and are letting Afghanistan fall to pieces while we deal with defeat in this wholly unnecessary Iraq conflict.

"Enormous successes" indeed.

On reflection, my personal take on Cheney is that his policy and leadership meltdown may be due to personality changes ("going crazy") from his heart surgery, but if not, it certainly has much to do with his pampered isolation as a Republican fat-cat and business executive. I know something of corporate life and boardroom mentality. Cheney is the very embodiment of corporate and political elitism, coupled with the isolation and megalomania that comes from having your ass powdered 24/7. The scandal is that "leaders" of his stripe are so used to getting their way that they fail to understand external reality can disrupt the "best laid plans."

I have not been this outraged over the cost of Administration incompetence and stupidity since the Carter years. During the Cold War I always voted Republican since I felt that the Democrats could not be trusted with the conduct of American foreign policy. Now I'm willing to listen to the likes of Pelosi and Reid because I don't think the Democrats could possibly do a worse job than this Administration has.

Posted by: Redhand at January 26, 2007 03:59 AM | Permalink to this comment

It seems to me that Cheney is rationally pursuing a policy that is six or seven years old, deflecting negative stories and dangerous lines of questioning by attacking the source or questioner.

And it works, sort of. Twenty-eight percent of the country appears to unfailingly take the administration at its word, against all comers.

Assert whatever you wish to be true as truth, and someone somewhere will believe you. It's a calculated choice, on display every day in Tony Snow's press conferences.

Posted by: Chris Bray at January 26, 2007 04:09 AM | Permalink to this comment

Twenty-eight percent of the country appears to unfailingly take the administration at its word, against all comers.

Bummer, that. It just means that the seventy-two percent
of us that don't reflexively support our Cretin-in-Chief and his gang of radicals-in-office in whatever harebrained warmongering they have planned will just keep having to push to make our voices (and numbers) heard. Do the math.

Posted by: Jay C at January 26, 2007 04:59 AM | Permalink to this comment

All the above comments are reasonable and perhaps I was both snarky and abrupt in condemning Dick Cheney on medical grounds.

Still, let's face a few well-known facts about the Vice President which -- combined with the current President's known hands-off management style, and Cheney's enormous influence -- should cause all of us to demand a full accounting:

1. Dick Cheney has had at least three major heart surgeries, including multiple bypass surgery in 1988. Many people have developed mental problems after serious heart surgery, see "pump-head syndrome," above. Anecdotal evidence from acquaintances (like Brent Scowcroft, as well as numerous Wyoming residents, among others) suggests that Dick Cheney ca. 2001-07 is a changed man from the Dick Cheney they knew before 1991.

2. Because of his cardiovascular disease, we might reasonably assume he is on any of a series of maintenance medications. Many of these medications have moderate to serious implications for affecting judgement and mental ability. We, the people, do not know what medications Dick Cheney is taking. Given his other physical maladies, including atheroclotic disease and aneurysms in both legs, other medications prescribed for these ailments might have serious implications for complicating his situation. Is he suffering from problematic interactions of medication?

3. After he shot Mr. Whittington, it was (gradually) revealed that the entire hunting party had been drinking alcohol. Lots, some, or "just a beer," matters little, given factors #1 and #2. Imagine the interactions of all those medications, along with the occasional (or, God forbid, daily) tipple.

All in all, one could make the case that Dick Cheney represents in his current state an interesting challenge to the Constitution and the Republic.

Posted by: stickler at January 26, 2007 05:53 AM | Permalink to this comment

Cheney hasn't changed. He's exactly who he always was. I recall someone saying they interviewed him in his congressional office long long ago and came away saying Dick was the most dangerous politician in Washington.

He has always been a wellspring of contempt for just about everyone who isn't of his class and beliefs. Contempt should be his middle name. It informs everything about his attitude and manner. Who doubts that he harbors a deep contempt for his boy Bush?

Into this world stepped Libby. He embraced it and Cheney. Fighting the wars against Powell and State, Rove and the Pentagon when necessary, and every other arm of government where he maintains cadres of loyalists. It was Libby's job to run that war within the government.

Posted by: rapier at January 26, 2007 11:49 AM | Permalink to this comment

Twenty-eight percent of the country appears to unfailingly take the administration at its word, against all comers.

SOMEBODY's gotta be at the lower end of the bell curve, right?

Posted by: los at January 26, 2007 03:05 PM | Permalink to this comment

Tehran's Influence Grows As Iraqis See Advantages
Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD, Jan. 25 -- When Fadhil Abbas determined that his mother's astigmatism required surgery, they did not consider treatment in his home town of Najaf, in southern Iraq. Instead they joined a four-taxi convoy of ailing Iraqis headed to Iran.

For more than two weeks last fall, Abbas, his sister and his mother were treated to free hotels, trips to the zoo and religious shrines, and his mother's $1,300 eye surgery at a hospital in Tehran, all courtesy of the offices of Moqtada al-Sadr, Iraq's ascendant Shiite Muslim cleric. Abbas returned to Najaf glowing over the technical prowess of Iran.

"When you look at this hospital, it is like something imaginary -- you wouldn't believe such a hospital like this exists," said Abbas, a 22-year-old college student. "Iran wants to help the patients in Iraq. Other countries don't want to let Iraqis in." The United States doesn’t trust the people it is liberating.

The increasingly common arrangement for sick or wounded Iraqis to receive treatment in Iran is just one strand in a burgeoning relationship between these two Persian Gulf countries. Thousands of Iranian pilgrims visit the Shiite holy cities in southern Iraq each year. Iran exports electricity and refined oil products to Iraq, and Iraqi vendors sell Iranian-made cars, air coolers, plastics and the black flags, decorated with colorful script, that Shiites are flying this week to celebrate the religious holiday of Ashura. But when President Bush and top U.S. officials speak of Iran's role in Iraq, their focus is more limited. U.S. officials accuse Iranian security forces, particularly the al-Quds Brigade of the Revolutionary Guards, of funneling sophisticated explosives to Iraqi guerrillas.

Posted by: SomeOtherDude at January 27, 2007 01:07 AM | Permalink to this comment

regarding Posted by: Charles G. Coutinho, Ph. D. at January 26, 2007 01:56 AM

i read what you said..seems reasonable.
HOWEVER i must confess that folks who ID themselves as Joe Blow, PhD push my buttons. so...

get over yourself. (and your website should do the same.)

ps i got one, too. but i've met enough asshole PhDs to know that having this degree means little. your self-representation implies that you have not yet made this discovery.

Posted by: HyperIon at January 27, 2007 01:23 AM | Permalink to this comment

damn.

all the kids already killed the DICK pinata. all the candy's on the ground. let's get.....there's some!! .... oh uh ergthh...damn...nuthin left.

dick....you don't look so good...dick?

Posted by: neill at January 27, 2007 04:48 AM | Permalink to this comment

mirrors.

cave walls.

none of us have a clue right now.

Posted by: neill at January 27, 2007 04:52 AM | Permalink to this comment

Greg,

Excellent piece by Nick Bromell on Scooter Libby, fundamentalism, and truth.

As for Dick Cheney, I believe that, like a great many Americans, he emerged from 9/11 scared and hungry for revenge.

Revenge, of course, is for suckers and fools. One never gains a measure of vengeance. One cannot change the past.

Like many Americans after 9/11, Dick Cheney sought the blood of others to quell his fear. Problem is, such action only makes individuals like Mr. Cheney all the more afraid.

Posted by: Mark Raven at January 27, 2007 06:13 AM | Permalink to this comment

If what has gone on in Iraq is described as an "outstanding success" by our Vice-President, I'd had to see what he describes as a failure.

If he manages to stampede the US into attacking Iran, we will see Round II of this delightful soap-opera-written-in-blood.

Posted by: grumpy realist at January 27, 2007 06:55 PM | Permalink to this comment

Thanks for including the link to the "Scooter and Me" essay!

Posted by: J at January 28, 2007 05:16 AM | Permalink to this comment

The vaiue of Haliburton has increase 6-FOLD(at the public trough) since the start of the war in Iraq!

I don't want to get in the way of a good rant, and I do think that something fishy has gone on with the contracting. However, the driving force behind the resurgence in Halliburton's stock price has nothing to do with Iraq; it's because of a settlement of the asbestos claims the company acquired Dresser Industries. Those claims drove Halliburton into bankruptcy prior to 2003, from which it has emerged since.

Posted by: J. Michael Neal at January 28, 2007 06:22 AM | Permalink to this comment

Mr. Neal,

Nice catch on the reason behind the Haliburton stock increase.

Interesting comparison.

Mr. Cheney, as CEO of Haliburton, buys Dresser and receives ample personal compensation for initially sparking a rise in the Haliburton stock price. Mr. Cheney then leaves Haliburton, the massive problem with the asbestos claims at Dresser emerges, and Haliburton tanks.

Mr. Cheney, as vice president, perhaps serves as the chief instigator of the war in Iraq. Mr. Cheney, this time while still on the job, sees massive problems emerge in Iraq. (Of course, Mr. Cheney, when interviewed by former American Israel Public Action Committee lobbyist Wolf Blitzer, denies those woes.) Hundreds of billions of U.S. tax dollars have been spent. Hundreds of billions more U.S. tax dollars figure to be spent.

However, as with Haliburton, Mr. Cheney will, in two years, leave those problems behind. No doubt Mr. Cheney, a very wealthy man for someone with such a long career as a public servant, will return to the private sector. Perhaps at Haliburton. Perhaps at Bechtel.

Mr. Cheney left. Haliburton investors paid.

Mr. Cheney will soon depart again. Americans, who have already paid hundreds of billions, will pay trillions more, not just for the Iraq War but also for the insanity known as our federal debt, which will double in the eight years of the Bush-Cheney White House.

Moral to story: Invest in Mr. Cheney, but the moment he departs (or the D.C. media actually starts asking intelligent questions), dump the stock.

And, never, I mean never listen to Tim Russert about anything that involves Mr. Cheney or to Larry Kudlow about anything that involves prudent investment.

Posted by: Mark Raven at January 28, 2007 03:27 PM | Permalink to this comment

I didn't realize this was a pure Moonbat site. I seem to remember being here last Summer and getting something resembling a real debate/discussion. Not the nanny-state, surrender monky choir it has become. One question. What is the moonbat definition of torture? Mine, like Cheney, does not include water bording. Water bording does no physical damage apart from the fear it instills. This is aggresive coersion, not torture.

You guys are not critizing the Whitehouse. Rather you are questioning, with little logical support, the very legitimacy of the governmnet. This is not responsible dissent. It is hard core 60's masto-pacisfism looking for a new life that just ain't gonna happen -- with or without the MSM robo support. Take away the latino/black/pub servant/entitlement addicts and lefties have a lot less support than LA and the MSM would like us all to think.

Posted by: Ron Proby at January 29, 2007 01:06 AM | Permalink to this comment

And yet, Proby, the real irony is that in your rationalizations of torture, swatting away dissent from the Administration's policies (or lack thereof) with "moon-bat" and "leftist" epithets that are so characteristic of LGF and similar wingnut sites, and strict adherence to the mutterings of the Dear Decider, you yourself more closely resemble a Brezhnev-era apparatchik (or, hell, let's even go with neo-Stalinist for a tag) than anyone who comments here. Jackass.

Posted by: proby@myorifice.com at January 29, 2007 02:46 AM | Permalink to this comment

I didn't realize this was a pure Moonbat site. I seem to remember being here last Summer and getting something resembling a real debate/discussion. Not the nanny-state, surrender monky choir it has become.

Ah. With an opening like that, you just know you're in for some high-quality informed commentary.....

Posted by: sglover at January 29, 2007 03:17 AM | Permalink to this comment

Mr. Proby,

Long ago, a high school English teacher of mine emphasized that the validity of one's argument is either strengthened or weakened by the writer's spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

To that end, I note in your above post the following misspelled words:

Monkey;

Waterboarding (twice);

Coercion, and;

Criticizing.

Also, you capitalized the word summer (all seasons appear in lower case) and chose, on one occasion, to capitalize the term Moonbat, but declined to do so a second time.

No one, least of all me, expects you or anyone on this site to offer Shakespeare or Thomas Paine.

However, I must ask you to explain why another reader should take you seriously if you commit so many spelling and usage errors in such a short post?

If you do not know and/or cannot practice basic grammar, punctuation, and spelling, how can any of us believe you have the factual knowledge to support your strongly held positions?

I suggest, in the future, that you obtain a copy of either/both "The Elements of Style" or Webster's Dictionary. Both texts should assist you in presenting your beliefs in a sound, correct manner. After all, President Bush is an avid reader. I suggest you consider following his lead in this area.

Posted by: Mark Raven at January 29, 2007 03:43 AM | Permalink to this comment

Cheney is the very embodiment of corporate and political elitism, coupled with the isolation and megalomania that comes from having your ass powdered 24/7. The scandal is that "leaders" of his stripe are so used to getting their way that they fail to understand external reality can disrupt the "best laid plans."

I must agree with Redhand here. In fact, I think the entire administration's approach closely mirrors CEO-type behavior. That is, if a company is in serious trouble, the CEO never acknowledges that anything is wrong, that the strategy is flawed, or that anything needs to change. Behind the scenes, the company may or may not be trying to fix things, but in the case of many big companies the fixes come in the form of layoffs, outsourcing, etc. If the fundamental company mission is wrong or outdated or no longer competitive, it is highly unlikely that company insiders will fight the CEO on that front, they will instead go along with the cosmetic changes and hope like heck that the market will change and bail their butts out.

If you are CEO of a big company with lots of resources, that approach will likely serve you pretty well. The worst thing that happens is that you manage to get the board to make you a lot of concessions as part of your "brave" turnaround plan. The company's Board is not really an adversary. Then, if that plan doesn't work and your malfeasance is finally so over the top that something must be done, you get a Nardelli deal -- with $210 million to ease the pain of the door hitting you in the ass as you leave.

If you are President of the United States, and you adopt this approach, it is very difficult to stop you, you have too many levers you can pull to thwart your opponents. Cheney knows all these levers, and he has worked them to the max. The Congress is supposed to counter the influence of the President, acting like a Board of Directors on behalf of the "citizen shareholders", and now that we have a Democratic majority in Congress perhaps we have a chance.

Notwithstanding Cheney's actual sanity, we need to treat him as though he is insane. We need an intervention to stop the damage this administration is likely to wreak over the next couple of years.

Posted by: whammer at January 29, 2007 04:34 AM | Permalink to this comment

In fact, Cheney said, the operation in Iraq has achieved its original mission. "What we did in Iraq in taking down Saddam Hussein was exactly the right thing to do," he said. "The world is much safer today because of it.

Interesting how not one of you has pointed out the central weakness in the foundation for Cheney's discussion with Blitzer. Cheney starts off on the basis that we have acheived our original mission in Iraq--namely taking down Saddam. I seem to remember that the original mission had something to do with WMD.

Are we not the insane ones if we let our leaders lie right to our very faces and then don't call them out for it?

Shame on Blitzer for not asking the right questions and for being a chicken s**t corporate media suckup.

Posted by: RB at January 31, 2007 09:25 AM | Permalink to this comment

It seems to all boil down to 'Cheney - mad, evil or both?'

I go for both.

Posted by: ancient pistol at February 3, 2007 04:46 AM | Permalink to this comment