VP Queeg
The subject might be considered a major disservice to Wouk's Captain. My Reader's Encyclopedia (composed in a context and era when correctness still mattered) characterizes Queeg as "cowardly and inefficient." The first of course encapsulates the bully Cheney, but alas, to the disservice of the whole business of democracy, he has only at times been inefficient. When it comes right down to it, his official record has War-Criminal and Swine as two of the first entries. Dick Cheney is obviously a man in desperate need of some love and devotion (I can't help but speculate that his childhood must have been the sort to make Faulkner blanch).
It's great to have Dan Froomkin from the Washington Post back blogging after an unfortunate bronchitis encounter. You've been missed, Dan! I've excerpted shamelessly here, but you really ought to celebrate Froomie's recovery by touring his whole column.
While Dick Cheney undoubtedly remains the most powerful vice president this nation has ever seen, it's becoming increasingly unclear whether anyone outside the White House believes a word he says.
Inside the West Wing, Cheney's influence remains considerable. In fact, nothing better explains Bush's perplexing plan to send more troops to Iraq than Cheney's neoconservative conviction that showing the world that we have the "stomach for the fight" is the most important thing -- even if it isn't accomplishing the things we're supposed to be fighting for. Even if it's backfiring horribly.
But as his astonishing interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer laid bare last week, Cheney is increasingly out of touch with reality. He seems to think that by asserting things that are simply untrue, he can make others believe they are so.
Maybe that works within the White House. But for the rest of us, it's becoming a better bet to assume that everything -- or almost everything -- Cheney says is flat wrong.
Meanwhile, the trial of Cheney's former chief of staff Scooter Libby is exposing to public view the vice president's role as master-manipulator of misinformation and vindictive retaliator-in-chief -- once again, indifferent to the truth. (For example, Cheney ordered his staff to lie to reporters about the contents of a highly classified National Intelligence Estimate.)
And former aide Cathie Martin's testimony on Friday validated the most cynical conspiracy theories about how Cheney manipulates the press.
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But for Cheney, Iraq is an "enormous successes," it's the media's fault that more people don't recognize that, and showing "lack of stomach" in Iraq would lead not just to a debacle there but to cataclysmic domino-style effects across the globe and terrorist attacks within our borders.
So perhaps it's not a surprise that Cheney is losing support even from fellow Republicans who, looking ahead to the 2008 elections, do not relish carrying the burden of defending his increasingly indefensible world-view.
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Peter Baker writes in Thursday's Washington Post: "Vice President Cheney said yesterday that the administration has achieved 'enormous successes' in Iraq but complained that critics and the media 'are so eager to write off this effort or declare it a failure' that they are undermining U.S. troops in a war zone, striking a far more combative tone than President Bush did in his State of the Union address the night before.
"In a television interview that turned increasingly contentious as it wore on, Cheney rejected the gloomy portrayal of Iraq that has become commonly accepted even among Bush supporters.
'There's problems' in Iraq, he said, but it is not a 'terrible situation.' And congressional opposition 'won't stop us' from sending 21,500 more troops, he said, it will only 'validate the terrorists' strategy.' . . .
"Cheney has been criticized in the past for presenting what some called an overly rosy view of the situation in Iraq, most notably in 2005 when he said the insurgency was in its 'last throes.' The view he expressed yesterday seemed no less positive, and he sparred repeatedly with 'Situation Room' host Wolf Blitzer, telling him 'you're wrong' and suggesting he was embracing defeat."
Here's the transcript and video of the CNN interview.
There were so many baseless assertions, it's hard to know where to start. Blitzer tried valiantly to challenge some of them, to no avail.
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It's great to have Dan Froomkin from the Washington Post back blogging after an unfortunate bronchitis encounter. You've been missed, Dan! I've excerpted shamelessly here, but you really ought to celebrate Froomie's recovery by touring his whole column.
While Dick Cheney undoubtedly remains the most powerful vice president this nation has ever seen, it's becoming increasingly unclear whether anyone outside the White House believes a word he says.
Inside the West Wing, Cheney's influence remains considerable. In fact, nothing better explains Bush's perplexing plan to send more troops to Iraq than Cheney's neoconservative conviction that showing the world that we have the "stomach for the fight" is the most important thing -- even if it isn't accomplishing the things we're supposed to be fighting for. Even if it's backfiring horribly.
But as his astonishing interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer laid bare last week, Cheney is increasingly out of touch with reality. He seems to think that by asserting things that are simply untrue, he can make others believe they are so.
Maybe that works within the White House. But for the rest of us, it's becoming a better bet to assume that everything -- or almost everything -- Cheney says is flat wrong.
Meanwhile, the trial of Cheney's former chief of staff Scooter Libby is exposing to public view the vice president's role as master-manipulator of misinformation and vindictive retaliator-in-chief -- once again, indifferent to the truth. (For example, Cheney ordered his staff to lie to reporters about the contents of a highly classified National Intelligence Estimate.)
And former aide Cathie Martin's testimony on Friday validated the most cynical conspiracy theories about how Cheney manipulates the press.
-clip-
But for Cheney, Iraq is an "enormous successes," it's the media's fault that more people don't recognize that, and showing "lack of stomach" in Iraq would lead not just to a debacle there but to cataclysmic domino-style effects across the globe and terrorist attacks within our borders.
So perhaps it's not a surprise that Cheney is losing support even from fellow Republicans who, looking ahead to the 2008 elections, do not relish carrying the burden of defending his increasingly indefensible world-view.
-clip-
Peter Baker writes in Thursday's Washington Post: "Vice President Cheney said yesterday that the administration has achieved 'enormous successes' in Iraq but complained that critics and the media 'are so eager to write off this effort or declare it a failure' that they are undermining U.S. troops in a war zone, striking a far more combative tone than President Bush did in his State of the Union address the night before.
"In a television interview that turned increasingly contentious as it wore on, Cheney rejected the gloomy portrayal of Iraq that has become commonly accepted even among Bush supporters.
'There's problems' in Iraq, he said, but it is not a 'terrible situation.' And congressional opposition 'won't stop us' from sending 21,500 more troops, he said, it will only 'validate the terrorists' strategy.' . . .
"Cheney has been criticized in the past for presenting what some called an overly rosy view of the situation in Iraq, most notably in 2005 when he said the insurgency was in its 'last throes.' The view he expressed yesterday seemed no less positive, and he sparred repeatedly with 'Situation Room' host Wolf Blitzer, telling him 'you're wrong' and suggesting he was embracing defeat."
Here's the transcript and video of the CNN interview.
There were so many baseless assertions, it's hard to know where to start. Blitzer tried valiantly to challenge some of them, to no avail.
-clip-
posted by Sir Gumbo at 9:20 PM
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