News Flash: Great WP Series on "The Angler - the Cheney Vice Presidency"
On the offchance you have not already come upon the series the Washington Post started on Sunday (6/24/07), I strongly encourage you to at least skim the material. Hopefully it will help all of us maintain a proper sense of outrage over the appalling arrogance and anti-democratic spirit that seem to be the primary motivating principles behind Dick Cheney.
I'm borrowing here from Froomkin's White House Watch:
Midway through a massive and momentous Washington Post series on Vice President Cheney, it's clearer than ever that one thing missing from Cheney's worldview is any appreciation for checks and balances -- not just among the three branches of government, but also within his own.
Please go read parts one and two of this important series by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker, then come back. Gellman's narrated photo gallery works as a pithy overview.
Sunday's installment depicts Cheney as the guiding force behind the most radical elements of the Bush presidency. Today's installment describes Cheney's responsibility for the administration's torture policies in particular. Tomorrow's will focus on his influence on economic policy, and Wednesday's will detail his impact on environmental policy.
Gellman and Becker write that "Cheney is not, by nearly every inside account, the shadow president of popular lore." Yet in most decisions Gellman and Becker describe, President Bush's role is essentially to sign whatever Cheney has put in front of him. The series offers ample evidence that within the Bush administration, dissenters from Cheney's views are bullied, marginalized or fired -- with apparently no effective pushback from Bush or any of his other top aides. It's a stunning portrait.
The series is invaluable in providing concrete examples of the enormous and influential role that Cheney has long been suspected of playing in this White House. But given all that's transpired in the last year or so, it seems inconceivable that Cheney still wields as much influence as he once did. What I'm most curious about right now is whether, or how, Cheney's grip is slipping.
Outside the White House, Cheney's credibility is now almost zero, due to his errors of judgment on Iraq and his nearly delusional assertions about the war, as well as the cloud over his own conduct raised by the conviction of his former chief of staff for perjury.
But is his credibility still intact inside the Bush bubble? Is he still the last one to talk to Bush before the president makes a decision? Is the Cheney machine -- a legion of loyalists in key positions throughout government, transmitting information to and orders from the vice president's office -- still functioning effectively?
-clip-
The start of that fourth 'graph seems to attempt to soften the otherwise almost constantly malevolent and certainly malignant quality that hangs in the air whenever the Dickubus staggers out into the light.
In fact, with little trouble you can find a good deal of speculation in the world of Real News (i.e. out here away from the tube and print!) to the effect that this WP series was probably ready weeks ago and that it was stalled by the same management at that paper that leave it less than credible and in tatters for reputation these days. There is highly credible speculation that the series was finally rushed to print with some pastiche-work like the subject of this 'graph crudely done in an attempt to dilute the absolutely damning (i.e., accurate) portrait of this Machiavellian would-be destroyer of Democracy. Try Talking Points Memo, Firedoglake, or NextHurrah, for some truth serum on that.
But by all means check out the Post series in toto. Apparently there are two more in the series due this week.
I'm borrowing here from Froomkin's White House Watch:
Midway through a massive and momentous Washington Post series on Vice President Cheney, it's clearer than ever that one thing missing from Cheney's worldview is any appreciation for checks and balances -- not just among the three branches of government, but also within his own.
Please go read parts one and two of this important series by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker, then come back. Gellman's narrated photo gallery works as a pithy overview.
Sunday's installment depicts Cheney as the guiding force behind the most radical elements of the Bush presidency. Today's installment describes Cheney's responsibility for the administration's torture policies in particular. Tomorrow's will focus on his influence on economic policy, and Wednesday's will detail his impact on environmental policy.
Gellman and Becker write that "Cheney is not, by nearly every inside account, the shadow president of popular lore." Yet in most decisions Gellman and Becker describe, President Bush's role is essentially to sign whatever Cheney has put in front of him. The series offers ample evidence that within the Bush administration, dissenters from Cheney's views are bullied, marginalized or fired -- with apparently no effective pushback from Bush or any of his other top aides. It's a stunning portrait.
The series is invaluable in providing concrete examples of the enormous and influential role that Cheney has long been suspected of playing in this White House. But given all that's transpired in the last year or so, it seems inconceivable that Cheney still wields as much influence as he once did. What I'm most curious about right now is whether, or how, Cheney's grip is slipping.
Outside the White House, Cheney's credibility is now almost zero, due to his errors of judgment on Iraq and his nearly delusional assertions about the war, as well as the cloud over his own conduct raised by the conviction of his former chief of staff for perjury.
But is his credibility still intact inside the Bush bubble? Is he still the last one to talk to Bush before the president makes a decision? Is the Cheney machine -- a legion of loyalists in key positions throughout government, transmitting information to and orders from the vice president's office -- still functioning effectively?
-clip-
The start of that fourth 'graph seems to attempt to soften the otherwise almost constantly malevolent and certainly malignant quality that hangs in the air whenever the Dickubus staggers out into the light.
In fact, with little trouble you can find a good deal of speculation in the world of Real News (i.e. out here away from the tube and print!) to the effect that this WP series was probably ready weeks ago and that it was stalled by the same management at that paper that leave it less than credible and in tatters for reputation these days. There is highly credible speculation that the series was finally rushed to print with some pastiche-work like the subject of this 'graph crudely done in an attempt to dilute the absolutely damning (i.e., accurate) portrait of this Machiavellian would-be destroyer of Democracy. Try Talking Points Memo, Firedoglake, or NextHurrah, for some truth serum on that.
But by all means check out the Post series in toto. Apparently there are two more in the series due this week.
posted by Sir Gumbo at 10:50 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home