I Hate What You Just Said

Here’s an excerpt from Bill’s NYT column, which heaps praise on Dick Cheney for - get ready for this - his honesty and sense of justice.

You gotta love Dick Cheney.

O.K., O.K. … you don’t have to. But consider this exchange with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday”:

WALLACE: Did you really tell Senator Leahy, bleep yourself?

CHENEY: I did.

WALLACE: Any qualms, or second thoughts, or embarrassment?

CHENEY: No, I thought he merited it at the time. (Laughter.) And we’ve since, I think, patched over that wound and we’re civil to one another now.

No spin. No doubletalk. A cogent defense of his action — and one that shows a well-considered sense of justice. (“I thought he merited it.”) Indeed, if justice is seeking to give each his due, one might say that Dick Cheney aspires to being a just man. And a thoughtful one, because he knows that justice is sometimes too harsh, and should be tempered by civility.

Now Cheney isn’t, I’m afraid, always wise. For example, he’s still a defender of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. He even told Wallace he disagreed with the decision to fire Rumsfeld: “I was a Rumsfeld man … I thought he did a good job for us.”

Unless I’m gravely mistaken, Kristol is giving Dick Cheney credit for admitting something that everyone already knows he did.  Furthermore, he’s giving Dick Cheney credit for admitting something entirely minor.  And finally (and this is the best bit!), he seems to privilege Cheney’s admitting that he did something minor that everyone already knows he did over not admitting that his views on major Defense Department policies under the Bush Administration are absurd.

Let’s examine this.  Kristol appears to be telling us that Dick was wrong-doodly-ong on policy that cost thousands of lives.  He supported, and supports, a Defense Secretary who orchestrated a calamatous failure in Iraq - literally a matter of life and death (mostly f*cking death!)  But he’s telling us not to worry about that, because Dick is willing to admit that he cursed out Pat Leahy.  Which we already knew anway. 

Bill Kristol gets paid to write this stuff.

The Dick in Question (click on thumbnail for a larger Dick)

FOR FAR TOO LONG, Congress has almost completely ignored its responsibility to hold the executive branch accountable for its actions.  In particular, Dick Cheney appears to have worked outside the law nearly since the day of his inauguration as V.P., and he has gotten away with every bit of it.  (See Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s Articles of Impeachment against The Dick by clicking here).

Perhaps a strong showing on election day will embolden Congressional Democrats.  A small, but not insignificant peice of good news appeared today:

Democrats from the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees last week sent a letter to the White House demanding that it preserve all records produced by the Bush administration. The letter, obtained by the Associated Press, expressed particular concern that the office of Vice President Cheney would not comply with the law.

The letter, sent by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Sen. John D. Rockefeller of West Virginia and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, asks White House counsel Fred Fielding to detail steps being taken to preserve White House documents and hand them over to the National Archives and Records Administration.

I urge all IHWYJS readers to write to your representatives in Congress  - let them know that no Dick is above the law.  Hold that Dick accountable.  Also, feel free to use the word “Dick” gratuitously when you write.

Dick.