Dick Cheney

"Roy Blunt is a great friend of mine. We work very closely together. He does a superb job, I know, for all of you as your congressman, and a great job as Majority Leader in the House. (Applause.) Might I add that Kit Bond is no slouch either as United States senator."

~ Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking at a 2004 town hall meeting in Joplin

(Shudder.)

Late last week, members of the US House Intelligence Committee were "warring" over what to do with new information from CIA Director Leon Panetta that the CIA has been concealing a secret information-collecting program from Congress for years. Here's what Panetta is reported to have said:

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday...

Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.

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A new Gallup poll published today shows that most Americans -- and most Republicans -- have no idea who speaks for the Republican Party. And worse, those that do are most likely to name Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich as the men who best speak for the GOP.  

Almost half of those who identify with or lean toward the GOP cannot think of a single political or other figure when asked to name the main person who speaks for their party.

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Thomas Schweich has issued the following statement about the black eye that is Guantanamo Bay:

We no longer have a civilian-led government. It is hard for a lifelong Republican and son of a retired Air Force colonel to say this, but the most unnerving legacy of the Bush administration is the encroachment of the Department of Defense into a striking number of aspects of civilian government. Our Constitution is at risk...

While serving the State Department in several senior capacities over the past four years, I witnessed firsthand the quiet, de facto military takeover of much of the U.S. government. The first assault on civilian government occurred in faraway places -- Iraq and Afghanistan -- and was, in theory, justified by the exigencies of war.

And, of course, I need not even elaborate on the most notorious effect of the military's growing reach: the damage that the military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and such military prisons as Abu Ghraib have done to U.S. credibility around the world...

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Could you have a worse spokesman when your organization is trying to convince the public that you're not the side with a demonstrated record of intimidation, strong-armed tactics, smashing folks' basic rights in the Employee Free Choice Act debate?

Rove to address St. Louis business leaders on how to fight Employee Free Choice Act
By Jo Mannies, Beacon Political Reporter

Karl Rove, one of the top advisers to former President George W. Bush, is slated to address St. Louis area business leaders at the St. Louis Club in Clayton on Monday afternoon.

The event is organized by the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and will focus on the proposed federal Employee Free Choice Act.

The act, which has yet to pass Congress, would make it easier for unions to organize by allowing a majority of the employees at a business to agree to form a union by signing cards, and without a vote. (A secret ballot vote would not be required, but could be held if the workers request it.)

I was really hoping that 2009 would mean a lot less Karl and Dick Cheney on the teevee.  But on the upside, their insistence on remaining very public spokesmonsters is making it really easy to identify the Dark Side in a lot of these public policy debates.

A new web ad from the DNC:

Newt was just in town, Karl Rove is working with Ed Martin, and Cheney, well, his evil shapeshifting abilities allow him to be anywhere he wants.

(via CNN)

DURHAM -- Out of office for just over two months, former Vice President Dick Cheney has taken over the role of critic-in-chief of the Obama counterterrorism policies, particularly the decision to close the Guantanamo detention facility and end "enhanced" interrogations. Cheney has characterized the new administration as "people who are more concerned with reading the rights to an al-Qaida terrorist than ... protecting the United States" and recently charged that President Barack Obama is "making some choices that, in my mind, will, in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another attack."

Putting aside the unseemliness of a former vice president lashing out against his successors so soon after leaving office, Cheney's critique is deeply flawed on the merits.

First, the factors increasing risk to the American people have little to do with the Obama administration's alterations to detainee and interrogation policy and much to do with the security dangers resulting from past policy failures. With North Korea testing a long-range missile, Iran pursuing its nuclear ambitions and Afghanistan/Pakistan experiencing unprecedented instability, how we deal with the 240 remaining Guantanamo detainees is the least of our worries.

From www.penroseonpolitics.wordpress.com