Dear W,
I’m still angry that you did not pardon Scooter. "I don’t think was appropriate," for you to have ordered Libby–on the morning of June 9, 2003, to respond to Joe Wilson’s assertions about our case for war against Iraq, and to have told me it was okay to "get the whole story out," just before Scooter tried to launder this through Judy Miller on July 8, 2003 and then Novak on July 9, 2003, only to let him take the fall for you when Patrick Fitzgerald started investigating who leaked Valerie Wilson’s name.
You asked Scooter to "stick his neck in the meat-grinder" to rebut Joe Wilson’s criticisms, and now you have "in effect left Scooter hanging in the wind" for something you ordered.
Let this be a warning to you. I consider this fair game [oh wait–that’s Rove’s word] for my memoir, which I’m currently shopping.
Love,
Dick
It may be “fair game” in Cheney’s world, but he is just as much a part of the whole coverup, too… I would love to know how he is going to keep his nose clean!
In his Politico interview a month ago, he said he wasn’t going to describe these things until the Statute of Limitations expires.
They’re expiring left and right, so he can make his memoir a victory dance, a boast of all the crimes he never got indicted for.
I think that is the part that irks me so much… All of these chuckleheads are going to admit to their complicity in various crimes (albeit in “memoirs”) after the statutes of limitation expire, when they should all be hung out to dry.
Laws are obviously for the little people…
Is there a place where all the statutes of limitation are laid out? I can’t keep track of them. I think it should be publicized every time one of them expires. It bothers me to no end that we are allowing them to expire. I find it to be the “weasely” way of dealing with this whole accountability issue, and looking forward instead of backward, so to speak. I think there are a lot of people in this country that don’t realize it’s happening.
I was reading about statutes of limitation the other day. It seems that there is some flexibility (long shot, I realize) for bypassing them if something is kept secret or if the party who is harmed does not find out about it until later, perhaps even after the statute of limitations has expired. I always wondered why Cheney came out and admitted his crimes about torture right before his term was over. Now I think it may have been related to statutes of limitation.
sojourner, you bring up a good point about the cover up. If the cover up is the crime, those statutes of limitation for the crime wouldn’t help him very much, would they?
Gad, I hope someone has a plan for holding this guy accountable. I still can’t fathom why Congress, the Obama administration and the DOJ would let this guy get off scot free. It boggles the mind.
“That’s how I’ll spend the bulk of my time in the next few months.”
He’s “writing” a “book” on his forty years in Washington … in the next few months? Writers and editors everywhere are LOL.
Man, who would be willing to be the ghost for that?
At the very least, I hope that Cheney’s book will be required to be classified as “Fiction.”
Creative Nonfiction
me. I’d have a blast. Though I’d probably get shot in the face.
Yes, we shall call you Marcy Hayes from here on out…..
Oh, it’d got entirely differently.
Hayes never said, “Um, Dick? When you’re saying that you were trying to get stuff out the CIA wouldn’t put out, does that include the talking point that came straight from Valerie’s memo? You know, the bit which proves Libby was the source for NOvak’s column?” Which is why I’d get shot in the face.
Mostly though bc I know no one else is going to get access to that info, ever. So I’d sneak it out to my friend emptywheel and she could publish it.
EW, go for it! That would be fantastic … if only it were possible.
A little free-associative, but Cheney reminds me there of one of Atwood’s acid observations about guys like him. Just roughly from memory, her account of a cocktail-party conversation goes something like this:
Heart Surgeon: So what do you do?
Atwood: I write novels.
Heart Surgeon: That’s interesting. After I retire, I think that I will write a novel.
Atwood: That’s interesting. After I retire, I think that I’ll take up heart surgery.
HAH … Brilliant !
Oh, IMHO Cheney’s done more to encourage a “Handmaid’s Tale” scenario than anyone but Putini or Bandar. And he is, after a fashion, a ‘Blind Assassin’ of sorts.
** References to Canadian author Margaret Atwood. You folks have some damn good novelists!
Tales of Leopold in the Congo seems closer to home.
I had an artist friend relate a similar scenario with a brain surgeon.
The difference is that the aspiring novelist or artist/retired MD is that they can write or paint all they want without endangering others. Not so easy the other way. But MDs whom I have known think they can do anything.
My ex, also an artist, had a favourite joke that in a long and involved way had various careers equated with IQs. The punch line between the final two people with the lowest IQs was “Oil or acrylic?”
lol. Me, I figure I’m now approaching the finger-painting phase. Potato printing?
Well, they you can practice your ApologySkillset /s
8^0
To convince him you are right for the job, you could show Cheney an example of your book writing skills
http://www.anatomyofdeceit.com…..media-page
But you might want to update the link to your current website. Clicking on the current link there takes you to an emptypockets post on TheNextHurrah from 2008.
Um … Judy, Judy, Judy ?
Hi, Petro. I have to send you an email because of my techno-doltishness. Just wanted you to know that I noticed your note to me way back there somewhere.
Ok … do you still have my e-mail addy ?
After watching the video I get the feeling that Cheney despises Bush now. I doubt if Dick ever had much respect for W at all but now he is really bitter.
I don’t think Cheney ever saw bush as anything more than an occasionaly useful figurehead. Cheney IS smart, streetwise in the ways of government, and a master manipulator…he sees Bush’s flaws more clearly than any of us.
Then his lapdog had the gall to bite him. Cheney did his job too well, Bush actually believes that he did nothing wrong so there’s nothing to pardon.
I doubt Bush is worried about Cheney’s book. Dumb as he is, he knows Cheney is the only person in the world seen as less trustworthy than himself.
Boxturtle (If Bush and Cheney tell different stories, which is lying? Likely both)
I would think that W’s daddy would have spoken to his son about Cheney but then again W wasn’t taking advice from his dad.
Yeah, it’s especially unfair not to pardon Scooter, because Scooter reported directly to Jr. as well. He said so explicitly to Diane Rehm in 2002, when The Apprentice was issued in paperback.
You would think the Bush family would know something about outing spies, what with that lawsuit over Barbara Bush’s autobiography.
“We’ll get ‘em!” Didn’t Mrs. Scooter telegraph a revenge scenario? Hey, even I would buy Dick Cheney’s book if it spilled the beans on Jr.’s marching orders.
Speaking about Ghosts, that’s the topic of a new movie, ”The Ghost”, Polanski is directing about the ghsotwriter for the memoirs of a thinly-disgused Tony Blair.
Basically, the story line is ”the ghostwriter learns too much, and has to run for his life”.
How thinly-disguised? The author of the book (who also had a piece in the screenplay) was worried about British libel laws being turned on him.
Moving back to the main topic of the post, I don’t see the power of Deadeye’s threat. It’s not like Bushie can pardon anyone anymore, so what good does it do for Deadeye to demand anything or castigate Bushie for anything? All Deadeye can do is blackmail, but there is no price Bushie The Blackmailed could pay which could be enough.
Scooter was (and is) the guy in the power seat – he managed to blackmail the President of the United States into commuting his sentence such that he never spent a day in jail. Bush and Cheney were, and remain, Scooter’s Bitches.
I see this as Cheney and his loyalists in and out of government reminding Obama and the Democrats of (a) the continued existence of the cancer they are inside the government (such that Obama cannot be sure his orders will be obeyed) and (b) the continued existence of the Republicans’ private armies and (c) an invitation to the Business Class to work against the Democrats and with the Republicans to bring back the days of looting, (and in Stewart’s phrase) ”cocaine and hookers. There’s always a market for those.”
I suspect we can see multiple iterations of this tactic by Cheney, dribbling out bits and pieces like a new biography of Princess Di’s third butler or something purporting to shed new light on her life, etc. It keeps the menacing figure of Deadeye in the spotlight.
I agree up to a point. I don’t think Deadeye is talking to W, he’s talking to Scooter. As noted above, Scooter’s wife is pissed and Scooter is in the driver’s seat here. So if Scooter (or the wife) lets slip some potentially embarrassing bits of information with criminal implications, Deadeye is making it clear to Scooter that W is the guy to slam, Deadeye has been on Scooter’s side all along.
I don’t know about you, but I see a lot of people fretting about who is going to say what to whom, and whether they will need to lawyer up soon…
Surely, you don’t think they’ll turn on each other ?
In a heartbeat.
… and don’t call me Shirley !
Ya missed my set- up line ! *g*
Dang it! I love that movie… Off to get more coffee… Harummpphhh. Blew a perfect opportunity… Sorry…
pardon scooter ??? nawww.. let’s give him a tax cut instead .. [hell ..why not ..tax cuts can fix anything …eh ??]
But there’s a Major Weirdness Factor that I don’t even begin to fathom: evidently Mrs Scooter Libby worked for Joe Biden.
{excuse me while I just pick my jaw up off the floor for the umpteeth time…}
Also, GWBush did retain a **criminal defense attorney** for the Plame related stuff, so perhaps he was ‘acting on advice of his atty’ in not pardoning Scootie-Poot?
Finally, after the 2006 elections, have we not read reports that Bush41 brought in some of his buddies — aka, Gates at Sec Def, and who knows who else? — to start reaming out the wreakage inside DoD? And when did Andy Card leave…? No idea how or where Josh Bolton fits into the scheme, but there are layers here that I don’t understand one bit.
Agree that Cheney is signaling to Dems (maybe Biden…?) and others not clear to me that he somehow supposes he can still manipulate them. Agree with Matt in AZ that’s GWBush is ‘dead to him’ at this point.
I find it all bizarre and can’t make much sense of it, apart from the fact that Cheney appears to be an appalling narcissist.
But Ari Fleischer’s meltdown on Tweety’s show last week must fit in to this somewhere, I just can’t figure out how.
Finally, I find the whole idea that Cheney is in retirement and ‘writing a book’ an unbelievable insult to the military, cops, and FBI agents everywhere.
Eliot Abrams and Richard Perle must be so proud…
If I admit that I LIKE the idea of Bush being backstabbed by Cheney, does that make me a bad person?
Boxturtle (Suggested opening for Book: It was a dark and stormy night…)
Naw, you aren’t a bad person. Hopefully some folks will backstab Cheney.
Hey, you should work on a Cheney entry for the Bulwer-Lytton contest.
So, did King ask Dick about the Sy Hersch assasination squad story?
Or was he too chickenshit?
Just thinking … Over at FDL there are a couple of posts about AIG shoving $100,000,000 as bonuses from OUR money to some bright guys who set up the debacle that is going to swamp us all. Over here we have descriptions of a man being hooded and smashed against a wall, then being semi-drowned time and again.
This is really NOT — on a historical scale — “business as usual”. This is depravity on a multi-millennial record-setting scale.
*we are so f—ked*
Images of Roman corruption during the Late Empire come to mind. I don’t know if “I, Claudius” is the best match, but it might do for starters.
Bob in HI
But according to teh Wikipedia the reign of Claudius ended in AD54, so this was still the early Empire. Maybe we have another 400 years to go before the barbarians sack Washington.
Slightly OT, but for a really good read, the April issue of Harper’s has an interesting opinion piece regarding interest rates and how they are a lot of the reason we are in the financial shape we are. The piece echoed some things I had been wondering about — and it talks to your second paragraph.
O/T … Olmert says that Israel was ready to sign a peace deal with the Palestinians
“We were ready to sign a peace deal but the Palestinians unfortunately did not
have the courage to do so,” Olmert said.
when you think about who has the least to lose by telling the truth, it’s Libby. I think it’s exactly right that this message goes to Libby…validation…stroke, stroke. And it says to Bush that perhaps he “owes” Libby a little somethin’ somethin’, to keep him quiet.
Why would Libby not talk at this point? Has anyone else ever wondered about the timing of the broken ankle? Or Russerts broken bone? Or the fact that breaking a bone is very hard on the heart…if his heart was in such bad shape as they say it was…why wouldn’t it have reacted to breaking his leg, going under anesthesia to repair the leg. Didn’t he have surgery. Wouldn’t a heart blockage like the one they say he had have been uncovered during a pre surgical exam? I forgot he broke his leg. And so did Libby.
Sorry. I may be a little paranoid but after the discussion yesterday about the bush crime family, and renewed interest in a lot of unseemly dark things…it just made me wonder. I know… tin foil hat…I guess I had to say it…though. I mean it seemed like a spate of broken legs…all during the Plame affair. It actually seemed like a lot of injuries…strange one. I don’t know it’s sudden…imagination day.
Maybe Bush isn’t worried cause Libby will just disappear one day.
i forgot about those broken bones and didn’t put them together – good going!
You have to be paranoid with these guys around.
Not quite related, but what about Cheney’s injured back? The treatment for this condition was bizarre.
Never seen anyone require a wheelchair after ‘moving boxes.’
although leaving in the misdirection might become an advantage to you in a Cheney interview for the job.
The interview-clip of Cheney is skilled propaganda on so many levels and invites imagination. It is skilled art, indeed.
Irving
AipacLibby as “unjustly accused and deserves a pardon…” begs the Q: “Accused of what?”. Of course if asked, the i’view would not be so skilled. “He’s an innocent man.” is likewise empty without “Innocent of what?… How would you know that?”.Skilled propaganda entertains* the mind for some purpose, while it disables any attempt to ferret useful facts that might neutralize its purpose. Apart from Q&A chatter, what useful fact do we learn from the interview?
Covert operations are mired in layers of apparent truth. Cheney operates in that world. Likewise the dabbler GWBush. Not so GHWBush, who is no mere dabbler and whose whole adult life was covert ops. Arguably GHWB does not even know who he is.
* entertain = to grasp and hold…[attention]. The “news” is mostly entertainment.
I remind that a guide to ubiquitous government infiltration was written in the 1970s. The Secret Team by LFProuty was not a novel. It was written by a knowing source. It explains the patient, unstoppable path to takeover that is now so far along it can be surmised. The author refused to participate.
has anybody seen my troll
I lost him
thought for sure he’d be in this thread
(wink)
Man, this could be interesting. What if Cheney called Bush out for hiding in the Florida classroom and generally staying out of touch on 9/11? Because it was Cheney’s frustration with getting in touch with Bush during the attacks that pushed him into Haig territory by ordering the shootdown of aircraft without Bush’s say-so.
What could he write that he wouldn’t redact?