VP Cheney Remarks on Obama

[Richard]

A close look at Cheney's activities at Halliburton in that period would be illuminating as to the integrity of the man.

As would a close look at his apparent pattern of encouraging the circumvention of law in formulating and carrying out White House policy.

Richard

[Dozer523]

Originally Posted by Sigaba

IMO, Mr. Cheney should focus on preparing a multi-volume memoir, getting his personal papers organized--and declassified, and participating in oral history projects. This is to say that he should do the things disinterested elder statesmen do.

That's just the slick professional Historian in you rearing it's head. If Dick does THAT you're set for life! All that checking, footnoting, analyzing and contectualizing it! You'd be set for life -- a regular Scrooge McDuck swimming in grant money! And what an analysis you would provide! We would probably finally understand what the hell went on over that 20 years.

[ZonieDiver]

Apropos of nothing... a major portion of my dislike for Cheney is for the same reason I disliked Clinton. "When bullets were flying, and people were dying" - he took an "I'm busy... call me later" attitude.

I sicken at parties with men my age talk tough on war, yet when their day came forward lo these many years ago - they stepped back, and gladly let someone else step up, either voluntarily or by positively responding to their draft summons.

In 1969 on the campus of the U. of Miami, there was tremendous "debate" about the war in Viet Nam. Marches, protests, and heated arguments between "pro" and "anti" war groups took place often. Many of my Army ROTC brethern took the hard-line stance. They were "proud to wear the uniform" and would "give their all for their country"! Then, on December 1st the first draft lottery was held. All of a sudden, you knew the chances of being called. Many of my "hard-charging" ROTC buddies got numbers in the 200's and 300's. Guess what? They dropped ROTC - no need for that 1-D deferrment any more. They no longer had to worry about "class load" or "gpa" or silly ROTC drill day uniform-wearing - just "get on" with their lives, and let someone else "do it!" Today, they can all - Clinton, Cheney, etc. Kiss my ass.

Talk the talk - walk the walk. If you didn't walk... watch how you talk.

Just my very biased 2 cents worth

[Pete]

Originally Posted by ZonieDiver

........I sicken at parties with men my age talk tough on war, yet when their day came forward lo these many years ago - they stepped back, and gladly let someone else step up, ..........

Does that apply to today's Americans?

Been 8 years, plenty of time for the average Joe to step forward and raise his hand.

[Surf n Turf]

Originally Posted by Sigaba

This is to say that he should do the things disinterested elder statesmen do.

Sigaba,
You mean like AlGore, Jimmieeee Carter, and BJ Clinton

Originally Posted by Dad

Sigaba
A close look at Cheney's activities at Halliburton in that period would be illuminating as to the integrity of the man.

Dad,
Would you provide some “specifics” please, instead of innuendo

Originally Posted by Richard

As would a close look at his apparent pattern of encouraging the circumvention of law in formulating and carrying out White House policy.

Richard

Richard,
You did say “apparent”, but would you provide some “specifics” please, instead of innuendo.

Before you correct thinking gentlemen conduct an auto-da-fé on Mr. Chaney, et al, may I remind you of one unalterable fact --- We had NOT had another terrorist attack on American soil in over 8 years. Do you and your families feel as secure today as you did when Mr. Chaney was in office?.

SnT

[Richard]

You did say “apparent”, but would you provide some “specifics” please, instead of innuendo.

There are books on the subject - Charlie Savage's Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy (2007) is one and Craig Unger's Fall of the House of Bush (2207) is another.

According to reporter and author Charlie Savage, the White House staff quickly coalesces into two camps: “Bush People[,] mostly personal friends of the new president who shared his inexperience in Washington,” which includes President Bush’s top legal counsels, Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers, both corporate lawyers in Texas before joining Bush in Washington. The second group is “Cheney People—allies from [Vice-President Dick] Cheney’s earlier stints in the federal government (see May 25, 1975, November 18, 1980, 1981-1992, 1989, and June 1996) who were deeply versed in Washington-level issues, a familiarity that would allow their views to dominate internal meetings. These included [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld and other cabinet secretaries, key deputies throughout the administration, and David Addington, Cheney’s longtime aide who would become a chief architect of the administration’s legal strategy in the war on terrorism”. Savage will observe, “Given the stark contrast in experience between Cheney and Bush, it was immediately clear to observers of all political stripes that Cheney would possess far more power than had any prior vice president.”

'Unprecedented' Influence - Cheney will certainly have “unprecedented” influence, according to neoconservative publisher William Kristol, who himself had served as former Vice President Dan Quayle’s chief of staff. “The question to ask about Cheney,” Kristol will write, is “will he be happy to be a very trusted executor of Bush’s policies—a confidant and counselor who suggests personnel and perhaps works on legislative strategy, but who really doesn’t try to change Bush’s mind about anything? Or will he actually, substantively try to shape administration policy in a few areas, in a way that it wouldn’t otherwise be going?”

Expanding the Power of the Presidency - Cheney will quickly answer that question, Savage will write, by attempting to “expand the power of the presidency.” Savage will continue: “He wanted to reduce the authority of Congress and the courts and to expand the ability of the commander in chief and his top advisers to govern with maximum flexibility and minimum oversight. He hoped to enlarge a zone of secrecy around the executive branch, to reduce the power of Congress to restrict presidential action, to undermine limits imposed by international treaties, to nominate judges who favored a stronger presidency, and to impose greater White House control over the permanent workings of government. And Cheney’s vision of expanded executive power was not limited to his and Bush’s own tenure in office. Rather, Cheney wanted to permanently alter the constitutional balance of American government, establishing powers that future presidents would be able to wield as well.” [Savage, 2007, pp. 7-9] Larry Wilkerson, the chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, will say after leaving the administration: “We used to say about both [Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s office] and the vice president’s office that they were going to win nine out of 10 battles, because they were ruthless, because they have a strategy, because they never, never deviate from that strategy. They make a decision, and they make it in secret, and they make it in a different way than the rest of the bureaucracy makes it, and then suddenly, foist it on the government—and the rest of the government is all confused.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 299]

Signing Statements to Reshape Legislation, Expand Presidential Power - To that end, Cheney ensures that all legislation is routed through his office for review before it reaches Bush’s desk. Addington goes through every bill for any new provisions that conceivably might infringe on the president’s power as Addington interprets it, and drafts signing statements for Bush to sign. In 2006, White House counsel Bradford Berenson will reflect: “Signing statements unite two of Addington’s passions. One is executive power. And the other is the inner alleyways of bureaucratic combat. It’s a way to advance executive power through those inner alleyways.… So he’s a vigorous advocate of signing statements and including important objections in signing statements. Most lawyers in the White House regard the bill review process as a tedious but necessary bureaucratic aspect of the job. Addington regarded it with relish. He would dive into a 200-page bill like it was a four-course meal.” It will not be long before White House and Justice Department lawyers begin vetting legislation themselves, with Addington’s views in mind. “You didn’t want to miss something,” says a then-lawyer in the White House. [Savage, 2007, pp. 236

Gonzales’s second mission is more puzzling. The lawyers are to constantly look for ways to expand presidential power, he tells them. Bush has told his senior counsel that under previous administrations, the power of the presidency has eroded dramatically. (Ironically, some of the losses of executive power came due to the Republican-led investigation of former President Clinton’s involvement in Whitewater and his affair with a White House intern, when Secret Service bodyguards and White House attorneys were compelled to testify about their communications with the president, and Congressional Republicans issued subpoenas and demanded information from the White House.) It is time to turn back the tide, Gonzales tells his team, and not only regain lost ground, but expand presidential power whenever the opportunity presents itself. Berenson will later recall Gonzales telling them that they are “to make sure that [Bush] left the presidency in better shape than he found it.” Berenson will later remark: “Well before 9/11, it was a central part of the administration’s overall institutional agenda to strengthen the presidency as a whole. In January 2001, the Clinton scandals and the resulting impeachment were very much in the forefront of everyone’s mind. Nobody at that point was thinking about terrorism or the national security side of the house.” Berenson does not learn until much later that much of the direction they have received has come, not from President Bush, but from Vice President Cheney and his legal staff, particularly his chief counsel, David Addington. [Savage, 2007, pp. 70-75]

http://www.historycommons.org/index.jsp

[echoes]

Cheney on the date of 9.11.01...Vice-President of the United States of America/ decision maker/DID SOMETHING!

Obama on the date of 9.11.01...Um???? Community Organizer of kum-by-ya orchestra/NO military service/NO military leadership/lighting a candle and humming kum-by-ya!

And the question about VP Cheny is what again???

Holly

edit to add: I have no military service, but am hopeful that I am still allowed an opinion? After 9-11, the Bush/Cheney/Rummy White House did not allow another attack on U.S. soil. This, am sure, is due to the brave actions that were not reported in the media, by U.S. Special Operations Forces.

[P36]

Isn't some sort of informal "policy" for former Presidents/VPs to leave the current administation alone?

I'm glad he's gone personally. (and yes, I'm a Republican-but President Bush, VP Cheney and SecDef Rumsfeld really dissapointed me when it came to priorities in Iraq/Astan)

[Surf n Turf]

Originally Posted by Richard

As would a close look at his apparent pattern of encouraging the circumvention of law in formulating and carrying out White House policy.
Richard

Originally Posted by Richard

There are books on the subject - Charlie Savage's Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy (2007) is one and Craig Unger's Fall of the House of Bush (2207) is another.

Richard,
Interesting read (and “interesting site / links”), but you have not addressed my basic question, per your quotation first – What “apparent pattern of encouraging the circumvention of law in formulating and carrying out White House policy”
Did he, and others, constantly look for ways to expand presidential power ?
ABSOLUTELY. And after 911, I am satisfied that they did it well enough to keep us safe up until now.
Under his predecessor, presidential power was eviscerated, and the congress became stronger. This battle between the executive and legislative is as old as our Republic, but I see nothing that Mr. Chaney did as “encouraging the circumvention of law”
I also notice that the current President has not decreased presidential power. He has strengthened it exponentially, declaring a national emergency (and the expanded Executive powers that go with the declaration).
So if you didn’t / don’t like the former administration – that’s OK, I also had some problems with them. But I think it is a tad too much to accuse the former VP of lawbreaking.
SnT

[Richard]

I never accused him of 'lawbreaking' - I accused him of being a political skunk by 'encouraging' others to 'circumvent' the law while he remained just beyond its grasp - and there seems to be a lot of agreement on that among those who actually worked for or dealt with the man. YMMV but I personally think the former VP would do well in a starring role on stage as Henry Potter, Grima' Wormtongue, and Montgomery Burns.

I patiently await the release of his memos so we can see for ourselves what he actually said and inferred instead of relying on the man's questionably 'honorable' word.

So if you didn’t / don’t like the former administration...

I didn't/don't like the former SecDef and VP...and am struggling to find anyone beyond the current POTUS' daughters to like in the current administration.

Richard's $.02

[Surf n Turf]

Originally Posted by Richard

I never accused him of 'lawbreaking' - I accused him of being a political skunk by 'encouraging' others to 'circumvent' the law while he remained just beyond its grasp - and there seems to be a lot of agreement on that among those who actually worked for or dealt with the man. YMMV but I personally think the former VP would do well in a starring role on stage as Henry Potter, Grima' Wormtongue, and Montgomery Burns.

I patiently await the release of his memos so we can see for ourselves what he actually said and inferred instead of relying on the man's questionably 'honorable' word.

I didn't/don't like the former SecDef and VP...and am struggling to find anyone beyond the current POTUS' daughters to like in the current administration.

Richard's $.02

Richard,
It appears as if the stars have all aligned – We are in TOTAL agreement
I have NO idea who Grima' Wormtongue / Montgomery Burns are
SnT

[Sigaba]

FWIW, David Gergen, in an interview for PBS's Frontline, offered some insights on Vice President Cheney. One should note that in this interview, Gergen makes clear his opinion that the tone set in Bush the Younger's White House was set by the president himself. Source is here.(Questions are in orange.)

<<SNIP>>

In the Nixon administration, at the time you were there, is a young staffer working for Don Rumsfeld named Dick Cheney.

I knew of Dick Cheney in the Nixon administration; our paths crossed. I didn't really know him very well. I got to know Don Rumsfeld better in the Nixon years. After Nixon left office, I left the White House and went to work over at the Treasury Department for Secretary Bill Simon, and Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney recruited me to come back to the Ford White House. Don Rumsfeld was then chief of staff and was in the process of moving over to the Defense Department as defense chief, and Dick Cheney was about to be promoted to chief of staff.

So I went to work for President Ford, reporting to the president through Dick Cheney, his chief of staff. I was one in a group of about a half dozen of sort of Young Turks that Dick helped to assemble to bring order and vitality to the place. I must tell you that I, along with all of my colleagues, was enormously impressed by Dick Cheney at that time. He was a first-rate chief of staff; he was a man of great integrity. President Ford came to rely on him heavily during that time.

Dick Cheney was in his mid-30s then, just coming into his own as an adult and having a substantial amount of power and responsibility and exercising it as carefully as he could. He felt, as did all of us working then, that the presidency was too wrapped up in congressional regulation and laws that hamstrung the capacity of the president to carry out foreign policy. There had been such a reaction -- and it was natural -- to the scandal of Watergate that the Congress passed all sorts of laws to tie up the president, to make sure he couldn't break the bounds of the Constitution again.

But from the White House point of view, those laws -- you felt like you were Gulliver in Lilliput. You had all these strings that were tying you down, and you really couldn't act -- especially the War Powers Act, which really was a questionable assertion of congressional power.

So in effect we had moved from the imperial presidency of Richard Nixon very quickly into what many of us thought was an imperiled presidency under Gerald Ford. OK, some terrible mistakes were made [in the Nixon period], and there were abuses of power. Then along come the legislators and pass all sorts of laws and regulation to make sure that will never happen again. But they also make sure nothing else will ever happen, either.

That was a pivotal moment in the education of Dick Cheney. Many of us felt strongly that the power of the presidency was threatened, that America could not lead in the world and couldn't get much done in Washington unless you had a more effective chief executive. Dick came out of that absolutely committed to the idea of restoring the powers of the presidency.

Now, after that happened, life moved on, and many of us felt that Jimmy Carter, who is a great saint but was not a very effective president, that he continued this imperiled presidency. But when Reagan came along, he, in the very natural order of things and without challenging constitutional boundaries, restored power; it began to flow back into the White House. And I think we saw that power exercised in a variety of ways by his successors, President Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton.

So many of us felt that the powers of the presidency had been restored in the succeeding years after Ford and before Bush Jr. Dick Cheney does not believe that. He is among those who felt the president was still too hamstrung, and he came in bound and determined as vice president to change that. That was part of his personal mission.

What were your thoughts on that day when Dick Cheney stood up to take the oath of office and become vice president?

I felt that Bush made a very wise, sound selection. I kept up with Dick in the intervening years, not closely, but I'd known him when he was in Congress, and I'd known him when he was at Halliburton, and felt this is an experienced person who knows Washington, understands power. Very importantly, he understands the world. He played a crucial role as secretary of defense in the Persian Gulf War. His relationship with the Saudis, with the king in particular and with the Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar, were very, very important during that time.

What I had not fully appreciated was how much more conservative Dick had become in the intervening years since the Ford period. I hadn't understood that I think he had grown more disillusioned with Congress as a result of serving there. He was in the minority, and that can be a very frustrating position, after all. I've seen a lot of people graduate from Congress who look back with some disdain upon it as an institution. I wouldn't say that was Dick's view, but I would have to say I interpret him as being somewhat disillusioned with Congress as an institution.

I did not understand he felt the presidency was still an imperiled institution. I thought he sort of agreed with the more mainstream view, that the health of the presidency had been significantly restored in the intervening years.

So, like a number of his former colleagues, I have gone through a lot of asking myself: "Did he change? Did I change? What happened here? Why do we see the world so differently when we once saw it so similarly?"

But I had this experience -- I really came to understand how he felt. I was on CNN one night and argued that the vice president ought to turn over the names of people who would be consulted when helping to formulate the energy recommendations for the president. I thought that was just as a matter of transparency and openness. It was really important to make those things available to the public and to Congress. And I had a call from him the next day, and he really wanted to talk about, "Don't you remember what we went through back in the '70s and how important it is for the executive to have the full power of the Constitution and how hampered we were back then?"

I did remember all that. And he said: "You know, it's really important today. It's really important to what we do now." Without going into all the details of it, it sent home for me a very direct message: He really cares about this. It's deep in his being. It's fundamental to who he is and his perception of how the presidency should operate in conjunction with the Congress. He's a very, very strong believer that the presidency has been cut down too far.

<<SNIP>>


9/11 hits. Can you describe, from what you know or what you've experienced, what that moment was probably like for Dick Cheney and George W. Bush and the foot soldiers over at the Justice Department?

My own interpretation is that they came in, spurred by Dick Cheney, to have an enlarged sense of the presidency, to have a penchant for secrecy, to basically have a view that the Congress, in effect, works for us, not with us; that we're the lead branch, not a co-equal branch.

I think what 9/11 did was reinforce and strengthen every one of those impulses. I'm sympathetic in one fundamental respect, and that is I've had the privilege of working at the White House many times now. We never before in our history had people working in the recesses of the White House who had to run for their lives through the streets of Washington. I can only imagine what impact it had, of their saying: "Never again. We must defend this at all costs. If the Congress doesn't understand this, we do, and we're going to protect the country."

I'm sympathetic with that. A lot of us on the outside who didn't go through it have to understand there's a residue that lives on and on in the people who went through that horrible day.

It's clear it's had a lasting impact on everything else that's happened, whether it's the government's intercepts or surveillance or exerting executive privilege, or treating Congress with contempt on the questions of White House people producing documents or testifying. They started with this view. But I think that day, 9/11, was such a wrenching one that it confirmed everything they might have thought, and it has made them extraordinarily rigid on these questions.

<<SNIP>>

[Dozer523]

Originally Posted by Surf n Turf

Before you correct thinking gentlemen conduct an auto-da-fé on Mr. Chaney, et al, may I remind you of one unalterable fact --- We had NOT had another terrorist attack on American soil in over 8 years. Do you and your families feel as secure today as you did when Mr. Chaney was in office?.SnT

I haven't had a car wreck since just before Sep 01 (not that the Auto Insurance company cares) and I have never been involved in a hunting accident. I can't really give that much credit to the former VP for those. IIRC as I was wandering around the streets and byways fully exposed to who-knew-what, Mr Cheney was "in an undisclosed location". When I looked up into the empty sky I did feel safer cuz of the FAA and the occasional pair of F-16s.
Since 9-11 I also have not gotten a major disease, been hit by a train, or won the lottery. No thanks to Mr Cheney.
But, Mr Cheney did sent me to Afghanistan once and my son to Iraq twice.

[The Reaper]

I liked Cheney, and thought he did his best to keep America safe and GWB conservative, as much as he could.

Anyone here who has never had someone move into their line of fire has not yet hunted enough. Most of us have, on occasion, been lucky. Not an apologist, but sometimes, shit happens. I didn't see any Ted Kennedy type cover-up or excuses. The media sure covered it thoroughly.

IMHO, given the non-stop attacks on the Bush administration since his election, and the complaints from the current administration since their campaign started, someone needs to stand up and call a spade a spade. I see no issues with the former VP doing it.

TR

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by Dozer523

That's just the slick professional Historian in you rearing it's head. If Dick does THAT you're set for life! All that checking, footnoting, analyzing and contectualizing it! You'd be set for life -- a regular Scrooge McDuck swimming in grant money! And what an analysis you would provide! We would probably finally understand what the hell went on over that 20 years.

I'm still trying to figure out the 'naval renaissance' of the 1980s.

If I had my druthers, the project I'd like to handle is putting together a comprehensive index for the 51 reels of William Tecumseh Sherman papers. (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress Photoduplication Service, 1976). This index would be the first step towards editing and, eventually, publishing Sherman's papers. (I suppose PDFs would do, but what is wrong with actual books?)

General Sherman's penmanship was less than ideal. I've a strong hunch that there are some documents in those microfilm reels that would radically change our understanding of American history and that grizzled warrior's contributions to it.

Ever wonder why General Sherman vehemently argued that he sought to avoid politics at all costs in his correspondence with Senator John Sherman (his brother) as well as in his memoirs ? Was it because, as the conventional view holds, that politics and politicians offended his personal dignity and professional sensibilities or was it because after the Civil War, Sherman tried to shape military policy via back channel correspondence and negotiations with legislators in Washington, D.C., got frustrated by the process, and then became increasingly scornful of Gilded Age politics?

Which brings us back to Vice President Cheney. If General Sherman's published correspondence and memoirs can shape our understanding of various aspects of American history and politics to this day, who knows what a well crafted memoir could achieve today, especially if Mr. Cheney has in mind documents that, once released under FOIA, will bear him out?