When Does Dick Cheney Become Merely an Historical Footnote?
Dick Cheney is whining about how Bush didn’t pardon Scooter Libby, calling the Libby conviction a “miscarriage of justice.” The real injustice here is that anyone other than historians are puclishing any of Cheney’s words. Would that Cheney went the way of the Evans-Novak Report, which ceases publication next week.
Dick Cheney is out of office, and already an ugly footnote in history, a man who learned dirty politics and a lust for power early, and then put those values into practice over the last eight years. American history will come to see Dick Cheney as arrogant and as an enemy of the constitution. But for now the media is covering everything Dick Cheney says, though he’s only talking to the few people who are friendly to him for the moment, like William Kristol at the Weekly Standard. So what’s Dick Cheney whining about now? He’s whining that George Bush didn’t give Scooter Libby a pardon. Here’s the scoop from CNNPolitics:
Former President George Bush should have pardoned Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Dick Cheney said after stepping down as vice president this week.
“He was the victim of a serious miscarriage of justice, and I strongly believe that he deserved a presidential pardon. Obviously, I disagree with President Bush’s decision,” Cheney told Stephen F. Hayes of the Weekly Standard, a leading conservative Washington magazine.
Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff, was convicted of obstructing a federal investigation into the revelation that Valerie Plame Wilson was a CIA agent.
He was sentenced to 30 months in prison and fined $250,000. Bush commuted the sentence, which he called “excessive.” But he did not pardon Libby, much to the aggravation of many influential conservatives.
My view is that Cheney is simply a greedy mother who wants everything his way. Cheney orchestrated the exposure of a CIA agent as an instrument for him to gain politically. Everyone knows that is shameful. Libby got caught lying, and in this country lying to authorities has consequences. Well, Libby didn’t have to pay those consequences because Bush commuted his sentence. Sucks, but what are we going to do. Now Cheney whines because Bush didn’t give Scooter a full pardon?
I suggest Cheney go whine to historians or something. Better yet, go whine to Bob Novak, the big mouth who published the story exposing CIA agent Valerie Plame. Then Cheney will get what he deserves, absolutely zero press, because the Evans-Novak Report is shutting down. There’s something poetic about that timing, just three days into the transformative Presidency of Barack Obama.
The evil old man should be taken off Medicare and every government benefit package that he hated so much.
Hey, let’s take away his government pensions, too, since he was so in favor of destroying Social Security and all.
I like the idea of Cheney calling out Bush in public like this. It warms my heart to see it.
I’m wondering how much bad blood is between them at this point. I’m banking that one of Bush’s cronies will be writing one of those phoney “tell-all” books that tries to bolster Bush’s legacy by trying to blame Cheney for as much as possible. And if we’ll get a counter push by some of Cheney’s cronies as a result. I’d read the Wikipedia summary for both of those books…
Ah, petty backstabbing at its finest. I’m not used to seeing it play out in the open among Republicans like this (Democrats like to form their circular firing squads in public, Republicans have in my lifetime preferred the subtle stab-in-the-back in private).
Atrios said it earlier this week: pardons remove any 5th admendment privilege. By not pardoning Libby, Libby still has self-interest in not revealing anything…
As a followup, I guess it really does show that Cheney believes that what he and Bush orchestrated was legal. He seems to think that even if everyone below him and Bush were free to tell everything they knew without fear of prosecution, that he and Bush would still be exonerated.
I don’t know what Bush thinks (or thinks now vs what he was told 4, 6 or 8 years ago) but I guess he has enough self-preservation instinct to not test the exoneration theory.
I realize the pardon could have been limited in scope to just the lying under oath part, I guess, but I still think the bigger picture is that everybody is still on the hook for everything.
Then again, perhaps Bush was just too lazy and shiftless to give a flying F about it…
lutton -
I think Cheney thinks everything they did was legal. His whole project was to push the Unitary Executive theory - the “if the president does it it’s not illegal” theory of the executive branch. What would you expect from a bastard throwback from the Nixon regime, though?
I’m also certain that Bush is much the same. I don’t think he’s covering his ass with his lack of pardons. I think his lack of pardons for his cronies is because he doesn’t think they’ve done anything illegal. Writing out pardons for people would indicate that he thinks they’ve done things that they need pardons for, and that would mean he asked them to do illegal things. Bush’s stupid simplistic Manichean worldview, combined with his concern for his legacy over his concern for his “friends” means no pardons. Because pardons would tarnish his legacy and give him zero chance of climbing back up the ladder so he might be considered better than Nixon. (Bush has always had Bush at #1 and everyone else way down on the list - loyalty is a big deal for Bush but he expects it to flow one way)
The lack of pardons for his cronies finally answered a burning question that I’d had about Bush - did he know what kind of asshole he was or not. It seems like he does not - he really probably does think he’s some kind of superhero/cowboy/secret agent. Had he handed out the pardons it would have been evidence that he never really believed it and he always knew he was more mob boss than superhero. But he really is deluded enough to think he’s the honorable hero in the game he plays out in his head. How the hell did we manage to survive these last 8 years?
As we watch the Sons of Watergate meander towards the sunset be prepared to hear lots of whining and petty recriminations randomly projected as defensive cover for their retreat.
It is such a pleasure to listen to the cabal of counter- revolution shouting out their litany of indignation as the Potemkin Village of distorted and mangled truths they created collapses around them.
‘Dick Cheney before he dicks you’ is only the latest in a long procession of thick jowl corpulent operatives serving as Republican dismantlers of the constitution and rule of law and empowerment of the few as the expense of the many.