Apparently political suicide is a surest way to become MVP in the GOP these days, at least according William Kristol anyway:
[Cheney] made himself the Most Valuable Republican of the first four months of the Obama administration (ably assisted by a few bold denizens of the Hill like the ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee, Pete Hoekstra).
Since when is attempting to stay out of prison for crimes against humanity a selfless act of heroism? Does Bill actually think that Cheney is being entirely selfless for the Republican cause? No wonder Republican beloved Ronald Reagan called Bill and his pals "the crazies in the basement." I always find it amusing that the current base of the Republican Party can continue to claim a love-affair with Reagan, but still fully embrace the lunatics that Reagan laughed at.
Another hero in his brave defense of torture, according to Kristol, is Pete Hoekstra. The very same Hoekstra who had strange meetings with Iran Contra arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar. I had always wondered if Hoekstra went on behalf of Cheney to help "fix the facts" around yet another war. Perhaps while they are defending torture so bravely together, they might answer that question?
Apparently Hoekstra is also defending Cheney's position on torture out of selflessness. Yes, the GOP is packed wall to wall with heroes like Cheney -- who never went to war, but was more than willing to send others to die for his lies.
Hoekstra spends most of his time attacking the Speaker of the House these days and for political reasons, instead of actually doing his job. Perhaps if Hoekstra had been doing his job all along, he would not have made a fool of himself by publicly claiming that WMD were found in Iraq. Let me remind you:
GIBSON: I'm really confused about this. You had to pry this information out of the Department of Defense, evidently, and they're in the business of trying to convince us that Saddam did have WMD. So why was it like pulling teeth?
HOEKSTRA: Well, I'm not sure of that. That's one of those questions. Obviously, what is happening here, John, is that they see that WMD is a threat to our front-line troops.
So perhaps the answer to that question is buried in, we need to make sure we get a hold of all of these weapons. We have found 500, and we need to get a hold of all the other ones that we think may still be in Iraq because they do pose a threat to our front-line troops.
By all means Mr. Kristol, do send more such "bold denizens of the Hill" my way. Anyone who defends torture is going to be fairly easy to discredit and quickly.
P.S.Bush-Cheney did NOT keep us safe b/c 9/11 happened when they were asleep at the wheel after having several warnings beforehand. I don't see the killing of over 2700 Americans as keeping us safe on their watch. Guard soldiers are executed for sleeping on their watch.
When I got to Iraq (Dec '04) our cavalry unit received training from the regular Army unit we were replacing. One of the first things they told us was to stash our gas masks in our duffle bags and leave them there. The reason? There were no chemical weapons for the local insurgents to use against us. And also seeing gas mask mights scare the daylights out of the Kurds, having dealt with Chemical Ali and all.
Why is it that those who are the most gung-ho have never been in combat?
Hardly.
Cheney wants the investigations to begin, and he can't wait for his fall partner, gw, to get hauled off to prison.
The International Criminal Court.
NO other past vice Pres. has ever tried to undermine a new Pres .
Wost part is that the Pres is struggling with a crisis- much of which Bush / Cheney created.
Yet the corp owned gutless news media keeps giving Cheney air time to lie and misinform.
I hear no tough follow up questions- They all cower to Cheney'. Are they are scared of this guy or what.
It's sickening.
We all know Cheney is a bad guy.
What about prosecution? Who is in charge of that?
If he gets prosecuted for torture, they will sink along with him. Not that they can actually be discredited any further- they've long since hit rock bottom and started to dig.
I think it should be written into the contract of every politician (anywhere in the world), a clause which states clearly and unequivocally, that if they choose to run for office their first born child MUST join the military and serve in a combat unit.
I wonder how many of them would then prosecute wars of aggression knowing THEIR child would be the first to go fight in that war?
Itchy.
They spend hours upon hours each day trying to shift the consensus reality to their view, they are spending millions to attempt to shift blame onto Pelosi!
The sooner we root out the appeasers in the media, the talking head apologists and the perpetrators and enablers of war crimes, the sooner we can move forward as a nation!
In other words, he is as culpable for prosecution as the others.
As well as all the other things we don't know about yet!