July 2, 2007 -- I keep thinking about Fat Jack Leonard, the late old insult comic who would make Don Rickles look like Mr. Rogers. Not so much fat as puffy, balding, be speckled, with a perpetual look of sourness he comes to mind every time I see or hear the words ”Dick Cheney.” I remember some part he played in some production of a fantasy in which he portrayed an evil meanie where, despite his bulk, he flitted around the stage like a butterfly in flight, enrobed in an enormous flapping cape, eyes menacingly accented with a mask, as he searched for evil things to do. That’s the way I see Cheney.
The secret life, or the life in secret, of the Vice President has been steadily emerging since the revelations of the trial of his protégé, Scooter Libby, in hearings held by Democrats now in charge of Congress, and now a long, thorough job of investigative reporting published in a four-part series in the Washington Post last week. Based on diligent research and multiple interviews with people in and out of the Administration. His fingerprints are on almost everything controversial. It was his lawyer, David Addington, who wrote the famous memo defining torture and then had Alberto Gonzales our beleaguered Attorney General to put his name on it, for example. The claim: “the President may authorize any interrogation method, even if it crosses the line of torture” because U.S. and treaty laws against torture “do not apply” to the commander in chief. In that case I am so glad Bush speaks to God for guidance on right and wrong. And by God I don’t mean Cheney.
The Post story outlined how Cheney out maneuvered other cabinet members to have the President authorize things his way. Colin Powell, as Secretary of State, would turn on the TV in the morning and learn of some new directive being issued by the President of which he had not been consulted nor did he know anything about. Same with Condi Rice. The Vice President built his own little shadow government with Addington, called by Maureen Dowd the “Black Adder … the Vice enforcer of all things evil” and Scooter Libby as leg man to carry them out.
If you have been following the dust-up about refusing to abide by the legal rules on the handling of classified documents you have to admire the ingenuity: first ignore, then try to get rid of the agency charged with enforcement, then claim exemption by being neither fish nor fowl … not part of the Administration because he has a tie breaker vote in the Senate making him part of the legislative branch, except when he’s not part of the legislative branch but part of the Administration. It’s all Cheney-speak.
It turns out that in the Presidential order setting the rules for classified documents George Bush added Cheney’s name to his giving two people the authority, for the first time in history. The Vice President, or Viceroy, then, can classify, or declassify, at will documents as secret. For instance, if he waned to “out” a secret C.I.A. agent he could just declassify the information. But he wouldn’t do that, would he? The way this turns out, information designated to be socked away into the future, no one will really know all of the things that happened in this Administration until my teen-age grandchildren are at retirement age. And I won’t be here to explain it to them.
I still favor a comparison to Cardinal Richeleu, popularized as personified evil by the novel “The Three Musketeers.” Addington plays the part of his henchman, Captain Rochefort. Where is D’Artagnan when you need him?
Richelue also wore a cape. I keep wanting to see Cheney lurking in a sinister cape. Come to think of it we had enough dastardly deeds done by wearers of capes this past week. The U.S. Supreme Court (O.K. robes and not exactly capes … have the same look about them) handed down four 5-4 decisions that have set off cries of anguish all over the land. Not from me. I said in 2004 the vote you cast is more important in terms of what it means to the Supreme Court than who you choose for President. We got what we bought. Now live with it. As we will for the next thirty years. The important thing now is remember this in 2008, when it will be even more important. It is likely that the next president will have two spots to fill on the court during his term. Do you want two more of the Bobbsey Twins?
And what did these two new members of the Court, Roberts and Alito, do? For openers exactly what they said they wouldn’t do when questioned at their confirmation hearing, be activists, by overturning an established precedent ruling made unanimously 53 years ago, and showing they do not consider racial diversity in public schools a worthy cause. It’s turn back the clock time for black people. The Court thumbed its nose at Congress, striking down the McCain-Feingold bill that kept corporations from running advertising on behalf of specific candidates just before an election. Free speech, they say. But not free speech for the high school student who held up a ‘Bong Hits 4 Jesus’ banner as the Olympic torch was parading by. No free speech for him even though the Court held in 1969 (7-2) that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
They also shielded the White House faith-based initiative from being challenged in the courts when for over 40 years the court has recognized the right to sue to block spending of taxpayer money on behalf of religion. Wonder if the five Catholics heard from the Pope on that one.
Public attitudes towards religion have certainly changed. Here, from 1920, a speech by Baptist Pastor George W. Truett: “It is not the prerogative of any power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, to compel men to conform to any religious creed or form of worship, or to pay taxes for the support of a religious organization to which they do not believe.” Being a Baptist in those days was certainly different than being a Baptist now. Who took away those painted, oval bamboo fans that I remember so well and replaced them with mean-spirited petitions and e-mails? The 1920 speech is being read this week in Washington.
Washington is the scene of a traffic jam in the Senate. The hard-working House has passed and sent to the Senate 239 bills where they are being sat upon by conservatives who are objecting to just about every one that majority leader Harry Reid tries to bring up. We need a plumber to clear the jam … no, no, that sounds like the old Nixon Watergate scandal.
Reid’s fellow Mormon, presidential candidate Mitt Romney lost the dog-lovers vote this week … for something he did in 1983! In an attempt to generate some human interest, a writer wrote that on a family vacation Mitt tied a cage containing the family pet to the top of their car and made a long trip, which recounted how pitifully the poor animal objected. Turns out that was illegal, considered cruel and the ASCPA and People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals are incensed. Wanting to know if the statue of limitations has kicked in. At least he didn’t shoot it with his “varmint” gun.
The other big to-do on the presidential trail had a gutsy wife of presidential candidate John Edwards calling Chris Matthews Hardball show featuring guest Ann Coulter, the “bete noire” of liberal democrats, to take her to task for the way she treats her husband. Elizabeth Edwards is not the Laura Bush “submissive” prototype for a prospective First Lady. If you’d like to hear it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6BBDcZqSF0
Coulter accused Elizabeth of making the call just to help the Edwards campaign raise money. In the fundraising game, the names of two women are important. Say “Hillary” to conservatives and money rolls in. Say “Coulter” to progressives and the bucks pile up in the collection plate. Under the “I Never Thought I Would See The Day” heading, I found something to agree on with Coulter. Earlier in the week she said, about the President, who she has championed heretofore, “We’re all just waiting for this nincompoop to be gone.” If that, from Coulter, doesn’t tell the President he’s lost it, nothing will.
Another surprising statement came from Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, who said “talk radio is running this country.” Surprising, since talk radio and its companion, hate television, overwhelming favor his side of the aisle. Nonpartisan Program on International Policy Attitudes did a poll that showed sixty percent of Americans believed at least one of the following that aren’t true: there were links between Iraq and Al Qaeda; weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq; world opinion favored the U.S. going to war in Iraq. Only 23 percent of those who got news from PBS or NPR believed them, as opposed to 80 percent of those who rely primarily on Fox News. Is it any wonder that so many journalists believe the world as we know it will come to an end if Rupert Murdoch gets his hands on the Wall Street Journal. They foresee headlines like this in the New York Post: PARIS LIBERATED, referring not to a World War II event, but the Hilton of the same name (kind of funny, actually). Progressive may hate the editorials in the Journal, but everyone recognizes the high quality of coverage of the news. It would be a crime for Murdoch’s News Corp. to have their way with it, but it looks like that is going to happen. Here’s what Austin American-Statesman columnist John Kelso had to say about a Murdoch Fox News stalwart: Bill O’Reilly strikes me as the kind of guy who would drive the welcome wagon so he could run over a Democrat.”
The presidential hopeful who has been running well in the polls without running is beginning to get his share of unwanted attention despite the wanted attention he receives as a successful actor. The New Republic calls Fred Thompson a “lazy dilettante” with nothing in his background that suggests he “has the stamina and desire to actually mount a serious presidential campaign.” Thompson was a lobbyist for more than twenty years, becoming a millionaire along the way, representing billion-dollar corporations. He must have done something to earn those big bucks. Maybe he could lobby us the way out of Iraq.
Which brings me to a prediction. But first a caveat. My track record as a prognosticator is terrible. In July of 1945, after coming away from a bruising battle the Japanese put up on Okinawa in defense of their homeland, it looked to us all that we were in for a very long, brutal invasion of Japan. To our surprise when we pulled into the Philippines we found some guys, who had just arrived from a tiny little Island called Tinian tat were anxious to bet that the war would be over in three months. Surely they were crazy. Something in the water on Tinian. I put down a hundred bucks, almost a month’s pay check. Of course on August 6th we dropped the first atomic bomb, from a plane flying off Tinian and the whole thing was over by August 15th which just proved that old Damon Runyon advise about taking a sure bet that a guy couldn’t make a clam jump out of his pocket and squirt lemon juice in your ear because if so you are about to get an ear full of lemon juice. Or something like that.
Four will get you seven in Ls Vegas on Fred Thompson getting the nomination as the Republican candidate. I will take that bet, and I say he will face Hillary.
With that out of the way, I will now take my lemon juice. In a side car, thank you.
Comments