Dick Cheney, who died in November, was by far the most powerful U.S. Vice President in history, and not coincidentally, was one of the Americans who most harmed the United States (and the world) in living memory. That ignominious club includes Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, and although it's arguable who's done the most damage, Cheney's lasting legacy is overwhelming negative and dark. Although George W. Bush bears ultimate responsibility for the decisions he made and the many he abdicated to Cheney during their administration, and Cheney had many allies who also deserve blame, Cheney was the driving force behind many if not all of the Bush administration's multiple disasters, horrible policies and frankly evil actions. And although Dick Cheney criticized Trump and even voted against him in 2024, many of the Trump administration's illegal assertions of monarchial power – and certainly its contempt for due process – were proudly modeled by the Bush-Cheney regime.

Cheney pushed for a war of choice in Iraq, an inherently unconscionable action even if it hadn't turned out disastrously. He shamelessly deceived Congress, reporters and the American people to sell that war. He, his friend Donald Rumsfeld, and others allies created a torture regime, one of the darkest stains on the United States. He fought against due process, and for indefinite detention. He supported warrantless surveillance of American citizens. He pushed for not one but two budget-busting tax cuts for the rich, knowing they were fiscally irresponsible and despite the already extreme wealth inequality in the United States. He fought against disclosure, oversight and accountability. He seeded the government with his lackeys and allowed the politicization of the civil service. The Bush administration made a staggering number of decisions that were bad for America, in large part because Cheney and his team arrogantly assumed they were always correct and actively undermined the checks, balances, discussions and dissents that allow for good decision making.

It's not possible to cover every failing of Dick Cheney in detail in one post. The best book on Cheney I've found is Angler by Barton Gellman, which expanded on a Pulitzer-winning series by Jo Becker and Gellman. I also think it's one of the best books for understanding the Bush administration as a whole, along with The Dark Side by Jane Mayer, which adeptly and chillingly chronicles the Bush administration's torture program, championed by Cheney and others. Mayer's book expanded on her reporting for The New Yorker and fed into the excellent Frontline episode "The Dark Side." Another episode, "Cheney's Law," is very good at looking at Cheney specifically, and the Frontline archive on the Iraq War is both comprehensive and damning. Most of my posts involving Cheney can be found in one or more of the categories Cheney, Bush, torture, Iraq, war and the war series. My fellow bloggers have certainly penned plenty as well. In the meantime, we'll try to recount some of Dick Cheney's most despicable legacies below.

The Iraq War

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
- Dick Cheney, August 26th, 2002.

We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.
– Dick Cheney, March 16th, 2003.

I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.
- Dick Cheney, June 30th, 2005.

Jim Lehrer: You drew a lot of heat and ridicule when you said eight months ago, insurgency is in its last throes. You regret having said that?

Cheney: No. I think the way I think about it, as I just described. I think about when we look back and get some historical perspective on this period, I'll believe that the period we were in through 2005 was in fact a turning point, that putting in place a democratic government in Iraq was the, sort of the cornerstone, if you will, of victory against the insurgency.
- February 7th, 2006.

I don't think anybody anticipated the level of violence that we've encountered.
- Dick Cheney, June 20th, 2005.

"War is hell" is a cliché that happens to be true. War entails death and destruction, pain and suffering, and often involves dismemberment, disfigurement, sexual assault, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other ills. At best, war is a necessary evil, and you should be wary of anyone who wants to go to war. Starting an unnecessary war, a war of choice, is inherently immoral, and lying and misleading others to start such a war is likewise immoral. The Iraq War officially started in 2003 and ended in 2011, and was largely a disaster. I have a 20th anniversary roundup providing retrospectives and useful links, some which bear repeating directly here. As of this writing, the Cost of War project estimates that the "cost of the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, and elsewhere totals about $8 trillion. This does not include future interest costs on borrowing for the wars." The Pew Research Center has a superb piece called "A Look Back at How Fear and False Beliefs Bolstered U.S. Public Support for War in Iraq" (3/14/23). See also the National Security Archive's pieces that the public relations push for the Iraq war preceded intelligence findings, Britain's Downing Street memo that stated that the Bush administration's "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of going to war, Mother Jones' "Lie by Lie: A Timeline of How We Got Into Iraq" (September 2006), and a similar piece from The Center for Public Integrity, "False Pretenses" (1/23/08).

Dick Cheney was one of the most ardent advocates for war with Iraq and one of the most unconscionable about selling it. In one particularly infamous appearance on Meet the Press, Cheney claimed that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had reconstituted Iraq's nuclear weapons program, and pointed to The New York Times as independently supporting his claims, when in fact he had fed those very claims to New York Times reporters Judith Miller and Michael R. Gordon. (FAIR has some excellent pieces on this and related incidents, including "Iraq and the Media: A Critical Timeline" [3/19/07] and the retrospective "20 Years Later, NYT Still Can’t Face Its Iraq War Shame" [3/22/23].) As the above quotations show, Cheney not only sold bullshit and delusion, but refused to acknowledge the reality of the disaster in Iraq.

Cheney also relied heavily on bigotry and American ignorance of Middle Eastern history and politics. To quote from an older post, "Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels" (11/11/09):

Bush officials, Cheney most of all, were going around conflating 9/11 and Al Qaeda with one of bin Laden's regional enemies, Saddam Hussein in Iraq. While many of the pre-war assertions were noteworthy for their bullshit factor, one of the most amazing came from Dick Cheney on Meet the Press in September 2003, after the Iraq War had been going roughly six months:

"If we're successful in Iraq . . . then we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."

Honestly, this is one of the most bigoted, fear-mongering, deceptive and unconscionable statements I've ever seen from a high-ranking official. I've covered it before, but note that not only does Cheney indirectly suggest that Iraq was responsible for 9/11, he uses “geographic base” to conflate all Middle Eastern countries (or at least our “enemies”) and all of their inhabitants. This would be like invading Australia because of David Hicks[, an Australian who joined Al Qaeda]. Presumably Cheney's "geographic base" would include the country that produced most of the 9/11 terrorists – our erstwhile ally, Saudi Arabia. But really, who can really tell all those Middle Eastern people apart? Plus, they look and talk so funny. (It's often been quipped that invading Iraq after 9/11 was like attacking Mexico after Pearl Harbor.)

We'd also be wise to remember the incompetence and corruption of the Bush-Cheney administration in Iraq. As chronicled well in the documentary No End in Sight and elsewhere, when it came to Iraq, competent, career civil servants were overridden in favor of unqualified ideologues and loyalists. Historically, the U.S. has done very well at infrastructure projects, and reconstruction in Iraq should have gone well. But the Bush administration gave huge contracts to companies that often did shoddy work. The most glaring of these was probably Halliburton, formerly led by Dick Cheney. Cheney received a $36 million severance package from Halliburton, had stock options in the company, and received almost $400,000 in deferred compensation while Vice President. Halliburton in turn received a $7 billion no-bid contract for work in Iraq. It didn't take long for Halliburton to pull shady moves, and chief contracting officer Bunny Greenhouse, a long-time civil servant with an exemplary record, blew the whistle on the company. In response, the Bush-Cheney administration demoted her. Halliburton's record in Iraq was notable for routinely overcharging the U.S. government, including a $108 million overcharge for fuel and overcharging for food at one camp alone by $16 million over a seven-month period. (See also "Dick Cheney and the Making of Halliburton," a lengthy excerpt from Jeffrey St. Clair’s 2005 book on war-profiteering, Grand Theft Pentagon.) A 5/16/07 NPR piece, "What Went Wrong with the Rebuilding of Iraq?" is a useful reminder of how bad the situation was (emphasis added):

Thousands of reconstruction contracts were awarded. And there was plenty of money to go around, including an initial $18 billion appropriated by Congress. Another $20 billion was available from the so-called Development Fund for Iraq — money that was derived from, among other things, Iraqi oil sales. Federal investigations have found that the money was quickly spent, with little planning or accounting.

It was a free-for-all climate best demonstrated when Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, successfully requested that $12 billion in cash be shipped to Iraq. U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), now chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said he was astonished when he heard about it.

"It's hard even now to imagine $12 billion in hundred-dollar bills, wrapped into bricklike bundles, then put on huge pallets and brought over by troop carrier airplanes to be dispersed in a war zone," Waxman said.

"We have no idea where that money went. Of the $12 billion, $8.8 billion is unaccounted for," he said.

Bremer defended his action, suggesting it was naïve to try to impose Western-style accounting practices in Iraq during a war. Several investigations led by Stuart Bowen, the special inspector-general for Iraq reconstruction, have found that the reconstruction effort was riddled with waste, fraud, corruption and shoddy construction. Bowen told NPR's All Things Considered about one particularly bad construction site he investigated — a $75 million police training academy built by Parsons Corp.

"Essentially, when they put in the plumbing, they had no fittings, so they just joined plumbing pipes, cemented them together," he said. "The connections burst once they started to be used, and the sewage thus leaked from the bathrooms down through the building — and into light fixtures and through the ceilings."

Urine and feces dripping into lights and from the ceiling is an apt metaphor for the Bush-Cheney administration's performance in Iraq, but unfortunately, it inflicted an even worse legacy.

Torture

We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will. We've got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies, if we're going to be successful. That's the world these folks operate in, and so it's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.
– Dick Cheney on Meet the Press, 9/16/01

Dick Cheney was one of the most zealous proponents for torture in the Bush administration, certainly at his level of power. Wannabe tough guys believe that torture can force someone to tell the truth, but the experts know that torture is only effective at inflicting pain, sowing fear, and eliciting false confessions. The U.S. has scholars, military personnel, and intelligence agents who are fully aware of this, and some sounded the warning about torture to the Bush administration. But torture is about getting the answer the torturer wants to hear versus the truth, and similarly, the Bush-Cheney administration didn't want to acknowledge the truth about torture.

Most of the U.S. media and Congress was and remains reluctant to confront how monstrous the torture regime was, and also how it was used politically. A short piece by Paul Krugman on 4/22/09 summed up a key aspect:

From Jonathan Landay at McClatchy, one of the few reporters to get the story right during the march to war:

The Bush administration put relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

Such information would’ve provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush’s main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. No evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network and Saddam’s regime.

The use of abusive interrogation — widely considered torture — as part of Bush’s quest for a rationale to invade Iraq came to light as the Senate issued a major report tracing the origin of the abuses and President Barack Obama opened the door to prosecuting former U.S. officials for approving them.

Let’s say this slowly: the Bush administration wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So it tortured people to make them confess to the nonexistent link.

There’s a word for this: it’s evil.

To recap and rebut the apologia for torture we heard from the Bush-Cheney administration and their allies at the time, I'll quote at some length from one of my more comprehensive posts on the subject, "Torture Versus Freedom" (5/15/09):

Defending torture insistently means one's moral compass is pointing straight down to hell. I continue to believe it's essential to confront the dangerous and evil lie that torture "works" and that we're all going to die if we respect human rights, follow the law, or dare to investigate - let alone prosecute - the people responsible for these horribly shameful and criminal policies. However, as many have noted, that we are "debating" torture's usefulness at all means we've failed somehow as a society. As Scott Horton quipped in December 2008, "Perhaps for Christmas proper we’ll be treated to arguments for and against genocide, and on the fourth day of Christmas we’ll read the arguments for and against the practice of infanticide."

While specific false claims about torture and the Bush administration's conduct should be challenged, it's especially important to emphasize torture's immorality and its clear illegality. Torture is the very antithesis of freedom. The key dynamics are not truth, security or patriotism. They are power, dehumanization and sadism. As Rear Admiral John Hutson observed, "torture is the method of choice of the lazy, the stupid and the pseudo-tough." When someone is tortured, it means that someone else in a position of power over the victim has deliberately chosen to inflict significant pain and suffering on a fellow human being. Torture spreads and corrupts in a democracy. Not only do torturers often not recognize the truth even when it's told to them, sometimes the torturers get so carried away they don't "even bother to ask questions" and "torture becomes an end unto itself." As Soviet-era torture victim Vladimir Bukovsky put it, "Why run the risk of unleashing a fury that even Stalin had problems controlling?" He also explains how, after several days of torture, "neither the doctor nor those guards could ever look me in the eye again." (See also The Lucifer Effect.)

These abuses have often resulted in permanent or serious physical and psychological damage (although torturers often prefer methods that hide the abuse they've inflicted). Torture is assault of the most cruel variety, robbing the victim of the sanctity of his or her own body, but also his or her very mind and soul. These are not actions to weigh lightly, tactics to endorse or excuse cavalierly, nor damages to forgive quickly before we even know precisely what was done. It's hard to imagine a more clear moral line.

Torture is (1) immoral, (2) illegal, (3) endangers us (especially American troops in the Middle East), and (4) doesn't "work" – unless one wants to inflict pain, terrorize the populace, produce bogus intelligence or elicit false confessions. It's not that torture never produces a true statement, but at best, torture "works" much the same way amputation "cures" all hand ailments. (That's still probably far too generous.) Experienced interrogators know that torture is unreliable and counterproductive in addition to being cruel and illegal. For obtaining reliable information, more humane, rapport-building techniques are far more effective. Furthermore, as John Sifton has pointed out, intel from prisoners typically grows "stale" quickly, and "if you’re relying on interrogations for intelligence, you’re already on the back foot. You’ve already lost the war, so to speak." Regardless, a skilled, experienced interrogator pursuing accurate information would not be approaching a prisoner asking, "How much pain can I legally inflict?" That is a self-defeating, dangerous path that leads all too easily to becoming "the enemies of all humankind."

Almost every excuse from Bush officials and their allies fits somewhere in the following pattern of descending denials: We did not torture; waterboarding is not torture; even if it is torture, it was legal; even if it was illegal, it was necessary; even if it was unnecessary, it was not our fault. Almost every new document and piece of information has exposed lies, deception and crippling inconsistencies in their self-ennobling but accountability-denying tale. The existing evidence does not support a "good faith" defense, but even if it did, an investigation would still be required by law. Anti-torture laws exist in large part to protect all of us from men and women so certain of their own righteousness or need that they torture others (normally until the tortured person says exactly what they want to hear - apparently, precisely what happened here). The "debate" on torture and specific abusive techniques are stalling tactics by torture proponents and apologists, who consistently favor fantasy over reality in their arguments, and want to prevent a full investigation or trial. They will discuss Jack Bauer and hypothetical ticking time bombs endlessly, but not Maher Arar or Binyam Mohamed (among many others). They typically ignore altogether such damning, central evidence as the Red Cross report, which stated authoritatively and unequivocally that prisoners in U.S. custody were tortured. Their specific denials shift depending on their audience, but they almost always ignore that for years we have tortured, abused and imprisoned innocent people. It's much easier to abuse people or justify their abuse, of course, if they're all viewed as guilty, dangerous, alien or subhuman. These practices have often resulted in significant, lasting physical and psychological damage - and even death. (That's not to mention their central role in selling the war in Iraq and the consequences of that.) Ignoring or outright lying about this level of cruelty and abuse embodies the banality and audacity of evil.

(The end of the post links multiple resources on torture.)

After Barack Obama was elected, Dick Cheney still continued to lie about torture, claiming it saved lives but also that he and other members of the Bush administration weren't responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere (which included over one hundred deaths). Although his daughter Liz Cheney joined him in opposing Donald Trump's reelection and did conduct herself admirably during investigative hearings into the January 6th, 2020 insurrection, it's important to remember how awful Liz Cheney has been otherwise, including a utterly despicable 2009 campaign by her and Bill Kristol attacking due process itself and accusing people trying to bring prisoners to trial after years of confinement of being terrorist sympathizers. (For years, the Cheney family essentially argued that if you tried to hold Dick Cheney and his associates responsible for their actions, terrorists would kill you in your beds.)

Due Process

The Bush-Cheney administration repeatedly ignored due process – a cornerstone of civilization – and it and its allies often attacked the people fighting for the basic rule of law as terrorist sympathizers or terrorists. The Bush-Cheney administration asserted that it could simply accuse someone of being a terrorist, not provide any proof, and could imprison or "detain" that person indefinitely. (Oh, and confessions obtained through torture were admissible evidence.) The authoritarianism of all that should be glaring and troubling. It also bears mentioning that the Bush-Cheney administration was incompetent, and seemingly didn't care if innocents were imprisoned, tortured, or killed. McClatchy did a series called Guantanamo: Beyond the Law that found, of the more than 770 terrorist suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay prison, dozens and perhaps hundreds of them were innocent. Nonetheless, innocent Mohammed Akhtiar was held for three years, a nightmare situation. The Bush-Cheney administration also kidnapped and tortured Maher Arar, an innocent Canadian-Syrian citizen (the torture was outsourced to Syria in his case). Innocent Dilawar Dilawar was captured and beaten to death at the U.S.'s Bagram air base in Afghanistan, as chronicled in the Oscar-winning documentary Taxi to the Dark Side. Besides common sense and a moral compass, there were plenty of reasons not to defer to the assertions of the Bush-Cheney administration that it was both infallible and should not be challenged.

A 2008 piece, "Using Justice Against Us," looked at the hack arguments of John Yoo against due process, most of all his attempt to get his audience to ignore that he hadn't proven that the Guantanamo prisoners actually were terrorists, and that giving them the trials Yoo opposed would be the normal way to establish any actual guilt. Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney, and many of their colleagues and allies often made similar arguments. You can read the piece for more detail, but it includes a relevant passage from lawyer Scott Horton about the 2008 court decision about Salim Hamdan, a prisoner at Guantanamo. Horton contrasts the Bush-Cheney approach with an American tradition of due process and justice:

The Bush Administration could have handled this matter in the tradition that the nation’s greatest modern attorney general, Robert Jackson, set out at Nuremberg. Jackson personally took charge of the first prosecutions, delivering mesmerizing opening and closing statements and a dramatic cascade of evidence that targeted some of the most heinous criminals from the Second World War. Jackson had two important objectives before he reached the question of the guilt or innocence of the individual defendants: he needed to validate the fairness of the process, and he needed to demonstrate, clearly and convincingly in the eyes of the world, that heinous crimes had been committed which justified this extraordinary tribunal process. Jackson accomplished both goals. He also secured the conviction of key kingpins in the Nazi terror state. He did it all within the first year of the Allied occupation of Germany, through a process that helped transform the German people from enemies to friends. In the end, Jackson and his team demonstrated that the American tradition of justice was a potent tool to be wielded against the nation’s enemies.

By contrast, America has now endured seven years of an administration which fears the rule of law, which operates in the shadows as it contravenes criminal statutes and long-cherished traditions and retaliates mercilessly against civil servants who stand for law and principle. George Bush and his political advisors openly castigate law and justice as weaknesses or vulnerabilities–as public suspicions grow that they have darker reasons to be concerned about the law. Instead of following the historic route and using military commissions that follow the nation’s long-standing traditions, they have crafted embarrassing kangaroo courts. When the Supreme Court brought its gavel down on one of their shameful contraptions, they simply concocted another, equally shameful one, openly proclaiming an inferior brand of justice for those who were "not citizens," exalting in the right to use torture-extracted evidence and to transact the proceedings in secret.

The Bush-Cheney administration's contempt for due process can also be seen in its warrantless surveillance program, which completely ignored the Fourth Amendment, among other protections. Dick Cheney and his aide David Addington were some of the most strident proponents of the program, and in 2007, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey gave vivid testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee about Bush-Cheney officials Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card being sent to bully Attorney General John Ashcroft in his hospital bed to renew the program. (Ashcroft, despite being extremely conservative, admirably stuck to principles and refused to do so, and pointed to Comey as the acting attorney general.)

An added tidbit: Angler author Barton Gellman read Cheney's memoir, and makes a convincing case that Cheney's account of the incident, that Ashcroft said he would renew the program before Gonzales and Card came over, is a lie. Also, "the relationship between Cheney and Bush, who was unaware of the Justice Department’s objections to the program until the last minute, was never the same . . . [Gellman says it was] 'the day the president of the United States discovered that the vice president’s zeal could lead him off a cliff.' "

Plutocracy

Reagan proved deficits don’t matter. We won the midterms. This is our due.
– Dick Cheney to Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill in 2002, as recounted in The Price of Loyalty by Ron Suskind.

The U.S. conservative playbook since at least Reagan has been to increase military spending and funnel money to the rich, increasing both the national deficit and the national debt, and then claim that it's necessary to cut the social safety net to balance the budget. This strategy even has a name: "starving the beast." As we've covered in other posts, Reagan did it, and the Trump tax bill was likewise an abomination meant mainly to benefit those who were already wealthy. George W. Bush had two rounds of tax cuts, in 2001 and 2003, which mostly benefitted the rich. Even Bush didn't see the reason for the 2003 cuts and his Secretary of the Treasury at the time, Paul O'Neill, also opposed them. But Cheney (and Karl Rove, among others) pushed for them, and ultimately they got their way. Cheney was smart enough to know that the 2003 cuts (and the 2001 cuts) were fiscally irresponsible and bad for Americans as a whole, but still chose to funnel more money to the wealthy (including himself) in a country with already awful wealth inequality. He chose ideology and class warfare (by the rich) over good policy.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is one of the better sites for budget analysis, and wrote many posts about the Bush budgets and tax cuts. "Critics Still Wrong on What’s Driving Deficits in Coming Years" (6/28/10) provided an analysis of the deficit causes (mostly the Bush tax cuts) and rebutted false claims from the conservative Heritage Foundation that the causes were Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. "Economic Downturn and Legacy of Bush Policies Continue to Drive Large Deficits" (2/28/13) updated some data and provided an updated chart of the drivers of public debt:
"The Legacy of the 2001 and 2003 "Bush” Tax Cuts" (10/23/17) noted that the cuts did not boost economic growth as conservatives claimed would happen, and the post also provided a handy chart of who the tax cuts benefited:
Virtually every Republican, nominally "conservative" national political figure of the past 30 years has likewise championed policies to make the United States into even more of a plutocracy. That certainly applies to both Dick and Liz Cheney. They're not unique in that respect, but it bears pointing out that rather than serving the public, they have served Mammon, their rich donors, and themselves.

(Some of my more thorough posts on wealth inequality and conservative tax policies [and their extremity] are "Attack of the Plutocrats" (7/18/10), "Tax Cuts to the Rich Don't Raise Revenues" (10/26/10) and "Extremism in Defense of Nihilism Is a Vice" (7/28/11).

Monarchial Powers for the President

Americans who graduated from elementary school might remember that the United States of America was founded due to a revolution against the abuses of a monarch. College-level courses will go into much more depth and nuance (and the hypocrisies of America's founding), but nonetheless, the idea that "all men are created equal" is a powerful, stirring one, and in direct opposition to the notion of aristocratic or dictatorial rule.

The more zealous proponents of the "unitary executive theory" lack the understanding of an attentive elementary school student, preferring instead the batshit theory that America's founding fathers wanted the U.S. president to have unchecked, monarchial powers, or as Donald Trump put it, "I have the right to do whatever I want as president."

Angler has the best account I've found on Cheney's views on presidential power. Reagan and many of his top officials should have gone to jail for the Iran-Contra Affair, but in Congress' report on the affair, Cheney and his aide David Addington wrote the dissenting opinion, and asserted that Reagan and his team had unchecked power, as the founding fathers intended. To support this argument, they cherry-picked passages from The Federalist, demonstrating scholarship so grotesquely crappy and nakedly self-serving that it'd receive a failing grade from any competent professor and uproarious laughter from any non-authoritarians if the consequences weren't so dire.

If you can't get your hands on a copy of Angler, the Frontline episode "Cheney's Law" is a good resource, as is a supplemental page of interviews. (Historian Rick Perlstein is also planning to cover the Cheney-Addington Iran-Contra arguments in a future book.)

Cheney's cherry-picking wasn't limited to the office of the U.S. President; he also practiced it for his own job. Cheney claimed he didn't have to comply with National Archive requests for materials because the Vice President has duties in both the executive and legislative branches, and therefore, somehow, rather than having obligations to both branches and their rules, he was subject to neither. (Obviously, the founding fathers intended that the VP should be an unaccountable political figure.)

A Negative, Dark Legacy

I suspect that Dick Cheney convinced himself that every questionable or flatly illegal action he took was for the good of the country, even those that personally benefitted him. But for all its flaws, the U.S. government was set up in the Constitution to have a set of checks and balances. And on a good team, good ideas can survive scrutiny and discussion. They don't require lies, misrepresentation, or hiding. The torture program was evil. Starting an unnecessary war, a war of choice, was evil. Using deception to sell the war was evil. Ignoring due process was evil. Attacking the patriotism of war skeptics and the stewards of due process was despicable. Making wealth inequality in the U.S. worse is unconscionable. Asserting that the U.S. President should have monarchial powers is anti-historical and dangerous. Dick Cheney's legacy is overwhelmingly a negative, dark, evil one. (If the word "evil" makes you uncomfortable, substitute "extremely harmful" or another term.) Cheney is not someone to be lauded and not a model to follow; he is a cautionary tale. He was convinced he was correct and had atrocious judgment. He fought, often viciously, to have his way, and we Americans and the world are the worse for it.

Politically, movement conservatism did well for quite a while, from Reagan to Gingrich to Bush the Younger, but the majority of American voters rejected it in the 2006 and 2008 elections. Discontent may help it rebound in 2010 and 2012, which is troubling, because movement conservative policies have been absolutely horrendous for America.

Back on 1/3/10, Digby linked "Remembering Naught" by Devilstower over at Daily Kos. Here's the key section:

As tempting as it is to forget the bad times, the reason there's a whole friggin' biological system built around the idea of burning these events irrevocably into your cerebellum in 18pt type is so you don't do it again...

Don't forget the naughts, because this decade, no matter what anyone on the right might say, was conservatism on trial. You want less taxes? You got less taxes. You want less regulation? You got less regulation. Open markets? Wide open. An illusuion of security in place of rights? Hey, presto. You want unlimited power given to military contractors so they can kick butt and take names? Man, we handed out boots and pencils by the thousands. Everything, everything, that ever showed up on a drooled-over right wing wish list got implemented -- with a side order of Freedom Fries.

They will try to disown it, and God knows if I was responsible for this mess I'd be disowning it, too. But the truth is that the conservatives got everything they wanted in the decade just past, everything that they've claimed for forty years would make America "great again". They didn't fart around with any "red dog Republicans." They rolled over their moderates and implemented a conservative dream.

What did we get for it? We got an economy in ruins, a government in massive debt, unending war, and the repudiation of the world. There's no doubt that Republicans want you to forget the last decade, because if you remember... if you remember when you went down to the water hole and were jumped by every lunacy that ever emerged from the wet dreams of Grover Norquist and Dick Cheney, well, it's not likely that you'd give them a chance to do it again.

Because they will. Given half a chance -- less than half -- they'll do it again, only worse. Because that's the way conservatism works. Remember when the only answer to every economic problem was "cut taxes?" We have a surplus. Good, let's cut taxes. We have a deficit. Hey, cut taxes even more! That little motto was unchanging even when was clear that the tax cuts were increasing the burden on everyone but a wealthy few. That's just a subset of the great conservative battle whine which is now and forever "we didn't go far enough." If deregulation led to a crash, it's because we didn't deregulate enough. If the wars aren't won, it's because we haven't started enough wars. If there are people still clinging to their rights, it's because we haven't done enough to make them afraid.

Forget the naughts, and you'll forget that conservatives had another chance to prove all their ideas, and that their ideas utterly and completely failed. Again.

Digby added:

I don't deny that the corporate Democrats are screwed up too. But they didn't invent this political world. As I quipped before, they just learned to stop worrying and love the money. This world of graft and corruption and unfettered greed was the conservative movement's idea of utopia. And they got it.

I tried to make the same basic points in "The Persistence of Ideology" (which also covers the current conservative zeal for torture). Movement conservative ideology, or dogma, has been exposed as completely disastrous, except for perhaps a select few. Yet conservatives are still shilling it. And the media mostly do not call them on it. Of all the chronic and horrible flaws of our mainstream media, the biggest is probably ignoring how horrible the Bush years were on almost every conceivable front. Neil's Irwin's good WaPo articleon the "lost decade" economically has gotten a fair amount of attention. It's not as if America's economic woes are some big secret, though, even though the details are important. But despite the demonstrated failures of conservative economic policies (and throw in some blame for Bill Clinton, Summers, Rubin and the gang), it's hard to go more than a week without reading about some conservative (or purported "moderate") touting tax cuts for the wealthy and powerful, and slashing social spending such as education, hospitals, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (Steve Benen and Balloon Juice track these claims pretty diligently). Libertarian John Stossel attacks regulation and extols Ayn Rand (more on his cherry-picking in another post, perhaps, although I think it's fairly obvious). Schwarzenegger and California deserve their own post, but he continues to refuse to raise taxes on the rich (if anything, he'll cut them) and has threatened deep cuts to social services.

Back on 11/10/09, Paul Krugman noted the latest bile from Dick Armey, and wrote:

There’s a persistent delusion, on the part of many pundits, to the effect that we’re actually having a rational political discussion in this country. But we aren’t. The proposition that the Community Reinvestment Act caused all the bad stuff, because government forced helpless bankers into lending to Those People, has been refuted up, down, and sideways. The vast bulk of subprime lending came from institutions not subject to the CRA. Commercial real estate lending, which was mainly lending to rich white developers, not you-know-who, is in much worse shape than subprime home lending. Etc., etc.

But in Dick Armey’s world, in fact on the right as a whole, the affirmative-action-made-them-do-it doctrine isn’t even seen as a hypothesis. It’s just a fact, something everyone knows.

Truly, sometimes I despair.

Conservative partisans don't seem to get that acknowledging the failure of Bush policies is not itself partisan. Media figures are afraid to state the obvious for fear of being called partisan. Reasonable people, pretty much by definition, are interested in what works, regardless of political labels, and seek to avoid what doesn't. The old line is that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. I'll explore this more in later posts, but: Opposing Reagonomics, and really all of the Bush administration's policies, is not (necessarily) a partisan matter at all – it's basic sanity.

Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy reminds me the February 5th is the Day of Shame, the anniversary of Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations. Full of falsehoods, and not very convincing for all that, the presentation played a crucial role in selling the Iraq War to the American people. Most Americans didn't listen too carefully to what was said, but they trusted Powell. While Powell has since tried to portray himself as a dupe, he knew that specific charges were dubious or outright bullshit, and certainly knew that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were exploiting his credibility.

It's important not to let this go down the Memory Hole, especially when so many people in politics and the media are trying to pretend the Bush years never happened and/or no one's to blame. This was not an innocent mistake. It was deliberate deception. For the most part, those in power and influence who bought the case for war haven't truly acknowledged their error. Richard Cohen is a blithering idiot, but he's not alone in insisting that he was wrong for the right reasons, while those who saw through the bullshit were somehow right for the wrong reasons. Cohen is dead wrong as usual, and couldn't accurately describe the anti-war objections if his life depended on it. It's one thing to have been wrong, though, but it's quite another never to learn anything from such mistakes. Too many people with power and influence haven't, and that's what's dangerous.

I'd recommend, as always, the books Angler by Barton Gellman and The Dark Side by Jane Meyer for a good overview of the staggering abuses of power and horrendous mismanagement of the Bush administration. The Frontline specials on the Bush years, particularly "The Dark Side," "Cheney's Law," "The Lost Year in Iraq" or the compilation "Bush's War," are also excellent.

There's plenty more that needs to come out, though, and among other things, the Justice Department should be doing a full investigation of the torture regime. The Obama administration has in some cases borrowed from the Bush playbook. Granting prisoners due process is a strength, not a weakness. Meanwhile, the number of people running around casually or emphatically endorsing torture – despite its immorality, illegality, ineffectiveness and endangerment of Americans – is truly disturbing.

The Day of Shame website has more, and links to other posts. My most extensive post on the subject is this one from 2008. Peace.

With the CIA report on interrogations, prisoner abuses and torture released today, we're bound to see a new flurry of old arguments that the heavens shall fall if anyone dares to prosecute the perpetrators. A Washington Post op-ed today touches on these very issues, although the author is more nuanced and with a more narrow focus than many other WaPo writers on the subject. (I'd be shocked if we didn't get some raving torture apologists shortly.)

I'm not going to recap every argument (and re-use every link) in "Torture Versus Freedom" and other torture pieces here, but there needs to be a full investigation and disclosure of everything possible (the CIA report will help, but may have a more narrow focus). Prosecutions should certainly be brought where appropriate. Granting blanket immunity would be irresponsible before further facts are known, especially given what is already known. We do know over 100 prisoners were killed in detention, that abuse was widespread, and that abuses were the result of deliberate policies from the highest levels versus the work of a few "bad apples." Based on the timeline and narrative currently available, there are CIA agents – and more likely, government contractors – whose offenses were so grotesque they should investigated and probably prosecuted. However, the bigger issue is those higher up who made the decisions. That group would include Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addington, Yoo, Gonzales and others (Marcy Wheeler's "The 13 people who made torture possible" provides a splendid overview). It would be a travesty if, as with Abu Ghraib, the lower-level personnel got all the blame while the real culprits got away scot-free.

With all this in mind, I wanted to go through "CIA Accountability: 6 Reasons Not to Prosecute Interrogators." I'll go through the whole thing paragraph by paragraph, but it might be better to read the whole thing and form one's own impressions first. The author was general counsel for the CIA from 1995 to 1996.

CIA Accountability
6 Reasons Not to Prosecute Interrogators

By Jeffrey H. Smith
Monday, August 24, 2009

The CIA inspector general's report on "enhanced interrogation techniques," scheduled to be released today, is said to provide disturbing details about interrogations CIA officers conducted from 2002 to 2004. It will be painful reading. Although the Obama administration has banned the techniques, Attorney General Eric Holder is reportedly considering prosecuting some of the officers who conducted the interrogations.

We lost our bearings in the wake of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The United States, long a leader in human rights and the law of war, adopted policies and practices that squandered our credibility. Over time, President George W. Bush recognized that and reversed some of those policies. In one of his first acts, President Obama went further and banned the enhanced techniques, closed the secret CIA prisons and pledged to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

I'm not sure how accurate it is that 9/11 caused a madness that lead to abuses. Meanwhile, Bush "recognized" legal jeopardy more than the obvious immorality and inefficacy of torture and other abuses. "Madness" is probably the best defense, but as I've written before, the timeline doesn't really support a good faith defense (more on this later). The attacks on 9/11 didn't change the thinking of the neocons, imperialists, monarchists and authoritarians inside the Bush administration so much as it gave them more justification for their already existing, radical views.

Have we done enough to restore our credibility and correct past wrongs, or are prosecutions also needed? We don't yet know what has caused the attorney general to consider prosecution. Enforcing the law is an important function of government. But the government also has broader responsibilities. Here are six reasons prosecutions are not in the nation's best interests:

It's nice that Smith admits we don't know everything yet. Conservative torture apologists generally claim, without offering any proof, that torture saved lives. However, in the eyes of the world, there's simply no question we must prosecute to "restore our credibility and correct past wrongs." A significant percentage of the American people feel the same way, and that number would likely rise if the torture story was reported more accurately.

-- First, these techniques were authorized by the president and approved by the Justice Department. The relevant committees of Congress were briefed. Although the Justice Department's initial legal opinions were badly flawed, the fact remains that the agency responsible for interpreting and enforcing the law said the techniques were "legal." That alone will make prosecutions very difficult.

This is mainly an argument not to prosecute lower-level CIA agents. That seems to be Smith's main concern, and his take on prosecuting those higher up is less clear. I suspect that Washington Post op-ed editor Fred Hiatt might not note the distinction. I wish Smith was more forthright on this, since I think this op-ed will generally be flogged to shut down all prosecutions.

The OLC (Office of Legal Counsel) memos supposedly "authorizing" torture were issued as cover-your-ass measures, after torture and other abuse had already started. As it is, the guidelines they outlined, illegal though they were, were exceeded. But the memos also ignored glaringly relevant legal statutes and case law. A lawyer saying "murder is legal" obviously doesn't magically make it so, although this is essentially the Bush administration position – and one Smith voices as well. The torture memos were neither legally sound nor written in good faith.

As for congressional disclosure, as Angler documents and the Pelosi-CIA briefings story earlier this year show, the While House and the CIA both routinely deceived Congress when they told them anything at all. In fact, just today Scott Horton wrote about the role Blackwater played in Cheney's assassination program, which was one of the major stories of the past week. As Horton notes, Cheney ordered that Congress not be briefed on the program, and that part was known months ago even if Blackwater's involvement wasn't. It's hard to believe Smith didn't know about these stories.

-- Second, the CIA provided the inspector general's report to the Justice Department in 2004. Justice has not prosecuted any CIA officers but did successfully prosecute a contractor who beat a detainee to death, an incident that was initially reported to the department by the CIA. What has changed that makes prosecution advisable now? No administration is above the law. But the decision of one administration to prosecute career officers for acts committed under a policy of a previous administration must be taken with the greatest care. Prosecutions would set the dangerous precedent that criminal law can be used to settle policy differences at the expense of career officers.

Torturing and killing prisoners are not mere "policy differences." The Bush Justice Department's refusal to prosecute abuses is further proof of its corruption, not an exoneration of the perpetrators.

-- Third, after Justice declined to prosecute, the CIA took administrative action, including disciplinary action against those officers whose conduct it deemed warranted such responses. This is standard procedure; reports of possible criminal activity must be referred to Justice. If it declines to prosecute, the matter is sent back to the CIA for appropriate administrative action.

Disciplinary action under the corrupt Bush administration isn't necessarily sufficient, especially given the severity of the crimes – torture and death. This should be further investigated and probably decided on a case by case basis, though. The bigger concern is not individual CIA agents, but those higher-up who authorized these policies.

-- Fourth, prosecuting CIA officers risks chilling current intelligence operations. This country faces an array of serious threats. A prosecution or extensive investigation will be an unmanageable expense for most CIA officers. More significant, their colleagues will become reluctant to take risks. What confidence will they have when their senior officers say not to worry, "this has been authorized by the president and approved by Justice"? And such reactions would be magnified if prosecutions focus only on the lower-ranking officers, not those in the chain of command. Such prosecutions are likely to create cynicism in the clandestine service, which is deeply corrosive to any professional service.

Emphasis mine, above. I don't think it takes a high degree of intelligence or conscience to recognize that torture and murder of a prisoner is illegal and immoral, and not just another order to obey. But I agree with Smith on the bolded section. Those lower down should be investigated, partially to further establish the evidence. But those in the chain of command should be the main targets.

-- Fifth, prosecutions could deter cooperation with other nations. It is critical that we have the close cooperation of intelligence services around the world. Nations often work together through their intelligence services on matters of mutual interest, such as combating terrorism, even if political relations are strained or nonexistent. The key to this cooperation is the ability of the United States to be a reliable partner and keep secrets. Prosecuting CIA officers undermines that essential element of successful intelligence liaison.

This argument is largely bullshit. Most other nations aren't happy about the CIA or other American agencies and contractors torturing and killing people. Investigations are proceeding in Spain and other countries. The human rights abuses perpetrated under the Bush administration, and the Obama administration's insistence that it can still hold prisoners indefinitely without trial or evidence, have hurt foreign relations and our national security, not helped it.

-- Sixth, President Obama has decisively changed the policies that caused so much damage. He recognizes that it is vital to our security to have an effective intelligence community that is not distracted by looking backward and coping with congressional investigations and grand jury subpoenas.

The CIA is not a monolithic entity. It has tortured in the past, while others in the CIA have opposed this. Most in the FBI favor rapport-building techniques, as do some military interrogators such as the decorated Major Matthew Alexander. That's why the newly-announced High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), with different agencies represented but FBI predominance and White House oversight, may prove to be a good idea.

Smith has consistently argued for years that CIA agents need clear guidelines, and he's absolutely right on that. HIG may provide that, and could be a useful buffer against torture apologist bullshit. Smith also has a point about not just going after lower-level CIA operatives. However, yet again, when torture and murder are involved, these are not mere "policy differences." It's pretty damn important for national security and "effective intelligence" that everyone in the CIA to understand that the Nuremberg defense doesn't hold and some orders must be challenged.

If media reports are accurate, the conduct detailed in the inspector general's report was contrary to our values. It caused harm to our nation and cannot be repeated. But prosecuting those who actually carried out that behavior has consequences that could further harm our nation. Even if the attorney general concludes that a criminal charge could be brought, other factors must be considered. Sometimes broader national objectives must be given greater weight.

The writer, a partner at Arnold & Porter, was general counsel of the CIA from 1995 to 1996.

This is more of the same. Again, there should be a full investigation, and some of those "who actually carried out that behavior" probably should be prosecuted. However, the big problem is those who authorized it, and they should remain the main focus. I don't think Smith is necessarily averse to prosecuting the chain of command, although some torture apologists have made similar arguments as a smokescreen to try to protect key members of the Bush administration. It's basically the "Criticize the Bush administration and you hate the troops" bullshit, except adapted to excuse war crimes. Let's also not forget – and the CIA would do well to remember this, too – that the Bushies have shown themselves perfectly happy to trash the CIA repeatedly for their own mistakes, and for doing things that the Bushies told and browbeat the CIA to do. (See these excerpts from The One Percent Doctrine, for example.) I don't blame Smith too much for sticking up for his former colleagues at the CIA in general principle, but I wish he'd recognize that part of the game, and be more forthright about his stance on prosecuting Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Addington, Yoo and the gang.

Based on his past writings and statements, Smith is strongly for clear guidelines for the CIA, army and other government entities, he's for agency coordination, and appears to be anti-torture.

For instance, here's his list of articles.

From mid-September 2001, here's a PBS interview.

He's written other op-eds for The Washington Post on this general subject. From June 2005, there's "Regaining Respect."

From November 2005, there's "Central Torture Agency?: Exempting the CIA From the McCain Amendment Sends the Wrong Signal to Our Officers."

From February 2007, there's "A War Under Law: Congress Must Address U.S. Detainee Policies."

I'm less concerned about Smith specifically, but did want to put his arguments in context.

Currently, the investigation is set to be only of low-level personnel. As Scott Horton and others have pointed out, if the law is followed, such an investigation will necessarily lead upward. The big worry is a whitewash. And Horton today raises serious concerns about Holder not releasing the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) report. (Marcy Wheeler has similar concerns.) It's important because, as Horton writes, that report:

...Could therefore provide ample reason to doubt whether anyone with legal training—or indeed, anyone with a functioning mind and the ability to read—would find the memos to be persuasive statements of the law. That matters, because the law requires someone relying on them to have done so “in good faith.”

Horton, Marcy Wheeler (Emptywheel), Spencer Ackerman and several other blogs will all be useful to read over the next weeks. Here's the Washington Post article on special prosecutor John Durham. Wheeler isn't thrilled about him. Eric Holder's statement can be read here.

From Wheeler, I'd also recommend "Cheney’s Cherry-Pick," "Reposted: The CIA IG Report on the Inefficacy of Torture," and"Reposted: The CIA IG Report’s “Other” Contents."

Ackerman has "Collected Lowlights Of The 2004 CIA IG Report Into Torture" and another look at Cheney.

KCRW radio show To the Point today was on "A New Look for America's Terrorism Interrogations."

I imagine Dan Froomkin will have more in the days to come as well.

There's plenty to sift through, and much more to come out besides that.

If you've missed it, Barton Gellman's latest Cheney article, "Cheney Uncloaks His Frustration With Bush," is worth a read:

In his first few months after leaving office, former vice president Richard B. Cheney threw himself into public combat against the "far left" agenda of the new commander in chief. More private reflections, as his memoir takes shape in slashing longhand on legal pads, have opened a second front against Cheney's White House partner of eight years, George W. Bush.

Cheney's disappointment with the former president surfaced recently in one of the informal conversations he is holding to discuss the book with authors, diplomats, policy experts and past colleagues. By habit, he listens more than he talks, but Cheney broke form when asked about his regrets.

"In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him," said a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney's reply. "He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney's advice. He'd showed an independence that Cheney didn't see coming. It was clear that Cheney's doctrine was cast-iron strength at all times -- never apologize, never explain -- and Bush moved toward the conciliatory."

A president, showing independence from his vice-president? Dangerous stuff. I'd note, though, that this is perfectly in line with the neocon idea that Bush was an empty vessel and Palin was a "blank page" to fill with their ideas. (Hey, ya gotta know your market - no one bright would buy the neocon ideology, all the more so after its huge disasters.)

Back to Gellman, near the end of the piece:

"If he goes out and writes a memoir that spills beans about what took place behind closed doors, that would be out of character," said Ari Fleischer, who served as White House spokesman during Bush's first term.

Yet that appears to be precisely Cheney's intent. Robert Barnett, who negotiated Cheney's book contract, passed word to potential publishers that the memoir would be packed with news, and Cheney himself has said, without explanation, that "the statute of limitations has expired" on many of his secrets. "When the president made decisions that I didn't agree with, I still supported him and didn't go out and undercut him," Cheney said, according to Stephen Hayes, his authorized biographer. "Now we're talking about after we've left office. I have strong feelings about what happened. . . . And I don't have any reason not to forthrightly express those views."

Liz Cheney, whom friends credit with talking her father into writing the book, described the memoir as a record for posterity. "You have to think about his love of history, and when he thinks about this memoir, he thinks about it as a book his grandchildren will read," she said.

I'm sure they'll especially enjoy the torture scenes. Still, amazingly enough, Liz Cheney may have inadvertently done something good (assuming the raw, unvetted-by-criminal-defense-lawyers version can get out).

The Poor Man Institute points out:

...Consider this: By the time Cheney grew disenchanted with his protege, Bush had already started two wars against the dirty Moslem horde, deployed a mercenary army with a twisted religious sadism, authorized widespread torture, sanctioned indefinite detention and kidnapping, implemented a program for illegal wiretaps/surveillance of US citizens, signed-off on illegal settlement expansion in the occupied lands, endorsed an Israeli invasion of Lebanon, supported Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia, stoked a bloody (if unsuccessful) coup to topple Hamas in Gaza, and numerous other atrocities to warm the defective heart of Dick Cheney.

So the question is what, exactly, did Bush refuse to do that led to this increasingly messy divorce?

That is one of several big questions. In late July, after high profile pieces on the Libby pardon and Bush's consideration of deploying the military domestically broke, Digby made a similar point:

Reading this thing about the Tanks of Lackawanna, something has become clear to me that wasn't before: the excesses of the Bush administration, the war, the torture, the wiretapping, were the result of compromises between the sociopathic Cheney faction and the merely dull and incompetent remainder of the administration, including the president.

(The "Tanks" link points to DDay's post on this. If you missed them, I'd also recommend the Glenn Greenwald and Scott Horton posts on the military story, and Emptywheel's post "The Bush Fairy Tale on the Libby Pardon." When it comes to the Bush administration, as horrible as they've often appeared, subsequent revelations have almost always revealed them to be even worse.)

Commenting on the Gellman story and Cheney's plans to write a book, Anne Laurie writes:

Apparently omerta has its limits. I know a lot of us DFHs feared that the horrors of the Cheney Regency would never receive a public airing, if only for fear of the War Crimes Tribunal, but perhaps vanity will achieve what mere human decency and the rule of law never could.

Here's hoping. Still, the rule of law would be nice, if "quaint" in the view of Alberto Gonzales and the rest. I remain a fan of pitching the idea that the only thing that could possibly exonerate Cheney and the gang, and win them the accolades they so clearly deserve, is a full, unfettered investigation into the torture program (and the surveillance program and...).

I keep on plugging it, but Gellman's book Angler is one of the very best on Cheney and the Bush administration out there. As it is, he'll have to update it or write a sequel because some of what's come out since is even more nefarious. But if you're looking for a Cheney primer, you can read Angler excerpts here and here. Gellman's piece on "the Cheney Rules" is also a useful overview, and Scott Horton conducted a good interview with Gellman. Work by Jane Mayer, Ron Suskind and others give a much clearer picture of the Bush administration as well. Meanwhile, the Frontline episode "Cheney's Law" is one of several good pieces they've done on Cheney and the Bush administration.

Ah, the sweet smell of vanity and towering hubris. These guys have a warped view of the world, but their self-images are distorted as well. Remember, back during planning for the Gulf War, Cheney was repeatedly pitching crazy military plans to Norman Schwarzkopf. It's almost impossible to overstate how arrogant Cheney and his gang are (Addington's one of the worst). Cheney's approach showed an utter contempt for the American people, the entirety of Congress (including his own party), and even key members of the Bush administration. As I wrote in an earlier post, Cheney felt he was wiser than the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the Geneva Conventions, the Federalist papers, the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, the Constitution, and the Boy Scout Oath. In the Scott Horton interview, Gellman describes Cheney as "a rare combination: a zealot in principle and a subtle, skillful tactician in practice." In Cheney's battle over whether to protect his proud legacy versus his instinct for self-preservation from prosecution, I'm hoping he pulls a Libby and the vain, arrogant zealot wins out.

Cheney thinks he's Jack Bauer. Part of him must be itching to go Colonel Jessep and yell the ugly truth at us all.

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo.)

 

George Bush, an avid sports fan, clearly possesses unyielding faith in Hail Mary plays. At his last press conference as president, he once again struggled to take responsibility for any mistakes, and sounded his familiar defense, that only historians could fairly judge him:

Anyway, I think historians will look back and they'll be able to have a better look at mistakes after some time has passed. Along Jake's question, there is no such thing as short-term history. I don't think you can possibly get the full breadth of an administration until time has passed: Where does a President's -- did a President's decisions have the impact that he thought they would, or he thought they would, over time? Or how did this President compare to future Presidents, given a set of circumstances that may be similar or not similar? I mean, there's -- it's just impossible to do. And I'm comfortable with that.

The Bush administrative team really is rather remarkable; on the one hand, it consistently held that no one could have possibly predicted 9/11, levees breaking, rioting and sectarian violence in Iraq, the economic crisis, and a number of other events, yet Bush officials have also argued that only history can judge them. Apparently, it's simply impossible for any human being to imagine future possibilities, or to judge anything accurately in the present, either. This leaves us only with hindsight – perhaps the only appropriate way to judge those whose approach is backwards.

Fortunately, the administration faced these twin impossibilities of prediction and judgment armed with the preternaturally accurate "gut" and deep faith in truthiness of George W. Bush, and the infallible vision of Dick Cheney, sager than everyone else in the administration, but also wiser than the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the Geneva Conventions, the Federalist papers, the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, the Constitution, and the Boy Scout Oath. Perhaps that's why, even though Bush told reporters yet again that only history can judge him, as Dan Froomkin notes, "Bush has been plenty willing to assert his view of history's verdict on his presidency, even while saying it's too early for others to do so." Yes, in 2004, 81% of 415 polled historians judged the Bush administration a "failure." But if things somehow get better, well then, reckless behavior that accidentally produces good results clearly isn't irresponsible. A few conservative historians have argued that time is on Bush's side, and Bush, his family and friends firmly believe that history will vindicate him. And after all, how could all those historians fairly judge Bush all the way back in 2004? Hurricane Katrina and the economic crisis hadn't even happened yet.

Some historians and journalists talk of objective standards, but no one can fairly say that George Bush, captain of a brave team, is the worst president ever.

Similarly, to use a sports analogy Bush could understand, no one can fairly say that after going a winless, unprecedented 0-16 in the regular season, the 2008 Detroit Lions are the NFL's worst team ever.

Oh sure, some wags might even try to make the case that Bush and the Lions are pretty much the same, but that's a hard sell:

Over seven seasons under [Matt] Millen's leadership as team CEO, the Detroit Lions owned the NFL's worst winning percentage (31–81, .277), have never had a winning season, have never finished higher than third place in the NFC North, and have not played in any post-season games. Despite this record of total and complete failure, Millen received a five-year contract extension at the start of the 2005 season.

One has a duty to quibble with overwhelming public opinion, common sense assessments, and the very act of critical judgment. Strong alternative cases can often be made. For instance, historians of football might argue that the Cincinnati Bengals, with one winning season in the past 18, are a greater failure, and "an embarrassment to sport," that is, a black mark on the entire endeavor of sports altogether. The same cannot be fairly said of Bush in relation to government and leadership, for while some critics churlishly insist he is the worst president ever, others more charitably place him merely among the four or even five worst presidents of all time. Calling him the absolute "worst" is therefore terribly premature.

Plus, who's to say someone worse won't come along? After all, continuing with our sports analogy, the Detroit Lions are actually 0-17 going back to the 2007 season, and theoretically, they could lose all their games in 2009, too. Some of the games in 2008 were close. They could go 0-16 again in 2009, but lose by an even wider margin. (It would take some effort, but they could break their record of failing to "win a road game for three years (0-24)," too.)

Or – what if the Detroit Lions resigned en masse, ran for office and took over our government? Imagine their record in history then (although predicting the future is impossible). Could they compete with the Bush legacy described by Dan Froomkin?

He took the nation to a war of choice under false pretenses -- and left troops in harm's way on two fields of battle. He embraced torture as an interrogation tactic and turned the world's champion of human dignity into an outlaw nation and international pariah. He watched with detachment as a major American city went under water. He was ostensibly at the helm as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression took hold. He went from being the most popular to the most disappointing president, having squandered a unique opportunity to unite the country and even the world behind a shared agenda after Sept. 11. He set a new precedent for avoiding the general public in favor of screened audiences and seemed to occupy an alternate reality. He took his own political party from seeming permanent majority status to where it is today. And he deliberately politicized the federal government, circumvented the traditional policymaking process, ignored expert advice and suppressed dissent, leaving behind a broken government.

Critics of Bush claim he's been worse than Nixon in harming America, the world, and most importantly of all, the Republican franchise. But never fear for the brand, because Sarah Palin and her backers are determined that they can outperform Bush, you betcha.

Anyway, sports analogies can be taken way too far, even with a sports lover like Bush. Comparing Bush to the woeful Detroit Lions reveals numerous differences, as we'll quickly see.


Accepting Responsibility

Here's (since fired) Detroit Lions coach Rod Marinelli explaining their disastrous season:

Detroit went 10-38 under Marinelli, who took the job in 2006. In September, the Lions fired President Matt Millen after the franchise posted the worst record (31-84) in the NFL during his seven-year tenure.

“We have nobody to point a finger at other than ourselves, we just didn’t do our job correctly,” Marinelli said yesterday. “There’s a lot to learn from that. You accept the adversity, try to fight through it and try to get better.”

Former Lions president Matt Millen made a similar claim:

"Completely responsible," he said. "I mean, you were head of football operations, you throw it back on me. You can say something about the coaching, you can say something about the players. But inevitably, I'm responsible for them. And so I'm completely responsible for it in my mind."

Millen added that even he would have fired himself.

Meanwhile, here's George Bush in his last press conference as president, boldly acknowledging that mistakes were made:

There have been disappointments. Abu Ghraib obviously was a huge disappointment during the presidency. Not having weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment. I don't know if you want to call those mistakes or not, but they were -- things didn't go according to plan, let's put it that way.

Investigations

Some people are just never satisfied. Even after Millen admitted error, over at the Detroit Free Press, Drew Sharp wrote:

Millen blew it again. Detroit deserves a detailed explanation for what went so horribly wrong from those who perpetrated the deed. Simply saying that you’re responsible for the disaster doesn’t make you accountable. That requires serving a penance. If Millen truly seeks atonement, he must delve deeper into those additional “reasons” of which he spoke.

Meanwhile, here's the "Uber villager Stuart Taylor" on alleged wrongdoings by the Bush administration:

...It would be a terrible mistake, in my view, to launch anything like the big, public criminal investigation that almost 60 House liberals, human rights groups, and others are seeking into allegations that John Yoo, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, President Bush, and other top officials reportedly approved harsh interrogation methods including water-boarding (subject to limitations that have not yet been publicly identified).

Public Support


This is the most contentious area, because management, punditry and the public often have not agreed. In the case of the Detroit Lions, fans and sports pundits overwhelmingly wanted president Matt Millen sacked, but owner William Clay Ford, Sr. resisted for a long time (eventually, even his own son, Bill Ford, vice chairman of the Lions, publicly said he'd fire Millen if it were up to him). The number and scope of protests pushing for Millen to be fired proved quite extraordinary. In September 2008, Brian VanOchten of the Grand Rapids Press expressed the popular sentiment and urged for more public demonstrations:

It is time for Millen Man March II.

In the aftermath of the Detroit Lions' third consecutive defeat, the infuriated fans of this once-proud NFL franchise must stand united and demand that team president Matt Millen relinquish his throne.

Enough is enough.

The Lions are off to an 0-3 start for the fourth time in Millen's eight seasons of misguided leadership after a humiliating 31-13 loss to the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday afternoon at Candlestick Park.

Meanwhile, with Bush, there was significant public interest in impeaching him, but most political journalists and pundits did not show much interest in this; they lacked their sports brethren's eagerness to criticize management. Mort Kondracke (or his copy editor) expressed a common conservative view by claiming that charges that Bush lied were false. And Gary Kamiya offered, "Why Bush Hasn't Been Impeached: Congress, The Media and Most of The American People Have Yet To Turn Decisively Against Bush because To Do So Would Be To Turn Against Some Part of Themselves."

Brian VanOchten wanted further demonstrations against Matt Millen in September 2008, while in November 2008 at the Wall Street Journal, former John Kerry legal team intern Jeffrey Scott Shapiro inveighed:

The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.

Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.

Clearly, there are different standards of fandom, patriotism and coverage. Some have claimed that among Bush cheerleaders, "If Bush were the CEO of a company they invested in, or the coach of their favorite football team, and delivered the same quality of performance he has as president, they would have been screaming for his head on a pike long ago." This view misses an important point of diehard fandom. Diehard fans want their team to succeed, but more important than a winning season is defeating hated division foes – for instance, the joy of the Lions making the playoffs does not possess the emotional heft of the schadenfreude felt when defeating the Green Bay Packers in a nationally-televised Thanksgiving game. Similarly, if Bush fails, if America falters, for diehard Bushies this is paltry compared to the satisfaction of defeating, infuriating and taunting political foes.

The Mood on the Team

After their final loss of the season, sentiment on the Detroit Lions was strong:

“This is the conclusion of all that we’ve done wrong,” Lions kicker Jason Hanson told reporters yesterday. “It’s so mind-numbingly awful. It’s a feeling of complete embarrassment and sadness.”

Meanwhile, in his last press conference, Bush reflected:

We had a -- people -- we -- I had a fabulous team around me of highly dedicated, smart, capable people, and we had fun. I tell people that, you know, some days happy, some days not so happy, every day has been joyous. And people, they say, I just don't believe it to be the case. Well, it is the case. Even in the darkest moments of Iraq, you know, there was -- and every day when I was reading the reports about soldiers losing their lives, no question there was a lot of emotion, but also there was times where we could be light-hearted and support each other.

Habits of Mind

In the final game of the 2008 season, the Detroit Lions had a chance to defeat their division rivals the Green Bay Packers to escape a winless season:

Orlovsky led the Lions back into Packers territory, but a taunting penalty on Smith moved the Lions back near midfield and Orlovsky threw an interception to Nick Collins.

"It was a very bad, selfish decision," Smith said. "I let my emotions get the best of me. It was tough, but it is no excuse."

Perhaps more than anything, the penalties got Raiola riled up.

"Stupid," Raiola said. "You know, just uncalled for. You're in a game like that, you can't do that. Just dumb."

And very much like the Lions.

Bush's "top ten moments":



(However, there are plenty of other contenders.)

Mistakes

Americans may hold their presidents and sports teams to different standards when it comes to success and accountability. But for both, the expectations from the public and punditry can be terribly, horribly unfair. During his last press conference, Bush took umbrage with criticism of his response to Hurricane Katrina:

People said, well, the federal response was slow. Don't tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed. I remember going to see those helicopter drivers, Coast Guard drivers, to thank them for their courageous efforts to rescue people off roofs. Thirty thousand people were pulled off roofs right after the storm moved through. It's a pretty quick response.

Could things have been done better? Absolutely. Absolutely. But when I hear people say, the federal response was slow, then what are they going to say to those chopper drivers, or the 30,000 that got pulled off the roofs?

Meanwhile, here's Lions coach Rod Marinelli looking back:

"The biggest thing in this is how you conduct yourself afterwards," Marinelli said. "We accept responsibility for everything that went down."

Clearly, Marinelli should stick to sports, because with an attitude like that, he'd never make in Washington.


(Previous strained political sports analogies can be found in "Political Football Theater" and "The Sporting Life," while the Commission previously explored the Millen-Bush connection (as have several late-night comedians). For better satire on the Bush legacy, check out Jon Swift. Thanks to Buck for video coding assistance. Finally, apologies to all Lions and Bengals fans – as a Cubs fan, I feel your pain.)

(Cross-posted at Blue Herald)