"Hey, stop! You're gonna hurt someone with that old shotgun, hey what's up Doc?"
Dear Readers, I apologize for my absence. Things have been a bit jibbety jibbety here at Chez Steve, but now I have time to tend to a few things including this journal. A lot's been happening and it's time to catch up.
First we had Cheney shooting a man this weekend, and now we have this.
Cheney is claiming he has the power to declassify classified information.
Now, let's just go a little crack-crazy ourselves and assume that sure, he has that authority.
That still does not give him the right to reveal the identity of undercover government agents. This does not fall under the declassification of information, but instead runs directly afoul of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. Executive privilege of any sort does not cover violations of the law.
Now there's been some question as to whether the outing of Plame violates the IIPA because the law requires that one served overseas as an agent within five years. However, the original complaint was filed by the CIA, which lends serious credence to the claim that the law was violated.
That we see this sort of arrogance and a belief that they are above the law doesn't surprise me about this Administration. To again paraphrase Hunter Thompson, these silly little fools deserve a taste of the whip. We saw this same rampant criminality in the Nixon Administration and we are seeing it with these bastards.
They're even starting to eat their own. Clearly Dubya and his crew are uneasy. All Dubya had to do was continue his act of walking tall and carrying a big stick and he would skate his way into history. But now Cheney's fucking things up and Scott McClellan let loose with a bit of frustration at a press conference the other day about the Cheney shooting telling reporters he didn't have any information and they should ask the VP's people.
And about McClellan- his counterpart in the Nixon Administration was Ron Ziegler, and there was this classic Doonesbury back during Watergate that had a reporter saying something like "What do you do when you're standing in front of the mirror in the morning to shave and are contemplating another day of lying and stonewall for the president?" to which he responded "I shave".
McClellan strikes me as a decent sort who's in a rough position. He's been repeatedly put in the position of having to put a happy face on these congenitally criminal arrogant fucktards who are running the country and I'm curious to see how much longer he sticks around. Getting hauled off to jail can't be an attractive fringe benefit of his job and he has to be watching the Scooter Libby case very carefully, thinking "but for the grace of god go I". And now he's seeing that the Veep will attempt to stay out of the muck by crawling on top of anyone- even El Presidente- to save his sorry ass.
Right now the only hope Bush has of surviving this mess it to toss Cheney under the bus first. This shooting may prove the thing to save Bush's bacon. If Cheney gets hauled up on criminal charges for this- and there's ample legal grounds to do so- he most likely would have to step down as VP, and then Bush can have someone take over the #2 slot.
I would say the likely candidate for that would be McCain. Sure, it would piss off the Far Right but screw them- Bush doesn't need them any more, and a lot of GOP politicians sure as hell don't either.
Choosing McCain would do a number of things- it would mollify the moderates in the GOP who must be pissing themselves right now because if some brain-damaged geek like me can see the GOP facing the prospect of having another President run out of the White House, they sure as hell can as well. McCain would restore a much-lacking sense of balance to the GOP. And McCain can speak soothingly to the Left as well. He and Obama are now best buds and pen pals. McCain has a lot of respect on both sides of the aisle and having him as #2 would be a huge PR coup for a president looking to finish out his term and get the fuck back to Texas instead of being hauled up on impeachment proceedings.
Cheney's now deadweight. He forced the intelligence community to fudge the Iraq intel and lie. He's the face of evil and has done all the dirty work and taken a lot of hits, which is what a Veep's supposed to do. He has outlived his responsibility and I would say it's even money that this week Cheney's cellie's blowin' up with 3am calls from Karl Rove croaking "Nevermore" and hanging up.
Besides, Cheney has nothing left to do. He's not going to run for president in 2008- no way in hell he'd win. He's already secured untold riches for his friends at Halliburton and as long as he lives he'll never have to pay for another thing his entire life because all he would have to do is send his old buddy Bob Novak a few classified memorandums naming names and detailing the various sweetheart deals and they'd all be fucked. And the folks at Halliburton would have no reason to think that if Cheney could toss the President of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, under the bus, that he wouldn't even hesitate to do the same to them.
So it'll be an interesting few months, enough to keep us occupied until baseball begins in earnest.
Tags: Bush Cheney shooting Plame executive privilege impeachment resignation McCain McCain as VP vice president
First we had Cheney shooting a man this weekend, and now we have this.
Cheney is claiming he has the power to declassify classified information.
Now, let's just go a little crack-crazy ourselves and assume that sure, he has that authority.
That still does not give him the right to reveal the identity of undercover government agents. This does not fall under the declassification of information, but instead runs directly afoul of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. Executive privilege of any sort does not cover violations of the law.
Now there's been some question as to whether the outing of Plame violates the IIPA because the law requires that one served overseas as an agent within five years. However, the original complaint was filed by the CIA, which lends serious credence to the claim that the law was violated.
That we see this sort of arrogance and a belief that they are above the law doesn't surprise me about this Administration. To again paraphrase Hunter Thompson, these silly little fools deserve a taste of the whip. We saw this same rampant criminality in the Nixon Administration and we are seeing it with these bastards.
They're even starting to eat their own. Clearly Dubya and his crew are uneasy. All Dubya had to do was continue his act of walking tall and carrying a big stick and he would skate his way into history. But now Cheney's fucking things up and Scott McClellan let loose with a bit of frustration at a press conference the other day about the Cheney shooting telling reporters he didn't have any information and they should ask the VP's people.
And about McClellan- his counterpart in the Nixon Administration was Ron Ziegler, and there was this classic Doonesbury back during Watergate that had a reporter saying something like "What do you do when you're standing in front of the mirror in the morning to shave and are contemplating another day of lying and stonewall for the president?" to which he responded "I shave".
McClellan strikes me as a decent sort who's in a rough position. He's been repeatedly put in the position of having to put a happy face on these congenitally criminal arrogant fucktards who are running the country and I'm curious to see how much longer he sticks around. Getting hauled off to jail can't be an attractive fringe benefit of his job and he has to be watching the Scooter Libby case very carefully, thinking "but for the grace of god go I". And now he's seeing that the Veep will attempt to stay out of the muck by crawling on top of anyone- even El Presidente- to save his sorry ass.
Right now the only hope Bush has of surviving this mess it to toss Cheney under the bus first. This shooting may prove the thing to save Bush's bacon. If Cheney gets hauled up on criminal charges for this- and there's ample legal grounds to do so- he most likely would have to step down as VP, and then Bush can have someone take over the #2 slot.
I would say the likely candidate for that would be McCain. Sure, it would piss off the Far Right but screw them- Bush doesn't need them any more, and a lot of GOP politicians sure as hell don't either.
Choosing McCain would do a number of things- it would mollify the moderates in the GOP who must be pissing themselves right now because if some brain-damaged geek like me can see the GOP facing the prospect of having another President run out of the White House, they sure as hell can as well. McCain would restore a much-lacking sense of balance to the GOP. And McCain can speak soothingly to the Left as well. He and Obama are now best buds and pen pals. McCain has a lot of respect on both sides of the aisle and having him as #2 would be a huge PR coup for a president looking to finish out his term and get the fuck back to Texas instead of being hauled up on impeachment proceedings.
Cheney's now deadweight. He forced the intelligence community to fudge the Iraq intel and lie. He's the face of evil and has done all the dirty work and taken a lot of hits, which is what a Veep's supposed to do. He has outlived his responsibility and I would say it's even money that this week Cheney's cellie's blowin' up with 3am calls from Karl Rove croaking "Nevermore" and hanging up.
Besides, Cheney has nothing left to do. He's not going to run for president in 2008- no way in hell he'd win. He's already secured untold riches for his friends at Halliburton and as long as he lives he'll never have to pay for another thing his entire life because all he would have to do is send his old buddy Bob Novak a few classified memorandums naming names and detailing the various sweetheart deals and they'd all be fucked. And the folks at Halliburton would have no reason to think that if Cheney could toss the President of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, under the bus, that he wouldn't even hesitate to do the same to them.
So it'll be an interesting few months, enough to keep us occupied until baseball begins in earnest.
Tags: Bush Cheney shooting Plame executive privilege impeachment resignation McCain McCain as VP vice president
posted by Stevie Z at 10:37 PM
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