Cheney infers waterboarding and torture not consistent with American Values.

I would say being an environmental advocate and defending your torture legacy are a little different. do you really think al gore needs to go away?

 

I would say they have this in common: they've made their points and further appearances will have diminishing returns and impact.

But yeah, apples and oranges in terms of their message.

 

on a sidenote, has anyone noticed how cheney is turning up the rhetoric on this issue. in the latest round of interviews he has been really pushing the logic that we haven't been attacked since and he has mentioned on the number of people who died on 9-11 more than once.

 

go, dick, go.

 

Josh Marshall writes well --

A Very Small Man

Many people are clearly and understandably incensed by Vice President Cheney's on-going media campaign advocating state-sponsored torture and his making what appear to be all sorts of false claims about how effective his torture policies were. But though it's maddening and offensive, I'm more on the side of being heartened or at least glad to see the exposure he's getting -- not so much because it's politically damaging to the Republicans, which is probably true, but because he's (as is his puppet daughter) showing and can't help but show more and more about who he is.

That's also one of the things that would be so healthy -- and if I can be allowed some guilty pleasure, entertaining -- about a full and detailed airing of all of Cheney's role.

Cheney's conceit is that he's tough enough, perhaps best to say, icy enough to make the trip to what he calls 'the dark side' to protect America. But the picture emerging even from his own comments is very different. It's of a small and paranoid man, a half-comic character off the pages of mid-20th century anti-totalitarian fiction, with a seemingly inordinate protectiveness for torture practices that seem to have been only marginally effective at best. And yet here he is with the classified memo he keeps in a special folder in his desk making the case for his torture policies. Here he is at another moment metaphorically tightening the screws on this or that detainee trying to get confessions about the fairytale al Qaida-Iraq link, though it's worth wondering whether he's really sure it's there or is open to getting false confessions that can then be leaked to this or that journo at the Washington Times or, sad to say, The New York Times.

You start to get the sense that just as Cheney committed his historic goof of launching off into Iraq while forgetting about dealing with al Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan he was doing something similar getting all wrapped up in the tough guy p*rn of torture that he remained ignorant of or just plain ignored the actual nuts and bolts of taking down or disabling terrorist organizations.

So by all means let him keep talking. As TPM Reader BH notes, he seems unable to maintain his famed self-discipline and indifference to public opinion as his own sorry record dribbles into the public record. The more that comes out about him, the more pathetic he seems. Paranoia, serial poor judgment, inability to distinguish desires from facts and an almost adolescent inability not to get drawn into the thrill of the 'dark side'.

--Josh Marshall

 

Yeah, it's his failed attempt to instill GOP leadership in wake of the Limbaugh diversion.

 

but he did. remember when he became a hermit, everyone wondered where he was and he reappeared a year later with an extra 40 and a beard? and championing a cause like global warming, regardless of your feelings on that issue, is much different than trying to undermine a new administration two weeks after they took office. and then continuing the media tour of fear.

could you imagine our ex-dick saying anything like this after a terrorist attack? hell no. if, god forbid, there is another attack on our soil, that dick will be out in front of any camera blaming the current administration.

people need to stop comparing al gore to that dick.

 

yeah, go dick, go! you were the sitting vp for the worst terrorist attack on our nation's soil! and you keep forgetting about anthrax and the 4,000+ american soldiers you sent to die for a lie.

go dick...go straight to hell.

 

Sadly, the W administration foisted policies on us and the world that were substantially less well thought out than the sentences in the Dick and Jane readers.

 

Not in my wildest dreams, but I can imagine George W. Bush saying something to that effect. I honestly don't think Cheney cares about anyone outside of himself.

 

GWB has been extremely supportive and respectful of Obama's presidency. I read an interview recently where he said he was available if Obama wanted to talk to him, but that this was Obama's time and he deserved the chance to do things his way. Or something to that effect.

Not often I compliment Bush -- but he's been a decent ex. Cheney on the other hand....

 

The other than Cheney is starting to admit indirectly inthese interviews is that he was running the show

 

Thats because W wants the country to succeed, while Cheney just wants everyone to know that he made this the greatest country in the world.

Cheney, please go back to Wyoming and shut your trap. 95% of the country wants you to shut up. Quit advocating for the failure of this great country, especially when it comes to National Security.

 

Once again, on this subject, I agree with you.

Stay in the public eye, Dick, especially in an election year.

PLEASE survive till 2012.

PLEASE.

 

Yes, I picked up on that too... basically inferring W was a puppet.