I Cogitate
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There's cowardice and then there's Dick Cheney cowardice
Dick Cheney is the worse kind of coward.
You may be surprised to hear that there are degrees or variations of cowardice but let me focus in on two, the ones that prime the pump of my talking point here.
The first is, for lack of a better phrase, general cowardice. This being the situation where one should have intervened in an argument, a physical fight or any form of abuse, and chose not to do so. Generally this is due to fear, real or imagined, of being harmed. Sadly, most of us have been guilty of such at one point in time or another, with a personal mea culpa offered for doing so, or actually, not doing so.
The second is what ails Dick Cheney -- call it professional cowardice. He uses the gravitas of his current job title, the power to be exerted in conjuction with his current office and his myriad of connections with the monied and politically powerful, all to obscure both his intentions and actions.
Whether it be divvying up oil and other energy futures in a real life game of secret corporate Monopoly or attempting to stifle dissent by offering up the identity of a national security professional, Dick Cheney simply clams up and goes limp when pressed, claiming the impotency of officialdom.
Each time Cheney acts as terrorist, he chooses not to stand front and center and say this is what I believe, chooses not to say this is what I want to achieve and this is what I am going to do to implement my convictions, and whether you are with me or against me, you will know the real me and what I stand for.
No, instead he hides behind the skirts of title/position/office/class.
Is it any wonder he also chose not to personally support the Vietnam War by joining the real life mano a mano fight--a conflict he devoutly supported yet caused he and his wife to do their greatest work in quickly producing a child when he came face-to-face with the ending of last educational deferment. Yes, Cheney's the impotent patriot in need of some backbone Viagra -- he'll gladly send others to their deaths and dismemberments in lieu of ever putting his life on the line.
Why the Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion powers-that-be don't literally piss on Cheney's offers to address their respective convictions is unfathomable. Call it the typical seduction that takes place when coming into proximity with power. Every year of the Bush presidency, these brown-nosers have made their choice, stabbing the military grunts in the back again and again and again.
Here's Dan Froomkin with more on Cheney, in relation the the Plame affair:
Fitzgerald Again Points to CheneyGo here for the remainder of the column and do bookmark Froomkin -- he's always a worthwhile read. I'll tease with another line on another subject later in Froomkin's column:
Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
May 29, 2007
Special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald has made it clearer than ever that he was hot on the trail of a coordinated campaign to out CIA agent Valerie Plame until that line of investigation was cut off by the repeated lies from Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby...
...Despite all the public interest in the case, Fitzgerald has repeatedly asserted that grand-jury secrecy rules prohibit him from being more forthcoming about either the course of his investigation or any findings beyond those he disclosed to make the case against Libby. But when his motives have been attacked during court proceedings, Fitzgerald has occasionally shown flashes of anger -- and has hinted that he and his investigative team suspected more malfeasance at higher levels of government than they were able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
In Friday's eminently readable court filing, Fitzgerald quotes the Libby defense calling his prosecution "unwarranted, unjust, and motivated by politics." In responding to that charge, the special counsel evidently felt obliged to put Libby's crime in context. And that context is Dick Cheney.
Libby's lies, Fitzgerald wrote, "made impossible an accurate evaluation of the role that Mr. Libby and those with whom he worked played in the disclosure of information regarding Ms. Wilson's CIA employment and about the motivations for their actions."
It was established at trial that it was Cheney himself who first told Libby about Plame's identity as a CIA agent, in the course of complaining about criticisms of the administration's run-up to war leveled by her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. And, as Fitzgerald notes: "The evidence at trial further established that when the investigation began, Mr. Libby kept the Vice President apprised of his shifting accounts of how he claimed to have learned about Ms. Wilson's CIA employment."
The investigation, Fitzgerald writes, "was necessary to determine whether there was concerted action by any combination of the officials known to have disclosed the information about Ms. Plame to the media as anonymous sources, and also whether any of those who were involved acted at the direction of others. This was particularly important in light of Mr. Libby's statement to the FBI that he may have discussed Ms. Wilson's employment with reporters at the specific direction of the Vice President..."
"I often wonder why more news stories don't start: "President Bush yesterday again denied reality. . . . "top
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