We Don't Know The Half

Via Andrew, Lawrence Wilkerson (Colin Powell's old chief of staff) puts Dick Cheney on blast:

Recently, in an attempt to mask some of these failings and to exacerbate and make even more difficult the challenge to the new Obama administration, former Vice President Cheney gave an interview from his home in McLean, Virginia. The interview was almost mystifying in its twisted logic and terrifying in its fear-mongering...

But far worse is the unmistakable stoking of the 20 million listeners of Rush Limbaugh, half of whom we could label, judiciously, as half-baked nuts. Such remarks as those of the former vice president's are like waving a red flag in front of an incensed bull. And Cheney of course knows that.

Cheney went on to say in his McLean interview that "Protecting the country's security is a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business. These are evil people and we are not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek." I have to agree but the other way around. Cheney and his like are the evil people and we certainly are not going to prevail in the struggle with radical religion if we listen to people such as he.

When--and if--the truths about the detainees at Guantanamo Bay will be revealed in the way they should be, or Congress will step up and shoulder some of the blame, or the new Obama administration will have the courage to follow through substantially on its campaign promises with respect to GITMO, torture and the like, remains indeed to be seen.

Three things occurred to me reading this piece. The first is just how much of piss-poor job journalist have done in interviewing Cheney now that he's out of office. I don't think Jon Stewart is the right model. I'm more thinking Terry Gross. But Dick Cheney would never be interviewed by Terry Gross. If you want to know why, listen to Gross take on his wife.

The second thing is this--I've not written much about investigating the Bush era, mostly because I've been conflicted. I do think it's a political loser, and I'm also not sure if it would accomplish much. But watching Cheney, a man who in a country with no democracy, would be Mobutu, demagouging people who are trying to do the hard work of patriotism--not the sloganeering part, the how do we engage evil without becoming evil part--is  stomach-turing.

Congress if you're listening--Air this motherfucker out, please. Not just to shut him up, but to send a simple message to to all the other swamp gnolls, hoods, hobgoblins and latent Mobutus among us--Don't fuck with the Constitution.