Cheney is such a Dick

I despise Vice President Cheney probably more than any "elected" public official I can think since I've followed politics. I mean that. And, considering who he beats out for that distinction, it's saying something.

Before I even get to Cheney's ludicrous statements yesterday on Rush Limbaugh's show, a quick word about Limbaugh himself. I know a great deal of conservatives, and whenever the name Rush comes up, all I ever hear about is how he represents extreme viewpoints that don't really represent what a majority of Repubes believe.

Really? If Rush is so extremist, why has Cheney made a concerted effort to go on the show? He's been on Rush's show at least a half dozen times since being Vice President, and those are only the ones I can remember.

What's more, Limbaugh has 13 million viewers and is widely (no pun intended) regarded as one of the most successful radio talk show hosts in America. So, when he inevitably says something stupid, which happens pretty often, people who attempt to dismiss him as an obscure extremist aren't accurately dealing with the facts.

Rush, you're up:

Now, let's start talking about the supplemental funding bill for Iraq. I have to tell you something that I heard last night as I'm watching some of the cable news network shows. Some of the Democrats and Democrat commentators, are saying publicly now they expect that the president is eventually going to back off the veto threat because he will he will eventually realize that he cannot be seen as de-funding the troops.

Predictably, Cheney flatly denied that Bush would back off his veto threat to avert the perception that he is defunding the troops:

No, he has been very, very firm in his insistence, Rush, that if they send him a bill with limitations on his ability to function as commander-in-chief or restrictions on the troops or with a withdrawal date that in effect would tell our enemies we're going to quit, he will veto it. He's also said the same thing if the bills are loaded up with pork on non-essential spending. So he's been very, very clear. No one should be mistaken about that.

Predictably, Rush asked loads of leading questions to try to bring out the partisan in Cheney that is always bubbling not too far below the surface. Dick's response to a question about Democrats' "theatrics" that are intended to cause defeat of U.S. forces, causing our troops to come home defeated:

Well, I think that the policies that they are recommending would in fact produce that result. I've got some friends on the other side of the aisle, and I don't want question everybody's motives. I do believe that a significant portion of the Democrats -- including, I think, Nancy Pelosi -- are adamantly opposed to the war and prepared to pack it in and come home in defeat, rather than put in place or support a policy that will lead to victory.

I can't even begin to describe how sick to death I am of hearing ideological rubes like Cheney continue to cheerlead that victory in Iraq is possible. The only thing I've give the Veep credit for here is consistency - he's been holding onto this pipe dream for over four years. He's been consistently wrong, but remarkably consistent.

In response to Oxymoron's absurd question about the Democrats' "allegiance to defeat":

It seems to me so abundantly clear, Rush, that we really need to prevail in this conflict, that there's an awful lot riding on it. It's not just about Iraq. It's about our efforts in the global war on terror, and that entire part of the world, affects what's going on in Iran where we're trying to make sure they don't develop a nuclear weapon. You can imagine the extent to which the Iranians would be heartened in that effort, if they see us withdraw from Iraq next door. We got Musharraf and Pakistan and Karzai in Afghanistan, who put their lives on the line every day, in effect, supporting our efforts to deal with the extremists and the terrorists in part of the world. If they say us bail out in Iraq they clearly would lose confidence in our capacity to carry through and get the job done. So, it's absolutely essential we do it. I don't know what the motive is. They seem to think that we can withdraw from Iraq and walk away from it. They ignore the lessons of the past. Remember what happened in Afghanistan. We'd been involved in Afghanistan in the eighties, supporting the Mujahideen against the Soviets and prevailed. We won. Everybody walked away, and in the nineties, Afghanistan became a safe haven for terrorists, an area for training camps where Al-Qaeda trained 20,000 terrorists in the late nineties, and the base from which they launched attacks on the United States on 9/11. So those are very real problems, and to advocate withdrawal from Iraq at this point, it seems to me, simply would play right into the hands of Al-Qaeda.

Nice try on Afghanistan, DICK. Pretty funny that Cheney covertly admits one of the Senior Bush administration's foreign policy failures, and that was walking away from Afghanistan after the Soviet Union admitted defeat and withdrew its forces. Cheney served as Bush Sr's only secretary of defense.

This next one is great, and Keith Olbermann does an awesome job at slamming this one off in the door - Repubes decrying Democrats' attempted elimination of the term "Global War on Terrorism." (More on that in another post in a little while.):

RUSH: It may not just be Iraq. Yesterday I read that Ike Skelton, who chairs -- I forget the name of the committee -- in the next defense appropriations bill for fiscal '08, is going to actually remove the phrase "global war on terror," because they don't think it's applicable. They want to refer to conflicts as individual skirmishes, but they're going to try to rid the defense appropriation bill, and thus official government language, of that term. Does that give any indication of their motivation, or what they think of the current plight in which the country finds itself?

DICK : Sure. Well, it's just flawed thinking. I like Ike Skelton. I worked closely with Ike when I was secretary of defense. He's chairman of the Armed Services Committee now. Ike's a good man. He's just dead wrong about this, though. Think about it. Just to give you one example, Rush. Remember Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist, an Al-Qaeda affiliate. He ran a training camp in Afghanistan for Al-Qaeda, then migrated after we went into Afghanistan and shut 'em down there, he went to Baghdad. He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the Al-Qaeda operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene and then of course led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June. He's the guy who arranged the booming of the Samarra mosque that precipitated the sectarian violence between Shi'a and Sunni. This is Al-Qaeda operating in Iraq, and as I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq. There's no way you can segment out and say, "Well, we'll fight the war on terror in Pakistan or Afghanistan but we can separate Iraq. That's not really, in any way, shape, or form related." It's just dead wrong. Bin Laden has said this is the central battle in the war on terror.

In response to Oxymoron Rush's question about Nancy Pelosi's trip to the Middle East, including Syria, Dick was just getting warmed up:

Well, it's not helpful. I made it clear earlier that I thought this created difficulties, if I can put it in a gentle form. Obviously, she's the speaker of the House and ought to travel to foreign nations and ought to conduct visits.

[...]

[Pelosi's] not entitled to make policy. She, in this particular case, by going to Damascus at this stage it serves to reinforce, if you will, and reward Bashar Assad for his bad behavior.

On how much "damage" Pelosi has done by visiting Syria, Dick had this to say:

Well, I think, clearly, she stimulated a reaction out of the Israeli. Prime Minister Olmert immediately made it clear that she was not authorized to make any such offer to Bashir Assad. Among other things, of course, the Syrians have not renounced their support for terror. The major terrorist organizations that are dedicated to the destruction of Israel, such as Hamas, are headquartered in Damascus, Syria. It was a non-statement, a nonsensical statement. It didn't make any sense at all that she would suggest that those talks could go forward as long as the Syrians conducted themselves as a prime state sponsor of terror.

Pelosi issued a clarification on her statement HERE that went virtually unreported in the Western Mainstream Media. Dick's answer wasn't satisfying or controversial enough for Rush, so the Oxymoron proceeded to poke Dickie the Tiger with a stick, until he got the desired response about Pelosi's behavior. *Ding! Ding!* Pavlov's dog responds:

(Chuckles) Well, I've been around a long time. I'm obviously disappointed. I think it is, in fact, bad behavior on her part. I wish she hadn't done it, but she is the speaker of the House, and fortunately I think the various parties involved recognize she doesn't speak for the United States in those circumstances. She doesn't represent the administration. The president is the one that conducts foreign policy, not the speaker of the House.

Hey, if your administration is solely responsible for foreign policy, as you assert Dick, then conduct foreign policy. No one's saying that Syria has been a model nation - in fact, quite the opposite. But, talking to our enemies can and does have value. We even talked to the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War. And Tony Blair resolved the British Soldier hostage situation with good 'old fashioned diplomacy - a concept this administration considers an anathema.

The Oxymoron saved the best for last though, with a question about the controversial Sam Fox appointment as the Belgian ambassador:

RUSH: One more, and that's the recess appointment of Sam Fox. Sam Fox is from my home state, and I know of Sam Fox. He's an immigrant, a Ukrainian-Jewish immigrant whose parents had nothing. When they died, they had nothing. He is a totally self-made man, a great American, and he was treated horribly by Senator Kerry and others on that committee, simply because he had made a political donation. They essentially told him he did not have free speech in this country, and until he would apologize, 'til he would go up to Kerry and apologize for supporting the Swift Boats... Now the president has recess appointed him, and of course the Democrats say they're going to investigate this and going to look into this. This is the kind of move that garners a lot of support from the people in the country. This shows the administration willing to engage these people, and not allow them to get away with this kind of -- well, my term, you don't have to accept it - "Stalinist behavior" by those people on that committee.

DICK: Well, you're dead on, Rush. I know Sam well. He's a good friend of mine and has been for many years, I think he's a great appointment and he'll do a superb job as our ambassador to Belgium. I was delighted when the president made the recess appointment. He clearly has that authority under the Constitution -

RUSH: You go on vacation, this is what happens.

Stalinist behavior? Hmm. I guess the endless Nazi comparisons and analogies have run their course, at least for now, so Republicans have now moved on to comparing Democrats to Josef Stalin. Yet another example of elevating the discourse.

More on vacations by lawmakers in a moment, too.

Going into Easter Weekend, it's great to see that the Bush administration's penchant for comparing political opponents to mass murders. Nice job, men.

Read the whole transcript of Rush's Dickfest Here.