An Anti-Cheney "Brief"
Let me begin by thanking TPMCafe for inviting me to discuss Angler and by thanking Bart Gellman for reaching out to me following the publication of his book.
As Bart notes, the other participants in this discussion have reviewed Angler; I have not. So my main purpose this week is to provide my views of the book itself. I'm less inclined to debate the Cheney vice presidency. That's really a debate about the past eight years, one that has been taking place for approximately the past seven. Opinions have hardened and are not likely to change. On the other hand, it may prove impossible to discuss Angler without some attention to the merits of its subject.
I found Bart's book not only quite readable but something of a "page-turner," given the inside look it provides at Bush administration decision-making on so many vital matters. Bart has also done an excellent job of information gathering, although he was constrained to some degree by the fact (as I understand it) that the vice president and some of his key aides declined to talk to him.
It seems to me, however, that Angler is slanted against the vice president. Where the facts permit either of two inferences, Bart generally draws an inference adverse to Cheney. His selection of factual tidbits and quotations, including the way he juxtaposes them, consistently portrays Cheney in a negative light. His diction usually cuts against Cheney. And his rhetorical flourishes, when they appear, convey varying degrees of hostility.
Bart's approach will be familiar to lawyers. It is the style we adopt when writing briefs on behalf of a client's position. Good lawyers don't rant; they don't misstate the facts or the law; and they don't draw inferences that are plainly unsustainable. Instead, they use the techniques I have described in the preceding paragraph to build their case. So too, in my opinion, with Bart.
I don't blame Bart for writing his book this way. He clearly believes that Cheney has done major harm to our country. For example, from the reasonably safe-seeming vantage point of 2008, Bart judges that, seven years ago, in response to a loss of life "comparable to 3,209 pedestrians killed by cars, pick-up trucks, or vans" that year, Cheney made and implemented decisions that had an "incomparably greater impact on American interests and society" than the "familiar terrorist threat" that 9/11 announced (page 132). In Bart's estimation, and he can tell me if I'm reading him incorrectly, the "incomparably greater impact" on our "interests and society" was very much for the worse.
If I were to attempt a book about a high official who had harmed the national interests, that book to would be a "brief" against the official in questions. On the other hand, given the constraints on one's reading time, I recommend Angler only to those who wish to devote that time to an anti-Cheney "brief."
So far, I have only asserted, not demonstrated, what I take to be the slanted nature of Angler. In my next post, I will provide some examples.
I am looking forward to your explanation of the slant of this book.
Bart (may I be so familiar?) must of course adopt a point of view. But by choosing the word "slant," you imply that Bart's selection and presentation of detail "deliberately or inadvertently makes certain judgments inescapable" (Hayakawa). This word choice, it seems to me, impugns Bart's integrity as a reporter. Is that what you mean to do?
November 17, 2008 5:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe that one cannot understand Cheney without also knowing the power/authority vested in David Addington. I haven't had the pleasure of reading your book, but I wonder if you found Addington as enigmatic as Cheney? Were people more or less willing to talk about him? One reads of people who were afraid for their careers and even their physical well-being when they crossed Addington. How far was he willing to go for Cheney? Remember Chuck Colson's remark "I'd walk over my own grandmother for Richard Nixon."
November 17, 2008 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
With all due respect sir, Cheney is a criminal who belings behind bars and his excuses for the criminal activity he engaged in and got implemented were never justified. His crimes against the Constitution and International Law are reprehensible and need to be punished in order to deter future elected officials from also becoming tyrants and he and Bush are.
It is a sad commentary that would defend the indefensible things this man has done by more or less saying his intentions were good given the circumstances. I don't think he had good intentions at all and even in the wake of 9/11 much of what has been done using that event as political excuse for criminality was done in the most cynical and disingenuous way imaginable. He is an extremist and the worst sort of imperialist whose delusions of empire have endangered the lives and future prospects of our children and grandchildren.
If I had any say at all in the matter Cheney and Bush both would spend the rest of their lives behind bars for the irreperable damage done to this nation and the thousands who have lost their lives or been maimed needlessy in pursuit of their illegal and immoral policies. Unfortunately, we have a tradition in the United States of avoiding the meting out of justice to political leaders guilty of illegal conduct.
November 17, 2008 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
It seems to me, however, that Angler is slanted against the vice president.
Yes, I realize that Gellman has perhaps "violate[d] some of the informal, but strict, rules under which Washington journalists operate... [where] it's considered gauche to criticize... too persistently." Apparently, Gellman has joined the "Ancient and Hermetic Order of the Shrill."
November 17, 2008 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're hilarious, dude. I reach the opposite conclusion: by ascribing Cheney's lust for power, and relish in using extra-constitutional (and almost certainly criminal) methods to amass and exercise that power, he looks like just another would-be Stalin, beholden to nothing but his own certainty in the necessity of his actions, albeit one who hides his naked totalitarianism in the gauzy language of liberty, democracy and the free market.
Gellman give this execrable piece of filth way too much credit, in my opinion. And apologists for fascism like yourself can go to hell; there's no ambiguity to explore here.
November 17, 2008 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I love how conservatives are labeled as fascists...which goes to show how ignorant many people are of fascism itself.
Mussolini was among the initial founders of Italian fascism, having originally been a member of the Italian communist party, it's theories included elements of corporativism, national syndicalism, expansionism, social progress and anti-communism in combination with censorship of subversives and state propaganda, all of which have major elements of socialism at their core.
None of these theories of government as followed by conservatives in this country, or for that matter ever have been.
The foundation of the "fascist state" is the so called "corporate state". "Corporatism (Italian: corporativismo) refers to a political or economic system in which power is held by civic assemblies that represent economic, industrial, agrarian, social, cultural, and/or professional groups. These civic assemblies are known as corporations (not the same as the legally incorporated business entities known as corporations, though some are such). Corporations are unelected bodies with an internal hierarchy; their purpose is to exert control over the social and economic life of their respective areas. Thus, for example, a steel corporation would be a cartel composed of all the business leaders in the steel industry, coming together to discuss a common policy on prices and wages." wikipedia...and this is far from the concept of free markets as can be.
Fascism, is not a conservative ideology, it stems from socialism espoused in the 19th century and build upon it within the modern state, wherein everything was dependent upon the state and to quote Mussolini:
"The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State—a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values—interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people."
Now, does this sound like a Republican?
November 18, 2008 9:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Explain to me how conservatism, as it's practiced in America, is not corporatism combined with an emphasis on state regulation and control of personal behavior, and the use of propaganda in place of honest debate.
November 18, 2008 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
brewmn61, Your point would be better taken w/out the insults; please tone down the language and focus on the issue instead. Thanks.
November 21, 2008 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
The idea that the US vice president, who has no Constitutional powers, was solely responsible for the crimes of the entire US government is a thinly veiled attempt in history revisionism designed to allow some other criminals (Powell, Tenet, Rumsfeld and some senators come to mind) to go scot free.
November 17, 2008 7:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Paul, as you are probably well aware, many of us believe that the current Administration over-reacted in its response to 9/11 which, indeed, did leave us "very much the worse." And we thought so at the time, not just from the safe distance of 2008.
Can you include the conservative viewpoint that believes the opposite when doing your briefs? I have 7 years of failing to understand it behind me. Thanks.
November 17, 2008 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
> Where the facts permit either of two inferences,
> Bart generally draws an inference adverse to
> Cheney. His selection of factual tidbits and
> quotations, including the way he juxtaposes them,
> consistently portrays Cheney in a negative light.
> is diction usually cuts against Cheney. And his
> rhetorical flourishes, when they appear, convey
> varying degrees of hostility.
OK, I'll bite. Please provide the positive, pro-Cheney explication of the destruction of Valarie Plame's cover and assignment as a CIA operative.
sPh
November 17, 2008 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another request: please provide the exact foundation in the Constitution and the body of Constitutional law that the Office of the Vice President is an independent agent that is not subject to the rules and control of either the President or the Congress.
sPh
November 17, 2008 8:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don t usually read leftie blogs because of the vulgar language and the continuos assertions of views without any logical structure,but i wanted to see what the responses would be to the Paul MIrengoff article. .May I compliment your avoidance of the vulgar language,but all the assertions in the prior posts simply assume some statement of fact with no foundation.ep healey ,e g,,assumes as fact that Plames cover was violated,(Fitzgerald s report said that it was not),and that VP Cheney was somehow responsible for the leak to the press which did take place.We know who told the press,Richard Armitage, who admitted it and Robert Novak who confirmed it.ephealey also goes to the "when did you stop beating your wife" ploy to ask for the defense of some act for which no evidence is advanced , nor could there be.Really, the level of discourse is of some high school debate with much passion , no facts, and many non sequiturs.Sorry for you all, but do try to lose the anger and use your heads.
November 17, 2008 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
We lefties are brawlers and it was your dude who told a US Senator to fuck himself so I wouldn't be so prissy if I were you.
We all have our problems with Cheney.
Mine is that he ran/runs his own paramilitary FP shop in competition with/opposition to the designated SoS.
Typically, those efforts haven't been a rousing success, have they? Unless one thinks the empowerment of Hezbollah and Hamas = the same.
November 17, 2008 9:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Last I heard, Fitzgerald's report did say Plame was undercover, but stopped short of charging Libby, because, as Fitzgerald said, Libby "threw sand in the umpire's eyes", making that charge impossible.
I will stipulate that Cheney was well-intentioned, but was obsessed and idiotic. His Iraq fixation, combined with disdain for Clinton, contributed in blinding him to Al Qaeda as an important threat. And it blinded him to his own optimistic assessment of bogus intel, thus the excruciating missing WMD, an embarrassment beyond any I can think of, except for perhaps Dunkirk. Thanks, Dick.
November 17, 2008 10:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
We truly live in a Twilight Zone. It is actually rather amusing to see such a powerful magnet for the Left's hatred like Dick Cheney. On 9/11, all the effete and sophisticated members of today's Cheney hate club fluttered their hands and wailed into their lattes and immediately began trying to lay the foundation behind the noble public servant Richard Clarke that the Bush team was responsible for sending a portion of their world up in flames.
Please stop pretending that facts matter to our friend who starts his post with "dude" or the other who thinks an egomaniacal hacks like Wilson and Plame matter. Dick Cheney could die on a cross for these people and he'd be prosecuted for violating separation of Church and State.
Describe a scenario where any of you would hold Cheney in high regard. LOL. Notice the Tourette's flinch at the very notion of this man being regarded as anything but evil. If the attacks continued after 9/11, he and Bush would be blamed for not stopping them. If they did not continue, he and Bush would be blamed for how they stopped them. Guantanamo, the essence of Nazi evil under Cheney and Bush, is now wisely considered useful by the Lord Obama and all you fops nod your head, ignorant of the hypocrisy.
None of you are worthy of what Cheney accomplished, and that is an insult that you will never understand. Go back to your not exploding coffee shops and your not burning leftist bookstores where you can buy fiction by the embodiment of of pernicious tendencies, B. Gellman, and begin rationalizing Obama following Dick Cheney and GWB's Mid East policy as somehow wise and erudite.
November 17, 2008 9:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
> If the attacks continued after 9/11,
> he and Bush would be blamed for not
> stopping them
And once again, anthrax disappears into the void...
sPh
November 17, 2008 9:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
"...begin rationalizing Obama following Dick Cheney and GWB's Mid East policy"
In reality, it's the other way around. But, then, to bootlicking sycophants like yourself, reality is what your betters tell you it is, isn't it?
November 17, 2008 9:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
...assumes as fact that Plames cover was violated, Fitzgerald s report said that it was not
First result in a Google search:
That seems to be my job as a liberal, to do conservatives' research for them. It may be a reason why I get cranky sometimes...
November 17, 2008 9:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Somebody's got to do it....? :-)
November 17, 2008 11:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
John M, there are commandments in the Leftist religion and Plame as the feminist version of Bond being exposed to assassins' bullets is not debated in sensible company.
Halliburton is on that list somewhere.
November 17, 2008 9:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why would you read a book in which the author pretends to be open and unbiased, yet slants everything to a particular point of view? I find those who openly admit they have a particular point of view to be much more honest.
Before history is totally rewritten, I believe that Richard Armitage (State Department) "outed" Plame, not Cheney, not Rove. You guys with Bush/Cheney/Rove Derangement Syndrome need to take deep breathing exercises until you recover. Plame seems to have hyped the "outing" into considerable income.
November 17, 2008 9:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
redleg, please refer to that woman as 009. We must observe formalities.
November 17, 2008 9:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
the feminist version of Bond
Hey, I'll stick with the real Bond.
And Novak said Armitage was *a* source of the leak, not *the* source.
OK, enough playing with you wingnuts...
November 17, 2008 9:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
wingnut
"nut with flared sides for turning with the thumb and forefinger;" so called for its shape. Meaning "weird person" or "anyone who actually believe Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA agent," probably not from the literal sense but from the secondary sense of nut, influenced perhaps by slang senses of wing in wing-ding
Wrong use of THAT term.
November 17, 2008 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have not read the book but whatever I have read about the book tells me that the book does not cover the two most important decisions made by the WH and Cheney’s role in them.
1. Who decided to let OBL disappear in Pakistan?
2. Cheney was the first one to call Joe Wilson’s mission a Junket. Obviously, Cheney was quick to figure out who sent Joe Wilson and why. Was it Cheney’s decision to disclose Plame’s identity? How much Cheney was involved in Libby’s leak? Scott McClellan pushed it on Cheney too.
November 17, 2008 10:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
And, I'm guessing when Fitzgerald said there was a cloud over the Vice President's office, he was merely talking about the weather.
November 17, 2008 10:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Personally, I would like to read commentary from someone prepared to defend the Cheney Vice Presidency. I've long since used up my lifetime quota of attacks on journalists' bias.
Honestly -- and I hope I may be forgiven for sounding a little old-fashioned here -- the modern conservative reflex to bring the discussion back to the bias of conservative leaders' critics has begun to strike me as unworthy, indeed as somewhat effeminate. In this case, it ought to be plain enough that Richard Cheney was a very consequential public official, who did what he thought was right for reasons he thought were adequate. That by itself ought to earn him a defense on his terms. Instead, Cheney gets here this limp-wristed pansy rebuttal to a substantive critic that complains the critic is being biased, slanted and mean. Boo hoo.
Cheney himself saw the utility of conservatives in the media who were always prepared to present his arguments sympathetically, no matter what they were, as long as they could fairly be said to be against liberals. For much of his Vice Presidency he would accept interviews from no one else. Nixon had defenders, Reagan had advocates, George Bush and Dick Cheney have lap dogs. I'd hoped that, with Cheney's time in public life drawing to a close, that we'd have someone more substantial speaking up on his behalf.
November 17, 2008 10:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would like to hear the conservative viewpoint on Cheney's actions after 9/11, specifically on the reasons for the Iraq war and the torture policies.
Please keep in mind that I already know the conservative talking points on both subjects and have yet to be convinced on any of them. But before the talking points, what convinced conservatives that the Iraq war and torture were good policies?
When the Iraq war was looking like a done deal in 2002 and early 2003, I started reading military journals like Parameters and stopping by The Strategic Studies Institute on a daily basis. For the most part (and much to my surprise), the military's own top thinkers and teachers were not for the war or the pre-emption doctrine, had problems with the 'intelligence' coming from the Pentagon, did not conflate 9/11 with Iraq, recognized an insurgency when they saw one and most certainly were against torture of any type of combatants, as is General Petraeus.
As far as the Bush/Cheney made us safer meme, I cannot find any real support for this contention either, other than from Republican politicians and conservative bloggers (lately more just the bloggers).
So if any of Paul's defenders would like to stop attacking us and try the enlightenment approach instead, feel free to dive in.
November 17, 2008 11:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmm...perhaps when King Barak the First ascends to His investiture at the Palacio de Casa Blanca, one of his first act will be the public execution of the Criminal Cheney in the colosseum by having the directed hate of some 50-75000 commenters focused upon him until he bursts into flames. OH, I'm forgetting. King Barak the First's first act will be the "restoration of America's standing in the world" by "My first act in office will be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act". Yes, that will do it; attaining that coveted goal of fifty million abortions by the end of January 2009. Surely God will continue to smile upon America, yes? You may now commence with the laughing and the hatred.
November 18, 2008 8:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Might want to learn how to spell the president's name, to avoid looking ignorant.
November 18, 2008 10:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
jjfromme makes a classic error. He seems unaware of a couple of points. First, there is a specific definition of covert under the law. That definition differs from merely allowing the CIA to classify Plame as covert. Under the legal definition, Plame would have had to have been on a covert overseas assignment within the past five years and the CIA would have had to have been actively trying to hide her affiliation with the CIA. Since, she reported to the CIA in Langly every day and was listed as an employee of a known CIA front in NYC and hadn't had an covert overseas assignment in the past five years, neither of these were true. Second, Fitzpatrick never showed that Plame was covert under the law. He merely slipped that in as part of the sentencing brief.
It seems that if fromme is going to claim the first Google result proves his point, he ought to, ya' know, show us the link.
Rick
November 18, 2008 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
show us the link
When you see red text, and it does a little underline thingie when you mouse over it, it might be a link.
I'm sure not just Valerie Plame, but all her undercover associates Brewster Jennings and Associates, and their foreign contacts, appreciated getting their covers blown.
November 18, 2008 10:15 AM | Reply | Permalink