Cheney-Obama: I'm So Sick of Lies and Coverups
The liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit last year seeking records related to Cheney's FBI interview.
In a court filing Wednesday, Acting Assistant Attorney General David Barron (Pres Obama's admin) argued that parts of Cheney's interview should be kept secret because they involve confidential deliberations among White House officials. Barron said their disclosure could limit frank and open discussion about matters of national importance in the White House in the future.
He said Cheney's recollection of discussions with Libby, the White House communications director and chief of staff about media inquiries into the Plame leak were among those portions that should be protected. He also included Cheney's discussions with the CIA director about Wilson's trip and his role in resolving disputes about declassifying "certain information" in that category.
I'm sorry but any conversation relating to politics, that may have been criminal, should be given to the American people. The White House is 'our' house.
Every thing about the "Plame leak" was POLITICAL in nature. The leak was to STOP any harm or harsh criticism of President George W. Bush's administration, when it came to discussing Bush's reasons for going to war in Iraq.
Any discussion as to the original request to find any 'link' to Saddam with respects to gaining nuclear material can be blacked out. That is about national security.
Discussions
however, on how to stop the resulting 'facts' (was there yellow cake
involved or not) from that report getting out should NOT be stopped in
this case, because LIES were told about that report, to convince the
American people into going to War. Americans were lied to.
I realize the President is trying to protect any future conversations HIS administration might have; but he is wrong about this in my opinion.
Political conversations that may or may not involve illegal actions or used to deceive the American people -- should NOT be protected.
A CEO does not have the right to hide the fact that the company is going bankrupt or has more money than is being reported to the Board of Directors of that company.
We the American people are the Board of Directors. STOP THE LIES and COVERUP -- NOW!
Obama's reason for doing this is not to ensure the "cooperation" of his officials. That is a laughable excuse.
He is covering up his predecessors' crimes to avoid undermining his own authority as President. I think his fears are unfounded.
No revelation would be enough to persuade Congress into actually doing a damn thing to restrain the Executive Branch. Obama could reveal that Cheney told Libby to reveal Plame's name so the Iranians would be guaranteed to get a nuclear bomb (Plame was in fact involved in efforts to block this) and Congress wouldn't even bother to probe further, or question whether this was not in fact treason on the grandest scale imaginable. The office of the President is quite simply above the law, and can work for or against our national welfare, as the mood strikes whoever occupies the position. And that halo of immunity is a lifetime deal.
July 3, 2009 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really hope you're kidding. Nobody is above the law, no matter how unjust the law may be at the time.
July 3, 2009 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, I'm not kidding, but this Obama Administration official surely was:
"The Obama administration has since agreed that the material should not be disclosed. A Justice Department lawyer at one point last month argued that vice presidents and other White House officials will decline to be interviewed in the future if they know their remarks might "get on 'The Daily Show' " or be used as fodder for political enemies." [from WaPo]
Yes, it has come to this.
July 3, 2009 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow. And these are the people America wants to run its health care industry.
July 3, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
The WH, congress, the pentagon and all the rest are liars and hide all their wrongdoings from the American people. All the stuff that happens has to be hidden because all this shit doesn't happen by itself. We got a mix of idiots and criminals doing whatever it takes to avoid accountability. Been going on for as long as I can remember. With one difference. It gets worse and worse and they tell bigger and bigger lies. Bush told a huge one about Iraq and now the financial collapse is driving the hiding of a huge criminal enterprise. No society can survive one major fuck up after another, with all the same top people facing little more than a ripple of consequence. Go back to 2000 and see how many people from the Nixon era surfaced and started this mess and then check the $$$ Obama got from finance and health care for his presidential run. Anyone who thinks this is a democracy is a fucking idiot.
July 3, 2009 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm with ya 100% but it's clear that Obama has completely sold out to the national security bullshit state and their number one priority is to evade responsibility for their crimes. Therefore, being a part of the team, indeed the team captain, Obama has to defend all their crimes so that in the future his will be likewise defended by whoever his successor is.
July 3, 2009 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Plus ca change, plus ca ne change pas. The Oligarchy, the true powers behind, wins every election because they always ensured that BOTH candidates and almost all of Congress are their honchos.
July 3, 2009 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
You made a good case of the Cheney-Obama CONTINUUM, and probably won't be surprised to learn that it isn't just a continuation of the Bush era, but an affirmation, to the point of setting in stone the Bush Doctrine via bipartisan consensus.
Posted this on the Letter to the Dear Leader thread:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/radio/2009/07/02/savage/index.html
Today, in the NYT, Savage has another article examining the same topic, headlined: "To Critics, New Policy on Terror Looks Old." In it, he explores this question: "Has [Obama], on issues related to fighting terrorism, turned out to be little different from his predecessor?" A key point from Savage's article -- which I've tried to emphasize several times -- is that whereas these policies were supported by roughly half the population (Republicans) in the Bush era but vehemently opposed by the other half (at least ostensibly), Obama's embrace of them is now causing a large part of the other half of the population (Democrats) to support them as well, thus entrenching them as bipartisan consensus:
In any case, Jack Balkin, a Yale Law School professor, said Mr. Obama’s ratification of the basic outlines of the surveillance and detention policies he inherited would reverberate for generations. By bestowing bipartisan acceptance on them, Mr. Balkin said, Mr. Obama is consolidating them as entrenched features of government.
"What we are watching," Mr. Balkin said, "is a liberal, centrist, Democratic version of the construction of these same governing practices."
That was the point former Bush DOJ lawyer Jack Goldsmith made when arguing last month that Obama is actually strengthening (rather than "changing") the Bush/Cheney approach to Terrorism even more effectively than Bush did by entrenching those policies in law and causing unprincipled Democrats to switch from pretending to oppose them to supporting them, thus transforming them into bipartisan dogma.
July 3, 2009 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, Qwerty, for that great info.
Balkin is no extreme lefty prof- he is a 'liberal centrist Democrat' who knows the Constitution.
And Goldsmith is neither a liberal nor an extremist. He's an impeccably conservative lawyer with too much knowledge of the law for the quack David Addington to tolerate.
When someone as moderate and tempered as Balkin starts ringing alarm bells, you know there's real trouble on this front.
July 3, 2009 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
diachronic, you're welcomed. I always defer to Glenn Greenwald as he is one of the very best Constitutional lawyers out there and a progressive. I am disturbed by a lot of what Obama has done - from the Goldman Sach's appointees, TARP and the continuation of Bush era policies. What's worst is that whereas Bush met with significant protests from liberals, paleo-conservatives and progressives, one of the most vocal oppositions, Democrats, seems to have muted its protest against such abuses of the law. There is cognitive dissonance for me, between what I believed Obama to be and what he has done upon inauguration. In the end, I decide that I will judge him by his actions and deeds, not his words, and the dissonance is gone.
July 5, 2009 6:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, if only Dennis Kucinich or Russ Feingold or Howard Dean or Barbara Boxer were running the show.
Courage and integrity seem to have gone the way of the 8-track tape player.
July 3, 2009 8:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Me too, I wish I'd voted for Kuchinich, or Dean.
July 5, 2009 6:55 AM | Reply | Permalink