By Hanlon, on May 27th, 2007 at 11:12 PM
That’s the only way I can explain the remarks he keeps making, this time in a speech at West Point Academy. Some of these talking points were okay in 2003, but in 2007 it just seems stupid.
“We’re fighting a war over there because the enemy attacked us first,” Cheney said. “These are men who glorify murder and suicide. Terrorists are defined entirely by their hatreds.”
The terrorism fight now centers on Iraq, the vice president said, because that is where the enemy has massed. “The security of this nation depends on the outcome,” Cheney said.
Do I even need to point out the problems? Al Qaeda attacked us, not Iraq, and the enemy only massed in Iraq because we put the war there. Honestly it’s like he thinks we’re all children, too naive to second guess anything he says.
By Hanlon, on April 8th, 2007 at 05:32 PM
All my liberal brethren, happy Egg Day. And shut up, this is damn funny.
[youtube]GN1kBxOW6k0[/youtube]
By Hanlon, on February 27th, 2007 at 07:16 PM
 A close call to be sure. Though the death toll is hazy, the implications of an attempted attack on our vice president by a suicide bomber are hard to miss.
A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said Cheney was the target of the attack.
“We knew that Dick Cheney would be staying inside the base,” Ahmadi told The Associated Press by telephone. “The attacker was trying to reach Cheney.”
Yep, not only was Cheney the apparent target, but he was the apparent target by the Taliban.
Now, I’m sure there are going to be the squawkboxes saying “I’ll bet you liberals wish he WAS killed!” Hate to disappoint you, but that’s not at all the case here. Rather, this infuriates me because it tells me that the threat of terrorism is not even close to being eradicated in the very place we were supposed to have an easy handle on.
One of the unsaid presumptions about the Iraq invasion was that we could handle it because Afghanistan was such a cakewalk. We’d blow through there, sure the Taliban and Al Qaeda aren’t destroyed but they’re neutralized at least, and then march into Baghdad.
The extra peculiar thought is that if Cheney HAD been injured (or worse, killed) in such a blast, it would be taken as an indication not that the first leg of the “war on terror” had failed, but rather a reinforcement that it was necessary. This is the bizarre paradox of the WoT. In a normal war, finding that a lot of your enemies aren’t dead and that their leaders are still alive and capable of leading means you screwed up. Here, more terrorists is proof we need to expand the war.
Later in Kabul, Cheney and Karzai met privately for an hour and spoke about the “problems coming from Pakistan,” said an Afghan government official, a reference to cross-border infiltration by militants who launch attacks in Afghanistan.
“We understand now that the U.S. government realizes that in order to stop terrorism in Afghanistan and to stop terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, there must be a clear fight against terrorism in Pakistan,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Eeeeeexactly.
By Hanlon, on January 26th, 2007 at 01:12 PM
 I’m not big on hearsay and rumor, but this is too hard to ignore. Comedy Central, not known for being the pillar of journalistic thoroughness or their ability to break stories first, apparently called Rummy’s resignation before anyone else after getting an anonymous tip. Well now it’s phase 2: out with Cheney, in with Condi.
The CC Insider/InDecider has just heard more rumors (see earlier posts) from a SECOND reliable source that Dick Cheney will be stepping down as Vice President and will be replaced as Vice President by Condoleezza Rice. And now we’re hearing that she would like to be on the ticket as the GOP VP candidate in ’08.
According to our rumor-meister, John Negroponte will be filling Condi’s current position as Secretary of State. Negroponte is currently the Director of National Intelligence (the first person ever to hold the few-years-old position) and the former US Ambassador to Iraq.
It could be true, it could be false, but if true it would be something incredible. Cheney is somewhat of a liability to the president. His approval numbers are dismally low and his constant attack style of dealing with questions can’t be helping the administration’s image. Throw in the leak scandal that’s growing by the hour and there’s not much of a good reason to keep him around.
Keep an eye on this one, folks.
By Hanlon, on January 25th, 2007 at 08:17 PM
 I see the stormclouds a-brewin’ overhead. Right out of the cannon, we’ve got the Senate Foreign Relations Committee soundly rejecting Bush’s little “surge” plan. It’s a nice gesture, and certainly a start in the right direction.
The Foreign Relations Committee approved the resolution by a vote of 12 to 9, with a Republican senator, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, joining 11 Democrats in supporting it. But even Republicans who opposed the resolution, including Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, expressed deep doubt about whether the troop increase could succeed and suggested it was time for a new direction.
…
Some Republicans expressed reluctance to support the legislation because they feared it could be seen as a political attack on Mr. Bush, but left themselves open to backing a similar plan offered by Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican.
What baffles me is that, at this stage in the game, Republicans are afraid to say what they really thing about the Iraq situation for political reasons (think about all of those times Democrats have been blasted for going only by polls). These people disagree with the surge, and they actually do support the legislation, but they won’t vote for it for fear of… attacking the president?
I think this is a good time to throw out there the video of Chuck Hagel.
[youtube]xaqec2tSd68[/youtube]
Now, I think it would be foolish not to take a look at the other side. Specifically, let’s ask the veep what he thinks about all of this.
In a television interview that turned increasingly contentious as it wore on, Cheney rejected the gloomy portrayal of Iraq that has become commonly accepted even among Bush supporters. “There’s problems” in Iraq, he said, but it is not a “terrible situation.” And congressional opposition “won’t stop us” from sending 21,500 more troops, he said, it will only “validate the terrorists’ strategy.”
…riiiiight. I love that defense. If you oppose ANYTHING concerning this mess, you’re validating the terrorists. Want the troops to come home? That’s just what the terrorists want. Disagree with a surge? You must love Al Qaeda. Think we should fight Al Qaeda instead of policing Iraq? I can’t believe how much you want to have sex with bin Laden.
Cheney said the administration would disregard the nonbinding resolution opposing the troop increase and suggested it undermines soldiers in a war zone. “It won’t stop us,” he said. “And it would be, I think, detrimental from the standpoint of the troops.”
I really do think that Cheney could save a lot of time by walking around with one hand on his crotch and the other flipping the bird. That seems to be the gist of every interview he gives.
So let’s review: bipartisan opposition to the surge, Republicans are too cowardly to vote their conscience, and Cheney proves that he doesn’t give a good god damn what anyone thinks.
By Hanlon, on January 15th, 2007 at 12:02 AM
 Once again, ol’ Cheney comes out and wows me with his bullheadedness and, well, complete lack of sense. Speaking on the Iraq Fiasco, the Veep spun his usual yarn, ridiculing democrats and telling us all why the President’s plan is perfect. And, as usual, he did so without anything resembling a desire for bipartisan cooperation.
A defiant Cheney said Sunday that majority Democrats have offered no credible alternative to Bush’s revised war strategy. Cheney said withdrawing from Iraq would mean giving in to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and other U.S. enemies.
The two-prong assault. On one hand, say they don’t offer alternatives, which nicely paints them as the “party of obstruction”, but that hinges on immediately discounting the alternative they DO offer as quitting, accepting defeat, cutting and running, etc.
It’s a fun way of blockheadedly refusing to accept any advice about anything. Try this the next time someone is giving you pointers on whatever you’re doing that day. As soon as you paint the alternative as crazy or otherwise unusable, that leaves you free to insult the offerer or said alternative because they don’t have any ideas.
Bush employed this strategy well a few days ago, actually.
“Members of Congress have a right to express their views, and express them forcefully,” Bush said. “But those who refuse to give this plan a chance to work have an obligation to offer an alternative that has a better chance for success.”
See? Discount the alternative and then insult the opposition for not having any MORE alternatives. Back to Dick.
“You cannot run a war by committee,’’ the vice president said.
Debatable. But what you CERTAINLY can’t do is run a war by politics, which for some reason our president seems hell-bent on doing. Bush has done everything he can to use minimum force and cut taxes while the war is going on, bending over backwards to make the war “palatable”.
When his generals said several hundred thousand soldiers, he sent 250,000. When they said the war would cost a few hundred billions, they insisted it would be somewhere between “free” and “less than those fancy organic eggs”. When the violence gets bad and, if a troop is necessary at all it’ll have to be a giant one, he puts in enough troops to bring levels up to where they were the last time nothing improved.
In a few months, after nothing has gotten better, we’ll see a new plan. One that likely involves more troops. Mark my words.
By Hanlon, on January 8th, 2007 at 05:09 PM
 Well, for me anyway. Sort of. I’m in Pittsburgh, and my family is chiefly in Johnstown, PA. My stepfather, a marine (gunny no less, like R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket, hoo rah), told me yesterday afternoon that Dick Cheney had flown in to hunt, and now it looks like the media’s picked up on it.
Cheney was to fly into Arnold Palmer Regional Airport after his morning briefing in Washington, his spokeswoman, Lee Ann McBride, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Cheney will hunt at the private Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier Township, about 45 miles east of Pittsburgh, where he has hunted several times in recent years for pheasants and ducks.
Obviously, and tragically, we peons weren’t/aren’t allowed to go over there and join in on the festivities. Which is probably for the best, for the no-duh reason Yahoo (and I’m willing to bet just about every other news source) naturally felt obligated to mention:
Last year, Cheney wounded attorney Harry Whittington with shotgun pellets during a quail hunting trip in Texas. Whittington recovered.
Poor guy. Can’t go hunting without the world talking about the fact that he almost killed someone the last time he went hunting. Bet that really sours your mood. Damn liberal media, ruining a man’s hobby just because he shot an old man in the face while doing it before and had possibly been drunk at the time.
I can’t help but wonder if he’s been trying to go out for the past few months, only to have the Secret Service and others say “Uh, Dick, maybe you should wait a little while before trying that again.”
Real shame, too. I would have loved to drop by, just for the potential story: “CHENEY DOES IT AGAIN, SHOOTS LIBERAL BLOGGER IN HUNTING “ACCIDENT”.”
By Hanlon, on November 19th, 2006 at 08:21 PM
 I’ve already said this, but I like finding out things officially. A CIA report has coming out detailing Iran’s attempts to get a nuclear weapon. Specifically: they aren’t attempting to get a nuclear weapon.
“The CIA found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running paallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency,” Hersh wrote, adding the CIA had declined to comment on that story.
A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the CIA analysis and said the White House had been hostile to it, he wrote.
Cheney and his aides had discounted the assessment, the official said.
No surprises there. Oh yeah, Cheney. What does he say about this? I hear he might want to start up a war in Iran, despite no evidence of WMDs for the second goddamn time.
Cheney said the White House would circumvent any legislative restrictions “and thus stop Congress from getting in its way,” he said.
Great. This is the presidency America elected (sort of). A veep who doesn’t care about Congress, they just want to push their own agendas through.
By Hanlon, on October 31st, 2006 at 07:43 PM
 If you can tell me another way to interpret this I’d like to hear it. I’m not going to offer any kind of neat intro, just read Bush’s words for yourself.
“However they put it, the Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses,” Bush told a raucous crowd of about 5,000 GOP partisans packed in an arena at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, one of his stops Monday. “That’s what’s at stake in this election. The Democrat goal is to get out of Iraq. The Republican goal is to win in Iraq.”
Times like these I’d pay every dollar I have (which isn’t a lot, granted), to be allowed to walk up to Bush and spit in his face. Uniter not a divider my ass. Cheney, of course, also makes sure to chime in with his two cents.
“It’s my belief that they’re very sensitive of the fact that we’ve got an election scheduled,” he said. Cheney said the insurgents believe “they can break the will of the American people,” and “that’s what they’re trying to do.”
Strong words from a man whose thumb is firmly on the pulse of the Iraqi nation. After all, he was right on the button with what they thought of our invasion. Now let’s play a game of “why Bush sucks as both a speaker and a leader”:
In the interview with Hannity on the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity & Colmes,” Bush said he believes the United States will one day be hit by another terrorist attack. Asked whether the country would be attacked again, Bush said, “I think so, and we’ve got to do everything we can to stop them.”
The implied message here is that we’re going to try to stop them, but we’re gonna get attacked. A smart man would say “no we won’t get attacked again, because we’re going to be able to stop them.” Even in his tough talk, Bush sounds wimpy. Minor quibble there, just something I noticed.
I had a lot more to write, but I’m so furious that these men, at this stage in the game, are still accusing the Democrats of being on the same side as terrorists, that I’d end up writing far more colorful language than I mean to.
I’ll just finish with this: the reason I hope Bush isn’t going senile is that I want him to be perfectly coherent and alert when he sees that history calls him the worst president of all time. And I want him to live another 40 years knowing that, and go to sleep every night thinking about what a disgrace he was.
By Hanlon, on October 19th, 2006 at 06:43 PM
 This could make things interesting. Apparently to settle all of the claims about lobbyist connections to the White House, a federal judge ordered Cheney to release all records of WH visitors.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina ruled Wednesday that, by the end of next week, the Secret Service must produce the records or at least identity them and justify why they are being withheld.
…
“This case is about protecting the effective functioning of the vice presidency under the Constitution,” attorneys wrote.
Naturally. See, any time the White House has to prove its innocence, they just point out that doing so would be a threat to national security or prevent them from doing their job. And yet, they can’t imagine why we accuse them of holding themselves above the law.
End of next week. Mark that one on your calendars. If this turns out as poorly as I suspect it might, that’s one hell of a bombshell leading up to the elections.
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