‘The President bears the major part of the burden’

quite a guy, our vice president……quite a guy…..one hardly knows where to begin.

I thought you were going to take the Cheney quote in a different direction, actually.

Notice that, in response to a direct question about how he feels about the real human costs of war, Cheney says nothing about himself. He doesn’t say what if anything he regrets, he uses the passive voice to indicate that, yes, somewhere, casualties are in fact regretted. This is amazingly telling. Intentional or not, Cheney actually confirmed what the interviewer was inquiring about: that he is detached, unfeeling, and cold-blooded.

re: Anne @ 2. Either that or the writers of 24 have been using Dick as a consultant.

“The real threat we face today is the possibility of an al Qaeda cell in the midst of one of our cities armed with a nuclear weapon…”

What? From what I understand it’s not that easy to smuggle a nuclear device into an American city. It is not the “real threat” we face today and even if it was, nothing George and Dick have done in Iraq would have thwarted it. It’s just more fearmongering to rally the base into staying the course.

(Nice catch on the pasive voice, Greg)

I had a different read of the “burden” comment, to whit: “It’s his fault, not mine!”

“It’s not likely ever to be a violence-free society.”

“The real threat we face today is the possibility of an al Qaeda cell in the midst of one of our cities armed with a nuclear weapon…it would rival all the casualties we’ve suffered in all the wars in over 200 years of American history.”

So shit blowing up in Iraq = acceptable. But a highly improbable scenario that involves a bunch of loons assembling a bomb powerful enough to take out more than 700,000 people must make us clench our spincters in fear!

Oh yes, I suspect Dick’s uncertainty about the composition of A-Q stems from a fear of being summoned back to Saudi Arabia for another bout of kissing the king’s Guccis.

Cheney (the vice-idiot): “The real threat we face today is the possibility of an al Qaeda cell in the midst of one of our cities armed with a nuclear weapon…”

Whenever I hear these clowns talk about nuclear weapons, I think of how much unsecured nuclear material is just sitting around in the former Soviet Union, and how little the Bushies have done to secure it. Hell, for the half-trillion dollar cost of the Iraq war we could probably just have purchased most of the loose nuclear material outright. Instead, five years after 9/11 we’ve got to hear Cheney spout the same talking points he was making two days afterwards.

These right-wing idiots never seem to realize that, even though the U.S. is the most powerful nation on Earth, we still have a finite amount of resources. Money that goes into a useless war is money that could have been used to fight a real threat. I’d love to hear reporters start asking Cheney what he’s been doing to secure loose nukes.

Some breaking news on the dick.

BRUSSELS, May 11 — Vice President Dick Cheney used the deck of an American aircraft carrier just 150 miles off Iran’s coast as the backdrop today to warn the country that the United States was prepared to use its naval power to keep Tehran from disrupting off oil routes or “gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region.”

Vice President Dick Cheney on board the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf today.

Little of what Mr. Cheney said in the cavernous hangar bay of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. John C. Stennis was new. Each individual line had, in some form, been said before, at various points in the four-year-long nuclear standoff with Iran, and during the increasingly tense arguments over whether Iran is aiding the insurgents in Iraq.

But Mr. Cheney stitched all of those warnings together, and the symbolism of sending the administration’s most famous hawk to deliver the speech so close to Iran’s coast was unmistakable.

[…]

When President Bush ordered the two carriers into the Gulf late last year, senior administration officials said it was part of an effort to gain some negotiating leverage over the Iranians. At about the same time, American military personnel began capturing some Iranians in Iraq, and some of them are still held there.

American officials have also been pressing Europeans banks and companies to avoid doing business with Tehran, in an effort to make it more difficult for the country to recycle its oil profits.

Oil seemed to be on Mr. Cheney’s mind today, when he told an audience of 3,500 to 4,000 American service members on the Stennis that Iran would not be permitted to choke off oil shipments through the waters of the region.

“With two carrier strike groups in the Gulf, we’re sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike,” he said. “We’ll keep the sea lanes open. We’ll stand with our friends in opposing extremism and strategic threats. We’ll disrupt attacks on our own forces. We’ll continue bringing relief to those who suffer, and delivering justice to the enemies of freedom. And we’ll stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region.”
[…]

The symbols of coercion were part of the backdrop on the Stennis: Mr. Cheney spoke in front of five F-18 Super Hornet warplanes.

But mindful of the lasting imagery of President Bush on another carrier a little more than four years ago, there were no signs proclaiming success, much less “Mission Accomplished.” Instead, Mr. Cheney repeated his arguments about the danger of early withdrawal from Iraq.

“I want you to know that the American people will not support a policy of retreat,” Mr. Cheney said. “We want to complete the mission, we want to get it done right, and then we want to return home with honor.”

Mr. Cheney is on a weeklong visit to the Middle East, and made Iraq his first stop on Wednesday and Thursday. He spoke to American troops stationed near Saddam Hussein’s birthplace, Tikrit, telling them in somber tones that they still had a tough fight ahead of them.

His assessment stood in stark contrast to the one he made two years ago, when he declared in an interview with CNN that the insurgency in Iraq was in its “last throes.”

The United States remains at odds with Iran over its uranium-enrichment program, which Iran says is for peaceful nuclear energy, but which America and its Western allies say is intended instead to produce atomic weapons.

Administration officials have also said that weapons are being smuggled into Iraq from Iran and that insurgents may be getting training in bomb-making and bomb-placing techniques in Iran. The Iranian government denies sponsoring or encouraging terrorism.

Mr. Cheney visited the U.S.S. John C. Stennis before, in March 2002, at a time when he was trying to build support for the invasion of Iraq.

He also visited Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, where the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is expected to arrive in the next few days. Mr. Cheney’s tour is also scheduled to include visits to Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Well, I thought the comment “Obviously, the President bears the major part of the burden” was a Freudian slip because he believes he’s the one running the country.

How I long for those days in the past where this guy would only be the crank at Thanksgiving dinner. When he would open his mouth & start spewing his brand of nonsense & hatred, the rest of the family would roll their eyes & think to themselves, “What an asshole!”

Thank you, Republicans, for elevating this piece of human garbage to one of the most powerful positions in the world. I will never forget what you have done to us, and I will explain the situation to every willing ear that I find.

“You’ve got al Qaeda woven in various places through the area, which is primarily a Sunni organization.” Of course he’s right that al Qaeda is “primarily” Sunni — the Spanish Inquisition was “primarily” Catholic and the Soviet Union’s government under Stalin was “primarily” Communist.