Thought this editorial nailed it:

Mr. Cheney's Blind Spot
The former vice president still doesn't recognize the damage done by his terrorism policies.
Saturday, February 7, 2009; A12

"THE UNITED States needs to be not so much loved as it needs to be respected." So declared former vice president Dick Cheney in an interview this week with Politico. Mr. Cheney is right -- which is why he should be apologizing rather than defending the extreme Bush administration policies on detention and interrogation that he championed.

Mr. Cheney asserted that the administration's antiterrorism policies may have been unpopular but were necessary, and he offered sweeping and unverifiable pronouncements about their effectiveness. "If it hadn't been for what we did -- with respect to the terrorist surveillance program or enhanced interrogation techniques for high-value detainees, the Patriot Act and so forth -- then we would have been attacked again," Mr. Cheney claimed.

Characteristically self-assured, Mr. Cheney perpetuated the myth that abiding by the rule of law puts the country in danger. In a thinly veiled attack on the Obama administration, he scoffed at those who are "more concerned about reading the rights to an al-Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans." This is not only a mischaracterization of Mr. Obama's position, it is a false choice.

The Bush administration deserves credit for shepherding the United States through seven years without another attack, but it may be decades before information is declassified that could shed light on whether this can be attributed to such practices as waterboarding and the lawless detention of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Indeed, military and intelligence officials from Republican and Democratic administrations have suggested that they probably cannot, and they have repeatedly argued that traditional intelligence-gathering techniques are sufficient to thwart the kinds of attacks Mr. Cheney warns against. They have also stressed that the coercive techniques advanced by Mr. Cheney produce unreliable information from prisoners desperate to avoid further agony.

Most profoundly, Mr. Cheney fails to recognize the damage these policies have done to the country's reputation at large. They have alienated even once-stalwart allies, and they have played into the hands of terrorist leaders, who use the sordid images from Abu Ghraib and tales of abuse at secret CIA prisons overseas as political ammunition to recruit the next wave of suicide bombers and foot soldiers. Thanks to Mr. Cheney and his allies, global respect for the United States is at a low point. Part of the mission of preventing attacks must be to repair that damage.

Cheney is an illustration of why it is important to exercise and control your cholesterol. After four heart attacks, Cheney seems to have lost his mind (there is research showing serial heart attacks and other cardio events can result in brain damage).

I suspect that having endured for decades a total bitch for a wife could also be a factor in his escape from reality.

Cheney is a success story. Over the past 40+ years he has served every GOP president, and has, during a Dem administration, gone over to the public sector to work for a corporation (Halliburton), a division of which entirely works off of Federal contracts (Brown & Root), and his former employer has done quite well in the past eight years, especially from the Iraq conflict. If there is one thing he understands it is how to get $ out of gov't coffers and into private accounts. The 2nd Iraq invasion was another Vietnam, and a great money funnel. The maneuvering it took to devalue the dollar and raise the price of oil was stunning, allowing the maximum intake of dollars.
Now this is no medieval wizard in his lab conjuring plots, he's a 20th century executive who delegates everything except his own bodily functions. It's just a matter of giving orders, and choosing the best people to facilitate them: "let's have another enduring war, like Vietnam," "find me a way to get past those bozos in Congress," "I want to maximize the money we get from oil," etc. Make it so.
His regime was run on fear and blackmail. Anyone else remember how Jesse Jackson's love child was revealed when he threatened to turn the 2000 Florida recount into a racial issue? For the past eight years, at law conferences, no one has dared to bring up the subject of the Supreme Court and the appointing of Bush 43. Do a search on James Hatfield, author of the banned book "Fortunate Son" and see what became of him. During the VP debates Biden talked about what a rogue Cheney is, but the chicken-shit SOB didn't have the guts to do anything about it.
If Cheney can be said to have done anything positive for those outside of his sphere it is that he has highlighted the fact that capitalism has no conscience.

The one thing that pisses me off about this thing is that while the Bush/Cheney administration brags about "shepherding the United States through seven years without another attack" It accepts no blame or takes any responsibility for the attack that occurred 18 month's into their administration.

Coming from the Navy, when something happens on my watch, good or bad. It's my responsibility.

RG.

Well, keep in mind, these are the guys with the following economic logic:

The current economic mess is because of the housing bubble, which was caused by the Carter Administration passing the act back in 1978 that directed Fannie/Freddie to increase home ownership rates.

Forget that in the following 31 years, Republicans had the Presidency for 20 years and had absolute control during 5.5 years of the Bush II administration. But again, not their problem, and while they claim to have known about it, they didn't fix it.

The great economy of the 90s was really because of the work done during the Reagan and Bush I administrations in the 80s.

The recession of 2001-2002 was because of Clinton.

The current recession is because of supposedly Jimmy Carter and Clinton policies.

Whenever the economy picks back up, that will be because of the Bush II tax cuts.

Personally, I think it's bogus to claim that it's because of the police state shit that their hasn't been a domestic attack in 7 years. I honestly do believe that if Gore, or at least someone not as neo-con as Bush, was President, 9/11 wouldn't have happened. Why? Because the actual attacks were just an appetizer, Bin Laden and crew wanted the US to go ape shit and overreact. Which we've done royally. It's a rope-a-dope. You need a stooge like Bush who will punch back angrily and stupidly when hit.

Let's add up the ledger:

Them - Bin Laden lost 19 guys and had to pay for some flight school time and meal money for a few months. Later he's chased out of Afghanistan but survives, free, to this day.

U.S. - destroys it's own economy by starting a stupid war in Iraq for no reason. Pisses away a trillion bucks (at least) and accomplishes jack shit. Price of oil quadruples, lives on a housing bubble for 5 years then bubble breaks. With no more housing bubble, huge national debt and inflation, economy takes a major shit. US loses any moral high ground due to torture of captured combatants in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. US torches it's own Constitution with Patriot Act and new agencies like TSA that erode civil liberties.

So, looking at the ledger, I have to say that Bin Laden won. He got exactly what he wanted, and lived to talk about it.

RG: make that 8 months. And a military mobilization within their first 10.
It disgusts me the way the GOP made a big deal about memorializing 9/11 at the 2004 convention. Yeah, they fucked up, and I was pissed that Kerrey didn't remind them, especially after that "a Kerrey victory would be a victory for terrorists" bullshit.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/cheney_dunk_tank_raises_800

And let's not forget the B.S. about no new attacks on U.S. soil. In addition to the cost of Iraq, we lost another 9/11 worth of Americans overseas. THEY DON'T FUCKING COUNT?!

Guess we can't call Cheney a "heartless bastard" any longer now that he has a new ticker...

Gotta be some good one liners on this.

I wonder why someone who is 71 years old who has a history of health problems got a transplant over others. Most people on transplant lists die waiting. I hope this wasn't a case of he got it because he was rich and powerful. I hope there were no other matches out there for this particular heart and Cheney was indeed the best candidate to receive it.


(Message edited by xenono on March 25, 2012)

All kinds of donors at Guantanamo. He prolly just had one of them waterboarded until he signed the voluntary donor card and then mysteriously hung himself in his cage shortly thereafter. Either that or Cheney personally ripped the still beating heart from the chest of a sacrificial virgin.

There's plenty of places a guy like Cheney could get a new heart without displacing anyone on the traditional waiting list.

Well, 71 year olds who have had a series of heart attacks over a 12+ year period usually do not get transplants.

Are the Chinese still harvesting organs from prisoners???

RG,
yes they are, however they have promised to stop the practice within the next 18 months. Yea, right

But I'm sure for Cheney they would still make an exception.