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Posted
Just now, Bozo_Casanova said:

I will give Dick Cheney credit for this one, singular thing: after leaving office he demonstrated more personal integrity than any living male member of the Bush family.
 

As catastrophic as the consequences of his actions have been, his was not the final say. That belonged to President Bush, who despite leading the world into calamity has enjoyed a reputational rehabilitation he does not deserve. While Bush, his brother and his nephew remained silent on the existential threat to the Republic represented by Trump and Trumpism, Cheney and his daughter rang the alarm bells. I’ll give him at least that much credit. 

Fair.  Fuck him, still.  But fair.

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Posted
Just now, Bozo_Casanova said:

I will give Dick Cheney credit for this one, singular thing: after leaving office he demonstrated more personal integrity than any living male member of the Bush family.
 

As catastrophic as the consequences of his actions have been, his was not the final say. That belonged to President Bush, who despite leading the world into calamity has enjoyed a reputational rehabilitation he does not deserve. While Bush, his brother and his nephew remained silent on the existential threat to the Republic represented by Trump and Trumpism, Cheney and his daughter rang the alarm bells. I’ll give him at least that much credit. 

100% real talk.  

He was a devil, who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands.  But he had the absolute lack of self-awareness to come out against as un-American that which he'd paved the way for.  People are complicated.  

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Posted

I used to hate this fucker with every fiber of my being.

But somehow remembering the time when he was the most evil man in America seems almost quiant now. Corruption and vileness are so far past what he represented that...it's hard to keep hating him.

In any case he will not be missed.

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Posted
5 minutes ago, Valmy77 said:

I used to hate this fucker with every fiber of my being.

But somehow remembering the time when he was the most evil man in America seems almost quiant now. Corruption and vileness are so far past what he represented that...it's hard to keep hating him.

In any case he will not be missed.

He was vile, but at least in his black little heart he believed what he was doing was the best for the country.  Now we're dealing with those who believe solely in doing what's best for themselves. 

the-big.gif

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Posted
16 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

his was not the final say. That belonged to President Bush

Which one would you say was Dick Cheney in this picture?

image.png.d98e73a650d62a361d7e0cd200de3f97.png

Posted
13 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

Which one would you say was Dick Cheney in this picture?

image.png.d98e73a650d62a361d7e0cd200de3f97.png

The “Bush was manipulated” defense holds no water for me. I’m not one of the many ex Republicans on this board and I have no nostalgia for Bush.  I’m sure he’s a nice man, but everyone other than Trump was a better president and Rick Perry was a better governor.  
He was the president and no one else. If he was manipulated that’s on him. 

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Posted
38 minutes ago, Valmy77 said:

But somehow remembering the time when he was the most evil man in America seems almost quiant now. Corruption and vileness are so far past what he represented that...it's hard to keep hating him.

Shit, I'm starting to look back on Watergate and think to myself, "Why did the American people get so bent out of shape about that?"

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

The “Bush was manipulated” defense holds no water for me

I have no interest in defending either one of those fuckwads. The decision to execute the policy was Bush's. The author of the policy and a huge beneficiary was Cheney.

Bush being re-elected (hook or crook) was a watershed moment in my viewpoint of the electorate. That was the worst policy since Viet Nam and maybe worse than Viet Nam because there was not even a figleaf of moral right. In Viet Nam, we thought we were saving the world from Communists. Idiotic, but it's at least something.

A current parallel would be Stephen Miller and Trump. Damn them both.

I doubt we actually disagree about any of this.

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Posted

I still can't believe that we reached a time when Bush/Cheney were not the absolute worst rulers this country had ever seen.

Not the first time any of us have had that thought, I'm sure.  But it's still amazing to think about.  Shouldn't have been possible.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

I still can't believe that we reached a time when Bush/Cheney were not the absolute worst rulers this country had ever seen.

Not the first time any of us have had that thought, I'm sure.  But it's still amazing to think about.  Shouldn't have been possible.

It's not like Trump nudged past 'em, either. Motherfucker is lightyears past Bush and Cheney level shittiness.

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Posted (edited)
56 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

I doubt we actually disagree about any of this.

I don’t t think we do, what I said was more in the spirit of addressing a lot of what I’m hearing from normie Republicans and ex-Republicans these days, which is propping up Cheney to deflect blame from Bush, the same way they give Reagan a pass for his role in paving the way for Trumpism. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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Posted

It used to be easy to rank Republicans by how much they sucked.  Put Nixon first and Lincoln last.  Everyone else goes in between.

It's amazing to think that Dick Cheney has probably made it to page 2 of the list.

Posted
14 hours ago, TexArcher said:

I still can't believe that we reached a time when Bush/Cheney were not the absolute worst rulers this country had ever seen.

So I actually won a case of wine on a bet that within 20 years of leaving office Bush would not be considered our worst President.  I wasn't envisioning what we got, but I knew Bush wouldn't be as villified.

 

As far as Cheney, @Bozo_Casanova is correct, and the reason is Cheney is a true believer. It was not an act.

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Posted

So, this may not be the exact place for it, but I continue to be fascinated by "strong executive" political theories.  I don't endorse them, particularly as currently implemented, but have to admit that they make some sense in a realpolitik sort of way.

As noted in the piece above, Clinton and Obama were beneficiaries of and not exactly opposed to the strong executive theories advanced and implemented by predecessor administrations and people like Cheney.  This partly or maybe largely in response to a gridlocked and ineffective Congress.

But let's examine some things that make a strong executive sort of make sense, or, in the same breath, why Congress has become useless.

  • Proliferation of agencies (Congress lacks the expertise and agility to address many situations and policies, so they delegate to agencies)
  • Agencies are inherently a) undemocratic and b) easily captured by moneyed interests (point a) may actually be necessary)
  • Do the agencies have to be executive controlled?
  • Money in politics means Congress critters are less responsive to their constituents, to the people
  • Related to or subsumed by the above, Congress critters are obsessed with reelection to the exclusion of doing congressional business
  • The two-party and primary system force Congress critters to adhere often to "national" rather than local priorities, at least for election and fundraising purposes

Writing these down, I start to think it is really nothing more than money in politics that has fucked everything up.  No more, no less.  Everything else is symptomatic.  Blinding glimpse of the obvious, there.

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Posted
So I actually won a case of wine on a bet that within 20 years of leaving office Bush would not be considered our worst President.  I wasn't envisioning what we got, but I knew Bush wouldn't be as villified.
 
As far as Cheney, [mention=1259]Bozo_Casanova[/mention] is correct, and the reason is Cheney is a true believer. It was not an act.

Cheney only believed in power. Masterminds of the invasion of Iraq after 9/11 dont believe in anything but power.

Posted
3 minutes ago, Eskimohorn said:


Cheney only believed in power. Masterminds of the invasion of Iraq after 9/11 dont believe in anything but power.
 

Well, I do think Cheney was less cynically self-interested than Trump and many/most of his cronies.  That his policies empowered and enriched him and those of his "class" was a nice side-effect of policies he thought best for the country.

Which is subtly, or not so much, different from Trump's "what's good for me must be good for everyone else, but mostly it's good for me."

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