Two Editorials

An editorial in Sunday’s New York Times tears Dick the Dick a new one —

The Associated Press reported that Mr. Cheney’s office ordered the Secret Service last September to destroy all records of visitors to the official vice presidential mansion — right after The Washington Post sued for access to the logs. That move was made in secret, naturally. It came out only because of another lawsuit, filed by a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, seeking the names of conservative religious figures who visited the vice president’s residence.

This disdain for accountability is distressing, but not surprising. Mr. Cheney has had it on display from his first days in office, when he refused to name the energy-industry executives who met with him behind closed doors to draft an energy policy.

In a similar way, Mr. Cheney seems unconcerned about little things like checks and balances and traditional American notions of judicial process. At one point, he gave himself the power to selectively declassify documents and selectively leak them to reporters. In a recent commencement address, he declaimed against prisoners who had the gall to “demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States.”

Mr. Cheney is the driving force behind the Bush administration’s theory of the “unitary executive,” which holds that no one, including Congress and the courts, has the power to supervise or regulate the actions of the president. Just as he pays little attention to old-fangled notions of the separation of powers, Mr. Cheney does not overly bother himself about the bright line that should exist between his last job as chief of the energy giant Halliburton and his current one on the public payroll.

From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Cheney received “deferred salary payments” from Halliburton that far exceeded what taxpayers gave him. Mr. Cheney still holds hundreds of thousands of stock options that have ballooned by millions of dollars as Halliburton profited handsomely from the war in Iraq.

Every now and then someone will bring up the stock option issue, and it gets slapped down almost immediately. In any other administration this would be a major scandal. But with the Bushies it barely qualifies as background noise.

Another editorial in the Times discusses the shocking and growing backlog of disability claims submitted by our troops —

Whenever and however American troops withdraw from Iraq, a flood of wounded and psychologically damaged veterans will present the nation for decades to come with costly needs that already are overwhelming government services.

The backlog of disability claims stands at more than 405,000, with cases averaging 177 days to be processed — almost twice the backlog for civilians. Experts estimate that an additional 400,000 claims will be filed in the next two years. …

… Clearly, the administration has failed in more than its battle strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan. While talking a lot about supporting the troops and using them shamelessly in Congressional battles and election years, the administration has systematically shortchanged the wounded and maimed who make it back from harm’s way. The nation has a moral obligation to help them face a whole new challenge of survival.

Snark away.

7 thoughts on “Two Editorials

  1. I just looked at the Times website, and the Cheney editorial is not listed. Did Dick the Dick kneecap someone at the paper?

  2. I’ve said that Dick Cheney is the most evil person in this country, and I have said that before he ever became VP.
    When Cheney was Defense Sec’y at the time papa wimp Bush invaded Panama in 1989, Cheney was the one who ordered that journalists be held on an airplane for most of a day, until mass graves of the poor in El Chorillo neighborhood were dug and filled to hide the evidence of bungling in that ‘war’ on a defenseless little country. Cheney thus blatantly broke the law which had been hammered out after Grenada, the law reassuring that the American public, through the press, know just what was being done in their name.
    Well, I suppose Cheney believes, since he could break the laws of this country in 1989 and get away with it, that he has fully ‘arrived’ now to be the supreme law-breaking dictator behind the latest Bush puppet. Cheney has gathered a whole cadre of ass kissing traitors into his camp to allow him to hold any facts he damn well wants to from the American people.

  3. As the somg goes, “There’s got to be a morning after”.
    Soon, when many of the returned soldiers still suffering from horrific injuries to body and soul realize what the score is, they will demand the attention and compensation they deserve.
    Calling someone a hero is one thing. Taking care of someone like a hero, well, that’s a whole ‘nother deal.Maybe the “Got to break a few eggs to make a great omlet” thingie will be mentioned.

    Noonan and her friends over at the WSJ are begining to figure this out. They’re slow learners, Og once great leader , Og now bad.It took them ONLY 7 years to see “whut up”.

    I’m reminded of another song,
    “old man look at my life,
    24 and there’s so much more…..”

  4. A week ago, a local soldier was profiled in our city’s paper. His head was misshapen from an IED blast that blew part of his skull and brain away, and his left eye. His face was tattooed with the shrapnel and debris. And they spoke of using laser surgery to eliminate those ‘tattoos’ which looked like varicose veins.

    But there was uncertainty whether he could undergo the ;aser treatment because explosive powders got embedded in his skin. The reconstructive effort could cause them to ignite and add fresh burns from those flashes.

    Such is the horrific reality. All I hear emanating from Cheney is fantasy. And lies.

  5. The taxpayer is also picking up the tab for the 800+dead and 8,000+wounded civilian contractors in Iraq. They are dogging them on disability ratings and payments the same way they are the soldiers. Under the Defense Base Act they must first prove they have PTSD before they are provided medical care for it.
    The military medical system has spread a superbug throughout it’s entire evacuation system, hospitals, VA system, and on to our community hospitals all over the country.
    So many lives lost and ruined, families expected to live like paupers and wounded soldiers having to beg to survive.
    Cheney just keeps getting richer.

  6. While my first regret is that Cheney ever came to power, my second is that he will not live long enough to read the history books written about him.

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