" During the question-and-answer session that followed a speech at the National Press Club yesterday ~ Dick Cheney once again pledged his allegiance to those tired words: "I do," he said, when asked if he still believed the insurgency was in its "last throes." Arianna Huffington

As a reminder to those of you who still stubbornly have faith in the wisdom and perceptions of Dick Cheney ~ I offer you the distinct possibility that his credibility may indeed be in its ' last throes '.

T.D Allman, Rolling stone, offers the most perceptive view of the one man who is most responsible for this illegal war and occupation of Iraq as well as the moral and economic quagmire we now find ourselves in.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story?id=6450422

" As vice president, Cheney has been the decisive force pushing America into war. In the inner councils of the administration, it was he who emasculated Colin Powell, cut the State Department out of effective policymaking, foisted fake reports on the intelligence agencies and supplanted the National Security Council.

It was also Cheney who placed appointees personally loyal to him, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, in charge of the Pentagon and speckled the warmaking bureaucracy with desk officers culled from neoconservative Washington think tanks ~ ideologues with no military experience ....

This pattern of misplaced confidence in Cheney, followed by disastrous results, runs throughout his life -- from his days as a dropout at Yale to the geopolitical chaos he has helped create in Baghdad.

Once you get to know his history, the cycle becomes clear:
First, Cheney impresses someone rich or powerful, who causes unearned wealth and power to be conferred on him.
Then, when things go wrong, he blames others and moves on to a new situation even more advantageous to himself.

"Cheney's manner and authority of voice far outstrip his true abilities," says Chas Freeman, who served under Bush's father as ambassador to Saudi Arabia. "It was clear from the start that Bush required adult supervision ~ but it turns out Cheney has even worse instincts. He does not understand that when you act recklessly, your mistakes will come back and bite you on the ass."


Allen L Roland