Commissioner#2: And ignoring laws of Congress for years, and violating the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, the one regarding lawful searches and seizures, didn't bother you? If you thought what you were doing was perfectly legal and appropriate, why not say so openly and proudly instead of carrying out secret, anti-constitutional spying operations on millions and millions of Americans?
Cheney: We figured going to Congress to get the required enabling legislation would tie us up for months, maybe years, in public and classified discussions with politicians who often disagreed with our approach, so we decided to just go ahead and do what we had to do, and to keep it top-secret. Naturally, in operations of this magnitude, there are bound to be those who carry things to extremes or who go off the reservation. Of course, a good share of what we were doing in secret started to come out anyway years later.
ANY REGRETS? REMORSE?
Commissioner#1: Looking back on your activities during the Bush-Cheney years, do you have any regrets about the actions you took that eventually resulted in your impeachment, removal from office, and criminal indictments?
Cheney: You would like me to say I'm sorry, that I know I've done wrong and ask to be forgiven for my lapses and so on. Of course, I'm sorry that, as collateral damage, our policies got some people killed or hurt or put into legal difficulties. But this is the Truth & Reconciliation Commission and, as you keep reminding me, I am obliged to tell the truth. Therefore, I want you to know that if I had it to do over again, I'd choose those same policies. I think they were the correct decisions, though we erred at times on how the operations were carried out and, in particular, in how we communicated our goals and programs to the American people.
Chair: Do I understand correctly, Mr. Cheney, that you have no remorse for your actions that have been judged by your fellow citizens to be enough to warrant your removal from office and indictments on a wide variety of criminal charges?
Cheney: Yes, Madame Chairman, you do understand correctly. I am prepared to defend myself in court, if you do not grant my application for amnesty, on the basis that I fully believed my actions to be in accord with the urgent wartime exigencies of the moment and with the Constitution as we understood it. Our political enemies and ideological foes engineered our slide from power, perhaps as payback for our having impeached President Clinton, or because they are soft on terrorism or don't understand the true dangers out there on the world scene, I don't know. We were patriots who by virtue of our election to power were in the position to make the decisions that had to be made to protect and defend our country.
Chair: Is it not possible that those who opposed you were also patriots, who believed the policies you were advocating were doing great damage to the national interest of the United States and thus needed to be changed?
WE HAD ALL THE ANSWERS
Cheney: They were wrong, ill-informed, in effect doing the enemy's work. It was my job as leader of the nation to decide what was best, based on the wider knowledge we possessed.
Commissioner#3: Mr. Cheney, you just asserted that "it was my job as leader of the nation," to make those decisions. Are you suggesting that it was you who made the Administration's vital decisions and not Mr. Bush?
Cheney: Um, a mere slip of the tongue, Commissioner. I meant to say, of course, that "it was our job." The President, naturally, made all the key decisions, with special input from his closest advisors like me and Rove and Rumsfeld. He was the boss, for sure. The President of the United States.
Chair: Methinks thou dost protest too much. But let's return to something you said a moment ago. You believe your fall from power and your indictments are the result of a plot to get you? That you did nothing wrong and are not accountable for your actions to the citizenry and to the domestic and international courts?
Cheney: I recognize no international-court jurisdiction over America's elected rulers. Leaders are accountable only to their citizens. In two national elections, we have prevailed. The American people approved our policies by voting for us. Our mandate was secure and legal.
FATHER(LAND) KNOWS BEST
Commissioner#3: Without even getting into the issue of whether those election results were fraudulently obtained, I think it's important to point out that the Bush Administration did everything possible to hide its true actions and agenda from its own citizens, rather than stand proudly on them and let the citizens judge you at the polls on the basis of that knowledge.
Cheney: We figured going to Congress to get the required enabling legislation would tie us up for months, maybe years, in public and classified discussions with politicians who often disagreed with our approach, so we decided to just go ahead and do what we had to do, and to keep it top-secret. Naturally, in operations of this magnitude, there are bound to be those who carry things to extremes or who go off the reservation. Of course, a good share of what we were doing in secret started to come out anyway years later.
ANY REGRETS? REMORSE?
Commissioner#1: Looking back on your activities during the Bush-Cheney years, do you have any regrets about the actions you took that eventually resulted in your impeachment, removal from office, and criminal indictments?
Chair: Do I understand correctly, Mr. Cheney, that you have no remorse for your actions that have been judged by your fellow citizens to be enough to warrant your removal from office and indictments on a wide variety of criminal charges?
Cheney: Yes, Madame Chairman, you do understand correctly. I am prepared to defend myself in court, if you do not grant my application for amnesty, on the basis that I fully believed my actions to be in accord with the urgent wartime exigencies of the moment and with the Constitution as we understood it. Our political enemies and ideological foes engineered our slide from power, perhaps as payback for our having impeached President Clinton, or because they are soft on terrorism or don't understand the true dangers out there on the world scene, I don't know. We were patriots who by virtue of our election to power were in the position to make the decisions that had to be made to protect and defend our country.
Chair: Is it not possible that those who opposed you were also patriots, who believed the policies you were advocating were doing great damage to the national interest of the United States and thus needed to be changed?
WE HAD ALL THE ANSWERS
Cheney: They were wrong, ill-informed, in effect doing the enemy's work. It was my job as leader of the nation to decide what was best, based on the wider knowledge we possessed.
Commissioner#3: Mr. Cheney, you just asserted that "it was my job as leader of the nation," to make those decisions. Are you suggesting that it was you who made the Administration's vital decisions and not Mr. Bush?
Cheney: Um, a mere slip of the tongue, Commissioner. I meant to say, of course, that "it was our job." The President, naturally, made all the key decisions, with special input from his closest advisors like me and Rove and Rumsfeld. He was the boss, for sure. The President of the United States.
Chair: Methinks thou dost protest too much. But let's return to something you said a moment ago. You believe your fall from power and your indictments are the result of a plot to get you? That you did nothing wrong and are not accountable for your actions to the citizenry and to the domestic and international courts?
Cheney: I recognize no international-court jurisdiction over America's elected rulers. Leaders are accountable only to their citizens. In two national elections, we have prevailed. The American people approved our policies by voting for us. Our mandate was secure and legal.
FATHER(LAND) KNOWS BEST
Commissioner#3: Without even getting into the issue of whether those election results were fraudulently obtained, I think it's important to point out that the Bush Administration did everything possible to hide its true actions and agenda from its own citizens, rather than stand proudly on them and let the citizens judge you at the polls on the basis of that knowledge.
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