NYT: Cheney’s Power No Longer Goes Unquestioned

[kskiska]

From those first moments five years ago when Secret Service agents burst into Vice President Dick Cheney’s office on Sept. 11, lifted him off his feet and propelled him to the underground Presidential Emergency Operations Center, the man who had returned to Washington that year to remake the powers of the presidency seemed unstoppable.

(snip)

But as the nation marks the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Mr. Cheney finds the powers he has asserted under attack and his own influence challenged. Congress and the Supreme Court have pushed back at his claim that the president alone, as commander in chief, can set the rules for detention, interrogation and domestic spying.

(snip)

Mr. Cheney’s prediction in 2002 that overthrowing Saddam Hussein would force radical extremists “to rethink their strategy of jihad” proved wrong, as President Bush implicitly acknowledged last week when he described how the array of enemies facing America has multiplied. Mr. Cheney’s friends and former aides say they are mystified about how the same man who as defense secretary in 1991 warned that “for us to get American military personnel involved in a civil war inside Iraq would literally be a quagmire” managed, 15 years later, to find himself facing that prospect.

Measuring the accumulation or the erosion of power is an imprecise art. But interviews with more than 45 people over the past five months — including current and former White House aides, foreign diplomats, members of Congress and confidants of Mr. Cheney — painted a picture of a vice president who, while still influential, has seen his power wane. Few said they had detected any change in Mr. Cheney’s views; the difference, they said, was that those views were no longer automatically triumphant.

more…
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/10/washington/10cheney.html?ei=5094&en=c089e65ca50c998c&hp=&ex=1157860800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

[annabanana]

1. - not fast enough -

He is still capable of further bankrupting this country, killing our soldiers and countless others. He and his entire nest of vipers need to be cleaned out.

[rocketdem]

2. Meet the Press tomorrow...

Does Russert have the minerals to actually do his job and take Tricky Dick (version 2) to the shed for a well deserved beating?

I'm not holding my breath.

[otohara]

4. I'll Wait For Snippets

of his latest bullshit and new lies to be posted or better yet, just read transcripts.

[Peggy Day]

7. Don't You remember when Cheney said he cut all ties with Halliburton?

He just lies, and Tim Russert doesn't call him on anything. They must have lousy fact checkers.

I wanted to watch This Week, Katrina from the Nation is on, but it's on ABC. I'll stay on the computer.

[Botany]

3. more b.s. from the "liberal press"

Cheney shot a man in the face after drinking and refused to speak to
the police for 18 hours and not a God Damn thing happened.

sic 'em Timmy

[Sonora Nora]

5. according to schedule...

Now we can periodically read about how ineffectual darth cheney is becoming, then how his health is beginning to fail, and after the elections how he must resign for health/personal reasons. Then McCain or Frist can become acting Veep for 2 yrs & have a backdoor incumbency into the 2008 primaries. I think there is a major game plan beginning to play out: written by Rove & this is Act 1.

[Singular73]

6. Wouldn't be McCain lol

Frist...nah, not even Frist.

Too religious right -- not corporate owned-enough.