NYT: CHENEY'S POWER CHALLENGED!

[Coexist]

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 — 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>
On national security issues, Mr. Cheney, once the unchallenged adviser to a president who came to office with little experience in foreign affairs, remains a pivotal figure but now vies for influence with other officials like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser. Over the past 18 months, Mr. Cheney appears to have reluctantly given ground on detention practices and, at least for now, on policy disputes involving Iran and North Korea.

On Friday, the Senate Intelligence Committee — controlled by Mr. Cheney’s Republican allies — declared that there had been no basis for Mr. Cheney’s repeated claims that Saddam Hussein had harbored a Qaeda leader and had ties to the group. But Mr. Cheney has never conceded that his statement was in error.

<SNIP>
Perhaps nowhere has Mr. Cheney’s shifting influence been more visible than on Capitol Hill, where the vice president’s ability to win his way without challenge — a luxury he enjoyed through much of the first term — has evaporated.


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[Coexist]

1. kick - this is a great article.

[bleever]

2. A pretty detailed look at the palace intrigue,

and the kind of guy Cheney is.

K&R.

[Subdivisions]

3. Kick! Know thine enemy.

[sweetheart]

4. batteries die

and power declines as mortality fells the powers of government that checks and balances cannot.

[Coexist]

5. reanimation fluid is tricky stuff

lame ducks often forget to check the expiration date.

[lovuian]

6. He is True Evil

he's motto is greed Greed GREED!!!

[raising2moredems]

9. No I think greed is secondary

Cheney and Rummy were part of the Nixon era and have been pissed off ever since dickie resigned. Spent many years waiting to get even.

[msongs]

7. dems should use the 1991 tv clip of cheney about iraq civil war

how getting involved in a civil war in iraq would be the worst thing that could happen. this cheney said as a big shot in the administration of King bush the first during the kuwait liberation thing.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[sweetheart]

8. kucinich

I like your XXX for 2008 tshirt with all the names, but kucinich is missing,
then i'm a progressive without a champion, muted in to conformity with
hold your nose voting.

[opihimoimoi]

10. But he still has a bunch of Peeps Brainwashed to support him.

Nevertheless: He is in a Fort surrounded and the end is near....either pill or sempuku

[jedr]

11. Watch Meet The Press tomorrow and you'll hear it all over again;

Will Russert have the balls to call him on it?

[Coexist]

16. no thanks, I'd rather wait for C&L to put up the video

I'd like to keep my breakfast down.

[CarlVK]

12. The criminal bastard behind the criminal bastard

I cannot wait to see charges leveled at this creep. It may well turn out that he was the worst of them all, the true maggot in the apple.

[Olney Blue]

13. It will take decades for our country to recover from him, if ever.

[ninkasi]

14. Cheney is evil

He is the worst of the worst. His goal has always been to seize power, and to control government. He is very rich, but sometimes greed is addictive, and he can't stop himself. He is willing to send thousands of our men and women to die, and be maimed in Iraq. He pushed taking resources out of Afghanistan, and encouraged Dubya's obsession of going to war in Iraq, instead. That has recently harmed our troops in Afghanistan.

He does not care how many lives are lost, or how bankrupt this country becomes, or how much our own citizens must suffer due to the rapacious greed of big corporations, always ready to put profit ahead of humanity. If he had a shred of humanity, he would be guilt stricken about what the Bush administration and the Republican rubber stamp Congress have together done to harm America, and the world.

I think Swamp Rat shows him for what he is...under the sneer, there dwells a reptilian persona, and it's far too late for him to evolve into humanity. He is lost in the reptile world of a cold blooded killer.

[w4rma]

15. History's decision will not be kind to you, Mr. Cheney. (nt)