Day: December 15, 2008

Dick Cheney: A Disgraceful VP Who Deserves Prosecution

Thank goodness Vice President Dick Cheney will be leaving office in a little over a month! He will carry with him the reputation of being the most powerful Vice President in American history, but also one who was lawless and a disgrace to the office, and he should face prosecution for his crimes in office, unless we are going to allow him to claim that in office whatever the Vice President does is lawful, similar to what Richard Nixon said about his actions in the Presidency.

Cheney admits that the US government would have decided to go to war against Saddam Hussein even if there was no evidence and no intelligence about Weapons of Mass Destruction.  He also admits that water boarding was done against suspects and he fully endorses the use of what John McCain and many others have said is torture, an unacceptable tactic under international law.

Cheney has no shame or sense of guilt, and continues to be arrogant and unrepentant about any of the actions taken during the Bush administration, which has led to the death of more than 4,000 US soldiers, the serious wounding of more than 15,000 young men and women, and the enormous expense of the war, which is nearing one trillion dollars, and will be untold trillions more when one adds in the long term costs of medical care for the severely wounded over the next fifty years or more.  Also, the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians is on his hands, as well as the hands of George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and other administration figures.

Dick Cheney has contributed mightily to the economic mess that faces us and the horrible international image that Barack Obama must now work to rehabilitate.  He will always stand out as a Vice President who was allowed to run amuck, and Joe Biden is conscious of the need to return the Vice Presidency to the important but lawful role it had been known for in the past half century since the office started to grow in significance.

Dick Cheney needs to be prosecuted for his crimes, and the foreign policy of preemption adopted by the Bush administration after the 9-11 attacks needs to be repudiated by the Obama administration!

McCain’s Repudiation of Sarah Palin

Senator John McCain finally came out and told us on THIS WEEK with George Stephanopoulos that he would not be supportive of Governor Sarah Palin if she ran for President in 2012, as there are many young governors across the country who are very talented and should be considered for the next election cycle for President.

What a commentary that McCain is therefore indirectly admitting that he flubbed in picking Palin to be his running mate, and in the process, put the nation under tremendous risk had he won the Presidency and become incapacitated or died in office.  Anyone in their right mind except the evangelical right could easily see that Palin was the least qualified VP candidate in history and was simply put on the ticket as a ploy to gain women who were Hillary Clinton supporters to come over to the GOP.  But of course, any Hillary supporter who would have used Palin’s gender as the reason, with the reality that Palin was the ultimate anti-Hillary candidate, would indicate that such individuals were people the Democratic party did not need, as they would totally lack judgment and common sense.

It is likely that McCain’s back handed rejection of Sarah Palin will have the effect of minimizing her chances for 2012, and will undermine the support she still retains among conservative talk show hosts, including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Michael Reagan.  If anyone could say that these talk show hosts have any legitimacy, their continued support of Sarah Palin eliminates that thought for anyone with a sane mind!