Larry O'Donnell on Cheney's speech:

"Sleazy..." "...an abomination.." "...lies..from beginning to end.." "..worst speech since Spiro Agnew.."

Too briefly and in recalling the recent week long PBS Television Documentary, World War II and in direct reference to Stalin and as more than 27 Million perished (died) that Stalin deceased in FULL ACCOMMODATION OF STATE POWER and as suggested as an un-prosecuted War Criminal and now known fabricated and false evidence at the HAGUE WAR CRIMES TRIBUNALS.

I would assume there is and continues to be a World recognized view that WAR CRIMES AND PRESUMABLY INCLUDING ILLEGAL WARS WOULD BE TRIED IN THE HAGUE (ALSO) AND (ALSO) CRIMINALS WOULD BE TRIED DOMESTICALLY FOR DOMESTIC ILLEGAL ALLEGED CRIMINAL ALLEGATIONS.

Todays President Obama and Dick Cheney Speeches are to some extent seemingly the 'SAME PACK OF LIES' as these policies, practices and procedures continue as Media has broadcast and are identical and/or similar to the former Bush Administration and also have gone un-prosecuted to this day, seemingly and/or alleged such as,

1) Torture, 2) illegal or false Rendition ecetra , 3) illegal, fabricated and/or false Detention ecetra, As suggested, Possibly Murder 3) Illegal wire taps and disregard of FISA Laws and Courts, 4) seemingly and/or alleged Enormous Financial Fraud continues with Waste and Abuse (Single payer health care off the table all middle-person other Insurance, rating ecerta Agencies are in full force, 5) Kangaroo or false courts (Traffic, ecetra) 6) Illegal State Secrets (seemingly and/or alleged excluded, fabricated, falsified ecetra evidence) and many other alleged concerns or crimes of fraud, waste and abuse.

Enough for now.

As an additional repeated mention and suggestion, hopefully President Obama will immediately apply the 'Change We Can Believe In' with;

1) Immediately end the enactment of the 'Death Penalty' no excuses!!

2) Immediate support towards proper and forthright subpoenas, prosecutions ecetra, as warranted.

3) Consideration for a $200 Billion Dollar allotment directly to the wages of new Federal, State, County, City Governments to create 22.2 Million Jobs at $9.00 Dollars an hour.

Thank you for your time and consideration

The news media needs to fill air time, especially the 24/7 Cable Shows, ergo, they help fill that air time with anything available.

Newt Gingrich accusing Nancy Pelosi of being corrupt? JOIN OUR ROUNDTABLE!

Dick Cheney accusing Obama of endangering the public? FILM AT 11:00....and 12:00....and 1:00.....and 2:00.....

Tune in to MEET the PRESS with David Gregory;
Robert Bovak reports that Barney Frank was able to bend Majority Leader Tom DeLay to his will and forced DeLay to give mortgages to those that couldn't afford them.
What about that Steve Forbes?

Wolf Blitzer to Chris Dodd: Senator McConnell says the world is flat, what about that Senator Dodd?

One of the many lines that deserves a guffaw:

"One person who by all accounts objected to the release of the interrogation memos was the Director of Central Intelligence, Leon Panetta. He was joined in that view by at least four of his predecessors. I assume they felt this way because they understand the importance of protecting intelligence sources, methods, and personnel."

The vice president seems awfully concerned about the release of a document, but not about leaking the identity of CIA personnel.

"It is much closer to the truth that terrorists hate this country precisely because of the values we profess and seek to live by, not by some alleged failure to do so."

AH HA, So by abandoning the values we profess and seek to live by, the terrorists would hate us less!!! And by hating us less, I guess that would mean they like us more?

So Dick Cheney's philosophies totally made terrorists feel better about America, made us seem more like them (according to Dick Cheney's reasoning).

So why does Dick Cheney want to make terrorists happier with us through the use of torture?

Only one good answer, Dick Cheney must HATE America and love terrorists.

Not my idea, apparently that's what Cheney was saying.

It seems to me the right-wing media was trying to use Cheney's speech to create a distraction. The President gives a major policy speech; the disgraced former VP gives a stunt speech to coincide with it. The right wing media plays up how these two things were happening at the same time, as if to make an equivalence between them-- as if to imply that the talking point babblings of a man whose primary concern at this point is not being indicted, is equivalent to a speech by an actual elected official stating governmental intent and aimed at influencing Congress for funding. The goal is to de-emphasize Obama's (actually significant) speech and to emphasize Cheney's (insignificant except to the extent the media gives it attention) speech.

This in mind: Why is it that TPM has given Cheney the huge, top-of-the-front-page slot with full line-by-line analysis of the speech and what it means, whereas Obama gets a small side box underneath going just to a link to the speech?

From Zachary's rebuttal of Cheney's statements:

"It's a documented fact that al-Libbi, who was waterboarded, provided information -- later shown to be false -- that was cited by both President Bush and Colin Powell as evidence that Saddam Hussein was working with al Qaeda in developing chemical weapons. Libbi's false information led us to war in Iraq."

I had not heard of waterboarding before our Iraq invasion, and especially waterboarding used to justify the invasion BEFORE we started the war. Checking, I find al-libbi on wiki as Abu Faraj Al Libbi, the so-call number 3 guy at al Qaeda we captured in May 2005. That rules out any idea that we tortured him BEFORE the 2003 invasion of Iraq and he gave false info on an al Qaeda link that Bush used in the lead-up to war.

Can anyone clear this up?

Cheney out 9/11's Giuliani!

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_05/018288.php

Question for the historians: Are there (other) examples from American history, where a current or former President (or Vice-President) has been clinically diagnosed with mental illness?

I don't mean Reagan's alzheimer's - I mean full-blown delusional paranoia, etc.

"This opinion flies in the face..."

No, it's fact. People ARE talking that way.

"there has been a strange and sometimes willful attempt to conflate what happened at Abu Ghraib prison with the top secret program of enhanced interrogations"

Zach missed the key problem in that cite:

"the lawful, skillful, and entirely honorable work of CIA personnel trained to deal with a few malevolent men"

The people who used these EITs are reported to have been CONTRACTORS who had NO experience and thus no real training in running interrogations.

Let's be real for a second,....didn't the 911 commission say that all the information to stop the 911 attacks was there for the FBI and CIA prior to the attacks, but there was a communication problem between the two agencies. I mean, didn't Bush & Cheney's Terrorist CZAR resign because they refused to focus on terrorism until it was too late and then they went totally fanatical about it after we were attacked. I find it peculiar that Cheney seems to be inviting this debate about whether he's a War criminal or not,....hasn't he realized that's what America and World have been saying for the last 2 election cycles and in which they've lost dramatically. Didn't he get the memo that Fear-mongering is to the curb, just like torturing,...it doesn't work. I've heard the argument that an inquiry or truth commission will revitalize the republican party but I honestly don't see how that can be as long as Gingrich, Cheney, and Limbaugh are the spokesman....these guys have no integrity what so ever. I want these guys to keep talking,....please keep talking!

People turned out to vote like they did so we wouldn't have to listen to or tolerate all the crooked bigots in the previous administration... "Cheney, needs to go sit his old, bitter, disgruntal, self down somewhere".

I find it highly ironic that we are having exactly the public debate now on defending America/torture/war in Iraq that we should have been having seven years ago. Better late than never, I guess.

However, it is even more ironic that Cheney is pushing for this debate now that it suits his purpose of defending his record. Anyone who attempted to start this debate back when it was truly needed was labeled as a traitor who sided with the terrorists.

I almost hate to say this, but if someone in a position of authority here is the US doesn't have the balls/courage to stand up to Cheney and hold him accountable for his crimes against America and humanity, I hope someone in the international sphere will.

This is truley a view of America on the decline. Not the former VP's explanation of who and what we are faceing tomorrow, but the lack of understandiing of Islam and mindset of the radical. One of the guy I walk to school with in Jr. High School converted and it was the best thing that could have happened to James. He looke great in the suit and bowtie. We got out of the neighborhood but we did see Bobby Kennedy wave at us a few week before he ate the game changer in LA.
I hope one day that the fog will clear for some of you and you dont have to suffer the result of another Clinton self absorbed eight years that put us exposed to just what the former VP is talking about.

Here's another Cheney lie that seems to be going unnoticed. In his speech he said this: "The released memos were carefully redacted to leave out references to what our government learned through the methods in question."

Really? The memos did include a major unredacted claim regarding "what our government learned through the methods in question." And people like Mark Thiessen tried to make a big deal about that claim.

Trouble is, the claim requires a belief in time travel. And maybe that's why Cheney did not repeat the claim, and is instead pretending that the claim was redacted, even though it wasn't.

I fancy myself very open and reasonable but Mr. Roth's review of the Cheney speech is simply faulty. Cheney repeats fallacies in his speech; this is true. However those fallacies are the cornerstones of many of the arguements leveled against the Bush Administration.

He is responding to strawmen arguements not creating them and this is a distinction that Roth has ignored.

Additionally, the claim that Gitmo is a recruiting tool for the terrorists is not in any sense a fact. Mr. Roth assumes that Gitmo must be a recruitment tool. Assuming something does not make it so.

Mr. Roth and many on this board are from one perspective that believes that their greatest enemy is the opposing political party. Then creates (possibly projects) all manner of villiany to throw at the other team.

That is neither reasonable nor productive... and yes there are those on the "other side" that do the same- though they haven't the bully pulpit that Mr. Roth's team seems to enjoy, (and that is for another topic).

It is an admitted assumption on my part that Mr. Roth holds his views due to the intense pressure of Manhattan life and social standing and is not the product of any soul searching, or fact gathering(this does not in itself mean that what Roth says is wrong- even children can parrot facts).

Don't rationalize conclusions- be reasonable and lastly, avoid projection...and never assume anything. Mr. Roth's review takes so many assumptions as fact and that is like building your house without a foundation.

In my view and I would presume that all reasonable persons and all proper and forthright Interpretations of aaplicable Law would concur and, a more reasonable interpretation of your blog comment reply is that it is without Foundation and as a general and in a whole context your blog comment reply is without any reasonable merit and support within and towards your preceptions and allegations and as a general and in whole context.

The main issue, 'Torture' from former CIA Executive//Congressman//Vice President Dick Cheney (and Rumsfeld) has been around since the 1950's when at least these two Individuals where invloved in the 'Torture' ['Artichoke'] and upon our own 'Military Troops' and subsequest cover-ups, including the 'Rockefeller Commission' in the 1970's by these exact two Individuals, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

I am and continue to be very proud and honored for the exemplary, superb and excellent, due-dilligent, and seemingly pain-staking successful endeavors and successful accomplishments from TPM and many other 'New Media Blog Comment' Organizations and the many highly superb and excellent, formidable blog comment replies.