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The Cheney Project
We'd be remiss if we didn't link over to fellow muckraker Charlie Savage's stay at TPMCafe this week to discuss his new book Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy.
It's long been apparent that the administration has sought to expand executive power whenever possible. But Savage's book documents the extent to which this was a conscious and controlling priority, especially for Dick Cheney -- so much so that Savage calls it "The Cheney Project." Go check it out.
A particularly telling excerpt from the book is below.
From the chapter titled "The Agenda":
A former senior member of the administration legal team who did not want to be identified by name recalled a pervasive post-9/11 sense of masculine bravado and one-upmanship when it came to executive power. A "closed group of like-minded people" were almost in competition with one another, he said, to see who could offer the farthest-reaching claims of what a president could do. In contrast, those government lawyers who were perceived as less passionate about presidential power were derided as "soft" and were often simply cut out of the process. "The lawyers for the administration felt a tremendous amount of time pressure and there was a lot of secrecy," the former official said. "These things were being done in small groups. There was a great deal of suspicion of the people who normally act as a check inside the executive branch, such as the State Department, which had the reputation of being less aggressive on executive power. This process of faster, smaller groups fed on itself and built a dynamic of trying to show who was tougher on executive power."
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Comments (14)
moondancer wrote on September 14, 2007 12:42 PM:I heard Savage on NPR yesterday, great interview. Also very relevant post by Digby at commonsense.ourfuture.org/constitutional_hardball
All these years, I thought most of the WH resistance to subpoena, oversight, etc.. was hiding content, when in reality it was execising their view of the imperial presidency. The treason was less the "content" and more the "form".
M M wrote on September 14, 2007 12:53 PM:Also interesting in the book, Olson is a major proponent of this Nixonian nonsense.
jeez, around my office we just compete to see who can win our fantasy football league...
wagonjak wrote on September 14, 2007 1:13 PM:From Thucydides during the Peloponnesian War...the more things change, the more they stay the same...
"But war, taking away the affluence of daily necessaries, is a most violent master and conformeth most men's passions to the present occasion ... The received value of names imposed for signification of things was changed into arbitrary. For inconsiderate boldness was counted true-hearted manliness; provident deliberation, a handsome fear; modesty, the cloak of cowardice; to be wise in everything, to be lazy in everything. A furious suddenness was reputed a point of valour.
To re-advise for the better security was held a fair pretext of tergiversation. He that was fierce was always trusted, and he that contraried such a one was suspected."
wagonjak wrote on September 14, 2007 1:14 PM:- Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, translated by Thomas Hobbes
From Thucydides during the Peloponnesian War...the more things change, the more they stay the same...
"But war, taking away the affluence of daily necessaries, is a most violent master and conformeth most men's passions to the present occasion ... The received value of names imposed for signification of things was changed into arbitrary. For inconsiderate boldness was counted true-hearted manliness; provident deliberation, a handsome fear; modesty, the cloak of cowardice; to be wise in everything, to be lazy in everything. A furious suddenness was reputed a point of valour.
To re-advise for the better security was held a fair pretext of tergiversation. He that was fierce was always trusted, and he that contraried such a one was suspected."
wagonjak wrote on September 14, 2007 1:22 PM:- Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, translated by Thomas Hobbes
For those of you wondering what the heck tergiversation is, from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary...
Main Entry: ter·gi·ver·sa·tion
Barbara B wrote on September 14, 2007 1:31 PM:Function: noun
1 : evasion of straightforward action or clear-cut statement : EQUIVOCATION
2 : desertion of a cause, position, party, or faith
I could have sworn that was a babblefish translation.
Al in Austex wrote on September 15, 2007 5:13 AM:Cheney is pissing off the left ,right & center of our political landscape. He & Addington have made us come togather on the lEFT & Right - to say no to executive power grabs -When speaking to my right wing passengers in my cab -unsolicted they are stating that the NeocONS are destroying the GOP -
moondancer wrote on September 15, 2007 8:12 PM:Its more likely now then ever that Cheney will have been at least subjected to an impeachment proccess before this Spring
I just finished the book. Al in Austex, I dont think he cares what you or any of your fares think. His object is to make you irrelevant. Spend all the money in the world to his massive election machine, get elected then ignore all but the money people til end of the cycle.
Al in Austex wrote on September 15, 2007 9:13 PM:Contempt is the word I think.
Moondancer,
parrot wrote on September 16, 2007 1:24 AM:It does matter that Cheney does not care what we think , it matters more that Cheney wishes to make We the People irrelevant - including most importantly the moderate Republicans - The more contempt and lawlessness that Cheney fosters the more likely the NeoCons are defeated badly the next election cycle. And I am still predicting Cheney gets articles of Impeachment slapped on his unitarian fanny regarding the TIA/TSP illegal surveillance of We the People...
And Moondancer - the majority of my passengers are self identified conservative Republicans - and most all of them want to throw the VEEP "under the bus " .Heck one of those ,was a gal that was past officer in the Texas Republicans Womans Association ( or so she said )
Yep. That's how you plan a coup and subvert the Constitution. Only a step away from treason really...and that's why they're all running scared...or would be if Congress actually called them on the carpet for the crap they've pulled...and are still pulling. The Republic needs someone to stand up to these bullies and thugs and reassert legal and Constitutional control of the government...rather than what we've had for the past six years from these criminals.
Al in Austex wrote on September 16, 2007 4:58 AM:Dear Readers,
moondancer wrote on September 16, 2007 9:11 AM:The point I would like to emphasize is how pervasive & persistent is the ill will across all the political spectrum that Cheney , Addington et al have generated by the VEEP's power grab.And honest conservatives such as Bruce Fines have already said some of what Cheney has done is lawless acts for which he could be impeached.
We're on the same page Al. Cheney/Bush have a constituency of 34. They're all senators, and they're all they care about. As long as a veto cannot be over-ridden then they are free to gut the constitution.
Roberta wrote on September 16, 2007 12:57 PM:As long as the democrats fear political liability from impeachment, its business as usual for bushco.
Tergiversation! Thank you for the quote from Thucydides. And thank you for sending me to find a wonderful image of what Cheney has done to the principles on which the US was founded.
Look at the etymology for tergiversation:
L. tergum--the back, versari--to turn
It was coined in the 17th century from the Latin "tergiversari," and its meaning then was "with one's back turned."
That's what Cheney and all of his adherents have done: They have turned their backs on everything beautiful in the idea and ideals of the United States of America and their realization in the Constitution.
I hold onto the hope that once this nightmare of an Administration is out of the White House, the Congress will pursue more than impeachment for Cheney. He is guilty of treason.
Al in Austex wrote on September 16, 2007 7:47 PM:Moondancer.
We will recall that it took a while to reach critical mass for Agnew to resign & for Howard Baker to walk up the driveway to tell Nixon it was over.The Democrats will get over their timidity when the moderate Republicans see to save themselves they must IMPEACH Cheney - and then Norm Coleman and those two Senators from Maine among others could very well vote to convict in the Senate. The political trend lines strongly suggests this -All is not lost MD please keep your powder dry ...