I think, in the end, even Bush probably thinks Dick Cheney is crazy and committed crimes. Bush probably blames Cheney for leading him astray in numerous areas. How could he not? That’s why I find this so laughable:
The depths of Cheney’s distress about another close friend, his former chief of staff and alter ego I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, have only recently become clear. Bush refused a pardon after Libby’s felony convictions in 2007 for perjury and obstruction of an investigation of the leak of a clandestine CIA officer’s identity. Cheney tried mightily to prevent Libby’s fall, scrawling in a note made public at trial that he would not let anyone “sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder.” Cheney never explained the allusion, but grand jury transcripts — and independent counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald — suggested that Libby’s false statements aimed above all to protect the vice president.
Last month, an account in Time magazine, based on close access to Bush’s personal lawyer and White House counsel, described Cheney’s desperate end-of-term efforts to change Bush’s mind about a pardon. Cheney, who has spent a professional lifetime ignoring unflattering stories, issued a quietly furious reply. In the most explicit terms, he accused Bush of abandoning “an innocent man” who had served the president with honor and then become the “victim of a severe miscarriage of justice.” Cheney now says privately that his memoir, expected to be published in spring 2011, will describe their heated arguments in full.
Scooter Libby’s obstruction of justice was clearly part of a quid pro quo. If Libby would throw sand in the eyes of the prosecutor, he would receive a full pardon in the end. It’s in the nature of such agreements that no one makes them explicitly. Some things are just understood. But perhaps Cheney went so far as to flat-out promise Libby that he had the juice to get him pardoned. When it turned out that Bush didn’t give a shit about Libby and he essentially told Cheney to ‘Go Fuck Himself’ on the pardon, it left Cheney with an overwhelming feeling of guilt. His loyal soldier was left on the battlefield without the right to a law license he could use to enrich himself in his post-government years.
Strange what Cheney chooses to feel guilty about. Isn’t it?
don’t think Cheney (a sociopath imo) is capable of feeling guilt – more likely anger that his puppet Bush felt like some payback. the full story of Cheney and Bush (and what was Laura’s role? did she know how bad Cheney was?) intrigues me immensely. looking forward to the full story emerging some day.
Sociopaths are perfectly capable of feeling guilt; it is psychopaths who are not. Bush was the psychopath in this pair. That Cheney thought he could squeeze a pardon out of Bush, a man who mocked people as he signed their death warrants as governor of Texas, says to me that Cheney mistook Bush for a fellow sociopath.
People like Cheney — and there are tens of millions of them all around us — are not at all amoral. They have codes of conduct that they live by, or at least try to. Unlike psychopaths, they experience the full gamut of normal human emotions. The difference between you and me on the one hand, and Dick Cheney on the other, is a matter of degree, not kind.
What makes Cheney a sociopath is his well-developed ability to compartmentalize things in his mind that would — in a better man — be subjected to the same set of value judgments. It’s like the cross burning racist who dotes on his kids: his love for his kids is as genuine as his hatred of “ethnics”. His flaw is that he can’t see past the artificial distinctions in his own mind to extend humaneness and compassion to people outside of his circle.
I don’t find it at all hard to believe that Cheney feels guilty for failing to protect his friend. That in no way minimizes the criminality of what they both did. But we are here dealing with a criminal, not an inhuman monster. A lot of what Cheney was involved with, above and beyond the Plame affair, was certainly inhumane, but Cheney certainly didn’t see it that way, and wouldn’t have done those things if he had.
By contrast, George Bush doesn’t care if what he does is inhuman or not. As a narcissist and a psychopath, his circle of humanity ends at his own skin. Everyone else is an object for his gratification. Whether it’s sticking firecrackers into frogs or authorizing atrocities, he was undeterred by compassion because he simply doesn’t possess that quality.
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In the past daddy took care of his faults: DUI and being AWOL during his National Guard years. As governor of Texas, he hired AG Alberto Gonzales to tell him to trust the courts, their judgment and keep a clear “conscience”. Bush does not understand the words accountability and responsibility. In the same manner, could Bush be so without nuance that he would stick by the court judgment in Libby’s case? It became clear in the end, Bush was not relying on the advice of his VP anymore.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."the incident where Bush dropped the dog he was handing to Laura on the runway then blamed Laura for dropping the pet illustrates how completely incapable of accepting responsibilities for his actions he is. whose advice do you think he was relying on then? Karen Hughes? Laura? Condi?
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“Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney’s advice. He’d showed an independence that Cheney didn’t see coming.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."thanks, very helpful; but what accounts for the creepy lying quality of Cheney – vs. the exterior “charm” of Bush; I thought the “charm” was found in sociopaths, the quality that listening to them makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up was a gut reaction to psychopaths. Will appreciate your assessment!
Neither term is a formal psychiatric diagnosis, so they tend to be a bit fuzzy. A sociopath is simply someone who lacks normal responses to social cues to the point that they harm themselves or others. Depending on the underlying causes, it can be a perfectly curable condition as it essentially involves learned behaviors.
A psychopath, on the other hand, may have highly developed social skills, but lacks certain fundamental normal human traits, particularly a total absence of compassion. It’s a developmental disorder generally (but far from always) stemming from childhood neglect and abuse and is generally not treatable. Many serial killers are psychopaths.
What’s creepy about Cheney is that he doesn’t give a fuck what anyone thinks of his actions, so he feels no need to conceal the uglier details of his temperament. He probably genuinely believes that his actions are necessary and justified — and in contradistinction to Bush, he probably actually thinks about issues of right and wrong, albeit according to a different set of ethical assumptions than you and me. The important difference is that Cheney lives in a world of other people, some of whom unfortunately have to be killed for our collective safety. But George Bush lives in a world where he is the only animate object.
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In Jerzy Kozinsky’s 1970 novel Being There, a character named Chance the Gardener, whose entire existence has been restricted to watching television shows and tending a walled garden, is suddenly thrust into the outside world. Here he acquires admirers who rename him Chauncey Gardiner, mistake his ignorance for profundity, and take his horticultural allusions for zenlike koans. His intellectual limitations and personal inadequacies become social and political virtues …
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Whether it’s sticking firecrackers into frogs or authorizing atrocities, he was undeterred by compassion because he simply doesn’t possess that quality.
The weird thing is, he had an ability to make people believe he gave two shits.
They’re often very, very good at convincingly simulating human emotions.
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George Washington, in his farewell address, warned against the destructive force of party rancor. Something like that is at stake here again. Serious people in our politics, Republicans and Democrats, would understand that a Bush pardon of Scooter Libby is mainly about closing some of the worst wounds of these long war years. And about giving the nation a chance at refinding that lost unity.
These were hard years, and required hard decisions. It’s time to let Scooter Libby get back to work. Like the rest of Washington.
[Paid for by the Libby Legal Defense Trust]
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."don’t think George would accept – imo George eventually figured out that he was an obstacle to Cheney’s full realization of his plan for the usa. despite the destructiveness of those 8 years, imo we so dodged a bullet there because Bush was an obstacle to Cheney’s realizing all his plans.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the fawning press, Dick Cheney is very grateful that Libby is effectively kept from spilling the beans by the fact that Libby can still claim Fifth Amendment rights to keep silent.
Besides, Libby still has a promising career as a writer of genre-crossing bestiality/pederasty stories.
“It’s in the nature of such agreements that no one makes them explicitly. Some things are just understood. “
There is no better description of our present political/media condition than this quote.
As far as Bush/Cheney;
It is shocking, and will become more shocking as time goes on, how close we came to the abyss. We have stepped back just a little, but we are much closer than we were ten years ago. I agree with the premiss that Obama is more a transitional than a transformational president. But to which way? I thought I would be less scared with Obama’s election, but I am more frightened in many ways. That is because in the same way Nixon’s administration trained Cheney, Cheney has trained others. They are out there waiting, quietly working their way into power again.
And Obama is hoping to work out compromises with them.
nalbar
I don’t really think Obama is trying to compromise with them – a combination of listening, rope-a-dope, and picking his battles. stim was first, closing gitmo, now health care.
Very sharp. Boo, except for the attribution of “an overwhelming feeling of guilt.” Sociopaths don’t feel guilt. Rather, an overwhelming feeling of anger at having his power overridden, especially by someone he was accustomed to leading around by the nose — and an overwhelming feeling of looking like a powerless “dick” to Libby and his neocon supporters. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
OK, when I first posted, I hadn’t read the thoughtful posts by Corvus, above. Maybe Cheney does feel guilt after all.