By

Patrick Henningsen

21st Century Wire

Such confidence. It’s good to know that Dick Cheney still has a high opinion of himself, at least someone does.

If you’ve been watching the US media this last week, you’ll have noticed the Sith Lord, former US Vice President, Dick Cheney, has been making the rounds in the mainstream media recently, allegedly, to promote his new book which he claims to have co-authored with his daughter Liz Cheney. Judging by the success of Bill O’Reilly’s books, FOX News watchers are still mostly unaware that with all celebrity and political ‘legacy’ books, the publisher hires a ghost writer to write it for them. If you’re lucky enough to get a copy signed by the author, know that’s the only thing truly authentic in the book. Anyway…

It’s a little uncomfortable watching them wheel out Cheney for TV interviews. Like Tony Blair, this old battle axe seems almost oblivious to the fact that there are billions of people around the planet who have already seen enough of him. A feeling of nausea came over me as I watched Cheney’s interview with Jamie Gangel (CNN’s version of Barbara Walters). There was old Dick, reminiscing about flying on Air Force Two and how he once held “the football” – the nuclear arsenal control briefcase. A calming thought.



BITTER: Apparently, eight years of war-mongering wasn’t enough for Cheney, now he want to see the world burn.

Besides the basic vulgarity of seeing an aging war criminal baying for face time, Cheney’s fundamental problem is that he’s already a throw-back. After hiding in the shadows since his regime expired in 2008, Cheney returns, but with nothing new to bring to the table but a whole lot of bad memories, for us anyway. So far this week, his numerous and unapologetic interviews have ranged from hawkish diatribes about the recycled cut-throat neoconservative platitude of “American exceptionalism” (the subject of his new book), to proto-fascist rantings about how the US needs to be more aggressive militarily with the world (as if that’s possible). The usual sycophantic middle-aged rightwing media pundits have been gushing over Cheney’s secondhand ideologies, crowing, “Here’s someone who’s not afraid to tell it like it is”. Watching Cheney try to reinvent himself by attempting to rearrange yesterday’s failures is like watching an aging Hollywood diva going in for that final face lift. It’s simply beyond repair.

Maybe Cheney’s grandiose junket tour is part of Karl Rove’s covert campaign strategy: to help improve the abysmal approval ratings of the dynastic GOP Presidential ‘hopeful’ Jeb Bush. For the last three weeks, Jeb has been getting pounded by Donald Trump. Frankly, Jeb looks as if he’d rather be doing something else besides running for President. It could be that GOP strategists believe that by promoting Cheney in a positive way to conservative voters – that this will automatically rub-off on the latest model on the Bush assembly line. Credit where credit’s due; Rove “success by association” strategy sort of worked in 2000 by inflating public perceptions of George W. Bush just enough to give him the winning edge. The psychology is fairly basic, but highly effective with the Simple Jack demographic, which normally believes that, “He (Bush) might be stupid or an idiot, but he’ll be fine as long as he’s surrounded by STRONG advisers, and Washington insiders.” In the end it worked, but not without a little assistance from the electronic voting machines and organized voter and ballot fraud in Florida (fraud which was signed off by Jeb Bush himself), and finally – by convincing Al Gore to cowardly throw in the towel, and then boom, just like that, history’s actors had seized Pennsylvania Ave. With a little luck, it could work for Jeb too.

The most shocking thing of all has to be Cheney’s slipping grasp of recent history. He quips, “He (Obama) has abandoned Iraq, leaving a vacuum that is being tragically and ominously filled by our enemies. He is on course to forsake Afghanistan as well.” Spoken like Odoacer. Unfortunately, he’s already forgotten that the US withdrawal from Iraq, under President Obama, at the end of 2011 – was actually negotiated in 2008 by his own administration… the Bush administration. Besides this, let’s be honest – as hopeless a candidate as John McCain was, it was really Dick and George’s stellar performance which handed Barack Obama a Democratic Party victory in 2008.

Still, Dick believes that because the Israeli Lobby and that oily Saudi ATM machine may not get what it wants which is to kill off any accord with Iran – that a nuclear first strike is ‘inevitable’. So, let’s see if we got this right…

Dick is telling us that by signing an international, multi-lateral Iranian nuclear disarmament deal… that this will ultimately lead to the West nuking Iran

He wasn’t specific about exactly who would be initiating this ‘Hiroshima and Nagasaki’ nuclear war, either the US or Israel, but let’s assume that he meant the United States.

Here, as with 9/11, Dick Cheney seems to know about something in advance which he’s not sharing with the rest of us. He’s clearly referring to what is already being planned militarily, should his GOP man successfully seize control of the White House in 2016.

Cheney also remarked, “Nearly everything the president (Obama) has told us about his Iranian agreement is false.” Four words Dick: weapons of mass destruction.

There he goes, jogging to what could very well be his final media victory lap, and no one is cheering. Perhaps that’s because the crowd senses how this once powerful man who will ultimately be remembered for one thing – as a key co-conspirator who lied the United States into another failed war.

After all that, and he’s hasn’t got his fill yet? Hang up your spurs Dick. It’s never too late to turn over a new leaf.

More from the Huff Post…

Dick Cheney: Iran Deal Will Lead To First Use Of Nuclear Weapon Since Hiroshima And Nagasaki

Sam Levine

Huff Post



Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney launched a broad attack against President Barack Obama’s foreign policy in an excerpt of a forthcoming book that was published in The Wall Street Journal on Friday.

Both Cheneys accused Obama of lying about the Iran nuclear deal and said that the agreement would lead to the first use of a nuclear weapon since 1945.

“Nearly everything the president has told us about his Iranian agreement is false. He has said it will prevent the Iranians from acquiring nuclear weapons, but it will actually facilitate and legitimize an Iranian nuclear arsenal,” they wrote. “The Obama agreement will lead to a nuclear-armed Iran, a nuclear-arms race in the Middle East and, more than likely, the first use of a nuclear weapon since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

The Obama administration has aggressively defended the deal, saying that it cuts off all pathways to a nuclear bomb. Secretary of State John Kerry has said that a better deal simply does not exist.



The Cheneys also blamed the rise of terrorist groups like ISIS on the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq in 2011 — a talking point that Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has also used...

Continue this story at Huff Post

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