Holy shit, when did he go crazy? I'm pretty sure it wasn't 9/11--he was crazy in the 2000 campaign. But not crazy in '94. Bizarre.
Of course, you shouldn't assume that he believes a word he says, ever.
And, the total fuckedupness of Iraq might well have been part of the plan.
I believe every word he said in that video clip.
We are all opinionated grandma now.
I can only figure that they bet that after 9/11 they figured they had carte blanche to do whatever they wanted and that they hoped the UN charade would result in a coalition... still doesn't explain the total lack of exit strategy.
Would you think bad of me if I moved to Canada on the grounds that their messed up government is less depressing?
I dunno, might have something to do with becoming an oil company executive in the interim. I understand there's some oil in Iraq and Iran. Or maybe he was always just a nut, but Bush 41 wasn't a neocon, so he had to follow that party line.
Disgusting, seemingly rational justifications for cowardlily failing to use our immense military and nation-building power. Sadly, Dick Cheney is the very face of the left today.
Secure undisclosed locations may not be best for one's mental health.
Would you think bad of me if I moved to Canada on the grounds that their messed up government is less depressing?
Hell no.
I believe the word you want is "cowardlily-white."
"cowardlily-livered"
but seriously, I would like to mainstream the use of adverbs formed from adjectives that already end in "ly".
This video clip is VERY interesting.
We believe that Cheney wants to turn our government into one where the executive has all the power. Is it possible that this whole Iraq War thing was part of a plan to make that happen? Did Cheney really want to take out Saddam back in the day, but didn't have enough power back then? If so, why does he seem to...well, not necessarily believe, but understand the opposing side of the argument, such that he can defend something which we now know he believes the exact opposite of? Or has he actually changed his mind? (the "becoming an oil industry CEO" argument)
I think Cheney was always a radical Nixonian and a neocon. In 1994 when he gave that interview, he was still invested in supporting the foreign policy of Bush 41. Cheney's a smart guy, he can always understand the argument from the other side, it's just that he has his his own ideas about the way things ought to be. And with a loser like Bush 43 as nominal "president," he's free to put them into action.
I seem to recall Cheney pretty strongly dissented from the decision against invading Iraq proper. What he's showing in this clip is the ability to intelligently toe the party line.
Cheney has always (or at least since the mid-1970s) been a wingnut. It's just that, prior to 2000, his scary rightwing lunacy was held in check by his having to serve a set of masters who had other, not entirely crazy, priorities. Not that those folks were all lovely and good or anything, far from it. But they at least had a sense of limits. They were still at least half grounded in reality, we might say. They would (and did) do bad stuff if they thought they could get away with it, but then, they recognized that you can't just do stuff and get away with it, that some bad actions inevitably entail some even worse consequences.
I just took a bit of cheap pleasure in sending that link to my wingnut father.
I think that what changed everything is that something about Bill Clinton drove a lot of Republicans mouthfoaming crazy, (you see, I, on the other hand, like the forced construction of adjectives by context, alongside the conspicuous omission of "-ly" as a transgression against language norms that I feel lends me proletarian cred) and for the life of me, I still don't know what it was about that guy that sent so many of those poor bastards over the bend.
wait, is someone (comments 13 and 17) intentionally going by the name of "" now? That could cause confusion.
I thought it was just an oversight, but it's someone new; pick a name, nameless one.
I recommend "Der Namenlose". (Even if you are a woman.)
What's with this whole fascist emphasis on naming things?
If a comment is posted by someone else who mistakenly doesn't include a name, it will be misattributed to you. Do you really want to be held responsible for comments like #25?
Okay, if I promise to start posting under a "real" name, will Unfooged.com start promising to be more serious about politics?
I mean, that Cheney interview has been all over political blogs for a long time.
24 and 25 were Cryptic Ned. 23, 17, 13, and 7, as well as an unattributed comment in the draft thread, were by some dork.
I think unfooged.com is still available, nameless one. Feel free to purchase the domain and make it as serious about politics as you'd like.
26, you are not in a bargaining position. Why should we give a rat's ass whether you think we're serious enough about politics or not?
My comments in this thread should not be taken to be representative of The Unfogged Bloggers as a corporate body or, indeed, of anything but my own opinion.
I mean, that Cheney interview has been all over political blogs for a long time.
Both Crooked Timber and Tiny Revolution just linked to this very Unfogged post. Seems like they hadn't seen it before and were quite surprised.
Maybe the true indie-rock political blogs will link to it as well, scoffing that it's old hat.
"Why should we give a rat's ass whether you think we're serious enough about politics or not?"
Well, probably not. I do enjoy the site, though, especially the comments. But you're being particularly bitchy tonight, Ben.
No, he's not. We insist that people pick a name and stick with it. Them's the rules around here.
If things have gone well I may have found a name for our new friend.
36: No, he's not.
Perhaps, in fact, might one not say that his bitching is particularly little?
I am pissed off, but mostly because of terminological inconsistency in Brat/man 1987.
If things have gone well I may have found a name for our new friend.
It's "El Hombre Muy Magnifico", isn't it? Please tell us it's "El Hombre Muy Magnifico"!
We'll just have to wait and see.
"Sin Nombre Virus" is kind of badass too.
Okay, if them's the rules, I select the name "nameless." If you want, I can surf around the Internet and find where this interview with Cheney was first posted on the left-wing blogs.
Not to pre-emptively speak for LB, but I suspect that 'nameless' may not in fact cut it. Ben should offer his suggestion.
I'd read the transcript of the remarks before; hadn't seen the actual video.
I'm afraid, pal, that you need to do better than that. Under the Lizardbreath amendment, names that disavow themselves or are variations on "lurker" are expressly forbidden.
45 was to 43, although honestly in some ways I like it better to 44.
This was my suggestion:
if ($app->remote_ip eq '(this person's ip)' && $comment->author eq '') {
$comment->author("Wry Cooter");
}
I had heard about these remarks a while back, but I hadn't seen the video until now.
If you translate "nameless" into some foreign language it should be distinctive enough.
Fuck. "nameless" for some goddam reason tripped the defective circuit in my brain that involuntarily records Garth Brooks songs in their entirety and now I have "Shameless" running through my head. I'm going to need to drink heavily before bed tonight.
49: But wait, is MovableType really Open Source yet? </boingboing>
I have no name and I must snark.
Anyone know of any videos where he's avowing the opposite position? It'd be interesting to see what changes in his delivery, if anything at all.
This is really crazy. I actually like you people (that is, your Internet personae). Why are you acting like this?
"Cupcake." Cute. I commented on a post about Cheney. I think what I had to say was useful. I have yet to see a substantive response. What is this, Ace of Spades?
It's really true, the Internet is high school on a global scale.
You claim to like this place, but you display no understanding of it. We want those who comment here to have stable names, and dislike names like "nameless" (or, perhaps, "no name"). What's the big deal? Just CONFORM DAMMIT
hey fuck u brah i have a claim on the misspelling posts.
If you cut 60 with a knife you will see troll blood.
60: A substantive response to what? Your comment #7? I mentioned it in #12.
It's very late at the end, and very short, but is there any substantive difference in delivery in how he says "Yessir" to the Iraq question?
(Amusing to see him dancing around the point on Lincoln. Lord, what slime.)
Here's a substantive response: The red.
Cheney does look very sincere when he speaks. Unlike Bush, or Rumsfeld. Maybe he, but not them, is a sociopath.
What I would like to see (and maybe it's been done and I just haven't seen it) is a reporter pin Cheney down to answering: "In 1994 you said invading Iraq would be a 'quagmire' because of x and y and z. What changed your analysis, and why?"
An answer's not that hard to spin (and I think ogged gets it right: " 9/11 changed everything"), but I'd at least like to see Cheney really pressed on it.
I would also like a pony.
You'd call that sincere? That's not the word I'd using. "Convincing", maybe, or practiced. I always get the impression that, yep, he certainly is getting away with it, whatever "it" is.
Sociopath is a hard call to make, but more and more, the fact that he appears to be incapable of even attempting to be funny strikes me as very weird and suspicious.
70: He did shoot a guy in the face. That was pretty funny.
An answer's not that hard to spin (and I think ogged gets it right: " 9/11 changed everything")
The trick is, then you ask what the pertinent changes were.
71: He's really more of a prop comic.
u smoking the crack?
my junior yeari watch that rummy every day between classes, becuase he was so damn good at the pressers.
he could asnwer shit w/o answering anything
anyone who has b een laid more than a few times could talk for a while w/o saying much
I bow to the superiority of 71 and 73.
Larger excerpt from the interview I linked in 65. God, the part where he's answering King's question about Scowcroft is creepy. It's the closest he comes to basically saying "yup, I'm the president", but there are plenty of other times he follows a similar reasoning.
72: well, right, that's what I meant by "pressed". But I think he'd be able to gin up an politically respectable answer along those lines (one that was likely, on close inspection, either meaningless or false or both--but it's not as if that would be different than anything else he says).
I have no name and I must snark.
Now that's some nerd cred.
Last night I dreamt of a parallel universe in which everyone living was someone who'd died prematurely in this one; I'd been sent there to recover someone important to something but who'd had a tragic accident in our own reality. I was going to steal them away for our own universe's purposes.
I'm so glad I brought this video back with me.
Y'all buncha troll-suckiz. Nameless doesn't have to register unfooged.com, 'cuz you already handed over the steering wheel here. Now what were we talking about again?
69: sigh. Ponies are so pretty, aren't they? Since Daddy won't buy one, I'ma show him and get my own someday.
Has anyone else read a book about the 1930s by the name of Dark Valley ? It's a very weird experience; everything old is new again. Either there are immutable patterns of politcs, or we're reenacting the 1930s for the benefit of childish Historian Gods. Some random Italian Fascist gave a quote that made a lot of sense to me: "Propaganda is the food of the convinced."
If you want, I can surf around the Internet and find where this interview with Cheney was first posted on the left-wing blogs.
Wasn't it on G/ary F/arber's blog?
Off with his head!
Like that'll fucking stop anything.
80: Has anyone else read a book about the 1930s by the name of Dark Valley?
It's a nice story, but it would've been nice, you know, if it had had a bibliography. Am I right, slol? (I say this not to trump, but because the book's damn enjoyable...I just can't trust a word I read with citations as shaky as those.)
Do you mean that it cites sources only in the notes, or that it doesn't cite sources at all?
...how many additional dead americans is Saddam worth? not very many..."
Awesome. It's like "dead american" is some kind of new currency, and Saddam's price in the market just so happened to go up.
What's wrong with "nameless" for Pete's sake.
Great clip, I should add.
baa, it's probably regarded as boring, like Anne Onymouse and Ivan Alias. Sue Brisket got a pass because nobody could spell it.
What if about a million people mailed that clip to the White House, asking innocently for clarification?
Lunar Rockette #75: It's the closest he comes to basically saying "yup, I'm the president"
Yes. Wouldn't that make an interesting collection of clips?
The invaluable Marty Lederman picked up on a recent occasion, Cheney's Larry King appearance, that was very telling.
There's something so very Mr. Burns about Cheney's stoop and hand-action in the clip in 65.
There's something deeply zen about Cheney. Everything fits comfortably in his universe. He is free from want. No amount of disapproval or human tragedy can take away his easy peace. There is no trouble or doubt.
This isn't new either, but remember how Bush used to be able to speak coherently, as in this 1994 debate?
Fuck. "nameless" for some goddam reason tripped the defective circuit in my brain that involuntarily records Garth Brooks songs in their entirety and now I have "Shameless" running through my head. I'm going to need to drink heavily before bed tonight.
You know, this alone almost makes "nameless" a good pseud.
Almost.
What's wrong with "nameless" for Pete's sake.
Where in the archives are the name rules listed? Is using a verb against the rules? How about an adverb?
I think the general rule is that the pseud should be something that LB can remember so there can be some continuity of persona.
If we had a nameless,an anonymouse, and a Guy Incognito, etc.., the conceptual namespace would get pretty crowded. I don't think there's a canonical comment listing the pseud rules, but most of them are just common sense. No [firstname][lastinitial], no names of presidents, make sure your pseud isn't to close to an existing commenter's, etc...
83,84: The author includes a "Selected Bibliography," which is just as well since the cites run like 80 pages alone.
I put up an incredibly dull post about this.
i vote for "he said what he had to say to get unimpeachable conservative credibility." oh, how my pragmatic conservative friends wanted his grownup ass in office.