I Am Not Dick Cheney!

Some anonymous troll from Washington DC left a message insisting that I react to some nonsense concerning the Libby trial and said troll left a link. Interestingly the link was left on a post concerning a Bears song rather than one of the extensive number of political posts that are on this blog. I wonder if the comment was left by a machine or an actual human. The blog post that that my “reaction” to is requested consists of a series of questions that the writer insists be answered by Vice President Cheney. Let me be clear, nowhere on this blog have I ever insinuated that I am Vice President Cheney and I will state categorically that I am not, nor will I ever be Dick Cheney; thus I cannot possibly answer questions posed to the Vice President. My “reaction” however is that I do have a few questions for the troll:


Do you realize that crucial accusations made by Joe Wilson were shown to be lies in his own Senate testimony* and that of his CIA “superiors” and his own wife?

Do you realize how unusual it is for a citizen to be sent on such a mission by the CIA without having to sign a silencing agreement?

Do you realize that the CIA authorized Mr. Wilson’s NY Times piece while knowing, as later Senate testimony has shown, that the central tenet of the piece was a lie? Mr. Wilson’s CIA controller testified under oath that the Wilson trip helped to solidify the argument that the Iraqi government was seeking yellow cake (a partially processed form of uranium) from Niger. Not the other way around as Mr. Wilson wrote at the time and has blathered on about for years.

Do you realize that Mr. Wilson’s testimony only came to light due the Republican Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan) who inserted the testimony into the Appendix over the objections of the Committee’s Democrats? The evenly split Intelligence Committee voted straight party lines on whether or not to release Mr. Wilson’s testimony, thus the only way that it saw the light of day was the insistence of the Republican Chairman. Did you know this?

Do you realize that Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush were elected?

Do you realize that nobody at the CIA holds elected office?

Do you realize that those who have promoted this Wilson story, both inside and outside of the CIA have been promoting the idea that unelected employees of the Federal government have every right to use their positions to undermine the elected government of the United States?

Do you realize that this form of fascism is being promoted largely by those who describe their political opponents as fascists and worse every day?

As to Scooter Libby, if he lied to Fitzgerald they will likely get him. However the idea that Executive branch does not have the right to defend itself from baseless and false public claims made by federal employees who hide behind the skirt of a possibly rouge agency is ridiculous. It has the obligation to defend itself from such attacks.

For those who are interested in finding out what Mr. Wilson and his CIA handler said under oath rather than what Mr. Wilson has said in public see here, here, here, and here. There is of course, more where those came from.

Ever since the NY Times published Mr. Wilson’s article I have wondered aloud why the CIA sent an middle aged white guy to the African nation of Niger, don’t they have any black guys?

* The link to the Senate version of Mr. Wilson’s testimony is missing now that the Democrats are in control of the Senate, culture of corruption indeed.