Parsing Dick

The idea that then-Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney ordered up torture to wring a confession of connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq in order to justify his long-planned war is on the verge of metastasizing into the big story, with only the enormity of this possibility holding it back. Read Joe Conason for the latest roundup and check out David Waldman bringing it to a CNN discussion where no one can refute his main point, that if an elected official conducted torture for political purposes, that would be a crime beyond any post-9/11 panic judgment:



The other panelists are woefully underarmed for this and try their usual mis/re-direction and comparative morality distractions to no effect. This is the big story, and no one has called Cheney on it yet:

The single most pertinent question that Dick Cheney is never asked -- at least not by the admiring interviewers he has encountered so far -- is whether he, Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush used torture to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq.

And as long as he stays out of investigations or hearings, he won't be asked -- not as long as he sticks to either conservative or wussified news media.

The question he was asked, by Bob Schieffer on this past Sunday's Face the Nation, was whether the President himself (W. Bush, remember?) authorized the torture policy. And his tangled answer, unusual for the always rehearsed and controlled-speech Cheney, has stuck in my mind all week:

Cheney: "I have every reason to believe that he [President Bush] knew [about the interrogation program]-- he knew a great deal about the program. He basically authorized it. This was a presidential-level decision and the decision went to the president and he signed off on it."

So let's take the man at his words -- and parse what he's really saying.

"I have every reason to believe that he [President Bush] knew [about the interrogation program]--

What, he doesn't know for sure if Bush knew about the program? He never had a direct conversation with him about it? He kept his hands clean by sending in his henchmen? Or maybe he slipped him the papers to sign in with everything else? Or maybe just never told him until the questions started coming?

-- he knew a great deal about the program.

What did you hide from him, Dick?

He basically authorized it.

He authorized it or he didn't? He didn't know he authorized it? You did it without authorization because of your Machiavellian view of the legal entitlements of the Vice Presidency? He played along later after he found out about it?

This was a presidential-level decision

Did Bush decider it or didn't he? Does that mean you did it as Vice President under the shield of the general Executive Office or your proximity to the President? Did you make the decision for the country and authorize it at the "presidential-level" yourself?

and the decision went to the president

Wait, so first someone (you?) made the "presidential-level decision" and only after you had decided (implemented?) the torture policy did the President rubber stamp it? Because it sure doesn't sound like the decision came from the President himself but was simply presented to him somewhere along the line without his even asking. (How different from our current Chief Executive.)

and he signed off on it."

And so Cheney comes to rest on this closer, recollecting himself, the plan from the moment he got the job of helping W. select his running mate, which Cheney of course made himself, that this would be the second coming of the Nixon White House only shrewder, standing behind rather than in front of the cameras, with the little self-deluded salesboy providing all the cover necessary to enact The Plans, all down the line.

All the way to indictment, ideally to cut it off at the pass.

This is the most revealing statement ever made by Cheney on the topic, and hats off to the crafty Bob Scheiffer (not as soft as you'd think) for tripping him up. The next question is going to be our will, not to mention our national morality. And if the nation's truthseekers are successful in pressing the question, then we're back to my thesis that either the Bush's close ranks with Cheney (they'll have to be completely sure that by doing so all will get a pass) or there will be a much, much more interesting situation.

I, for one, don't see Barbara Bush allowing her son to be dragged down with Dick.

But I've underestimated that family before.