Cheney Didn’t Torture! Nixon Bugging Teddy, and Other News
28 August 2009 9:49 am by Taylor Marsh
“The Great White Hope” controversy
Racism and Republicans linked again. See video. Sheesh.
It takes a lot of nerve for Stephen Atta had a meeting in Prague Hayes to call someone else on honesty, but that’s what he does to Greg Sargent, who has been in an amusing back and forth with Cheney’s hagiographer for a few days. My favorite from Hayes on this one, there are after all so many, is the same that Sargent closes with today.
So I pointed out that the CIA Inspector General’s report make clear that senior CIA officials, not Dick Cheney, conceived and executed the controversial interrogation techniques.
Absolutely incredible. According to the Stephen Hayes view of Dick Cheney, he’s innocent, had nothing to do with torture! You know, because Cheney didn’t turn the screws, drown the detainees himself. Stunning, even for Stephen Hayes.
The Glenn Beck advertising boycott continues, amidst reports that his ratings are skyrocketing, with the LA Times “Show Tracker” giving the best report I’ve seen.
On the Middle East, which will be up front this fall, Aluf Benn analyzes:
“Settlement freeze in exchange for Iran sanctions” – that was the gist of an article published in Britain’s The Guardian newspaper on Wednesday, in advance of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with U.S. envoy George Mitchell in London later that day. The two discussed the anticipated announcement next month by U.S. President Barack Obama on the imminent renewal of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, as well as the subject of construction in West Bank settlements and gestures from Arab states toward normalization with Israel. The issue of Iran’s nuclear program, however, hovered in the background of their meeting. …
… After stripping the expected rhetorical flourishes from Obama’s gesture – the talk of peace and quotations from the Koran – its strategic purpose is laid bare: the formation of a regional coalition against Iran, led by the United States and with the participation of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the small Gulf states. Every member will have to contribute something…
Holbrooke and Karzai reportedly have words over election: The Obama administration official described the session with Karzai as a “difficult meeting” and “very tough,” but denied media reports that Holbrooke “stormed out.”
Okay. Well. Moving on…
Explosive allegations of Iranian rapes of detained Iranians, charged by reformer Mehdi Karroubi against the regime after the election, is reported in the Guardian:
An Iranian MP said today there is proof that some reformists were sexually abused in prison after the disputed presidential election in June. “Raping of some detainees through baton and soda bottle has been proved to us,” the unnamed member of the investigative committee was quoted as saying. His comments are the first official acknowledgment that prisoners were violated. Until now, Iran’s leaders had dismissed such opposition claims as mischief-making. One of the defeated reformist presidential candidates, Mehdi Karroubi, has alleged that some of those arrested after mass demonstrations were raped.
The death of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the clerical leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, has been big news, as the U.S. begins to mourn, honor and celebrate the life of Edward M. Kennedy. Juan Cole’s piece on it is important. Also see Gulf Analysis:
More than anything, through his political career, Hakim became a symbol of the chaos, the contradictions and the opportunism that have characterised Iraq in the post-2003 period. Having abandoned religious studies at an early level, Hakim made a professional career in the 1980s as a political-military operator in what was then called the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a Khomeinist outfit created by Iran in 1982 in order to maximise its control of the Iraqi opposition during the Iran–Iraq War. He returned to Iraq from Iran after the start of the Iraq War in 2003, and in August that year, after the death of his brother Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim in a terrorist attack in Najaf, was propelled to the top leadership position in SCIRI.
What happens to the Iraqi Shiites in this vacuum is anyone’s guess.
Moving to the topic of the moment, health care…
Karen Tumulty, someone entrenched in the health care debate, writes a very sobering article about the fate of any health care reform, post Teddy.
Students of history will likely appreciate revisiting the history of Kennedy – Nixon, Teddy edition, when the taping and watching of Teddy became a Nixon preoccupation: One reason to extend Kennedy’s protection was that the White House was could assign a Secret Service agent who would report on Kennedy’s activities. Via Nixon Tapes (h/t HuffPost):
… Early in the taping system’s existence, on April 9, 1971, President Nixon, Chief of Staff H.R. “Bob” Haldeman, and Press Secretary Ron Ziegler discussed the Kennedy family, monitoring democratic candidates, and Chappaquiddick (2:41, 2.5m) as well as the desire to tape Senator Kennedy (0:16, 290k), even though Haldeman reminds Nixon it is a crime to “bug” a Member of Congress. One of the rationales offered for bugging Kennedy and other democrats was that it cost less than hiring researchers or investigators.
Later in the spring of 1971, on May 28, the topic of conversation again between President Nixon and Bob Haldeman turned to wiretapping and creating a fund to monitor Kennedy (3:23, 3.2m). That summer, on July 2, again the idea was raised that funds “stashed away” could be used to “tail” Kennedy (1:15, 1.2m). Haldeman reported that there was approximately one million dollars available for such monitoring activities. President Nixon suggested that closer to two million would be needed. More than anything else, the White House was interested in catching Kennedy having an extramarital affair, which would presumably end his chances of making a presidential bid in the 1972 election.
During the fall, the White House continued to be concerned that Senator Kennedy would be the “dark horse” presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. On September 8, in a conversation in the Executive Office Building between President Nixon and John Ehrlichman, Nixon suggested “a little persecuting” (3:14, 3.0m) of Kennedy…
Mitt Romney to replace the Liberal Lion? Bad joke. So, who will be the place holder senator for Teddy’s seat? Could be Michael Dukakis, which is the current scuttlebutt. I decided to add one note here… My choice is Mrs. Vicki Kennedy, Teddy’s widow. She’s smart, classy, was invaluable to her husband, someone who knows the issues, including health care, and rumored to also have been Sen. Kennedy’s preferred choice.
And in the some things don’t change category, Mark Penn and the Wall Street Journal op-ed crew prove they deserve each other. Removing all doubt that he’ll ever change, Mr. Penn once again earns his pariah status (and that’s being kind).
