More than one source reporting it now (including NPR via Reuters), but nobody's mentioned it here, so I will. George W. Bush stopped a plan to send US troops to a US town to arrest people on US soil.
Remember how the GOP, confronted on FISA or habeas corpus or constitutionality during the w/cheney years would claim they were keeping us safe and say, "your rights don't matter if you're dead?" They were lying: your rights don't matter if you're not dead, either. Vice President Cheney wanted to use US troops in US streets in 2002.
It's possible Bush kept us safer than Cheney wanted -- and apparently even Bush didn't always do as Cheney said although evidently their disagreement over whether or not I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby ought to get a Presidential pardon came nigher ending their relationship than Bush's decision not to send the Army after the Lackawanna Six, who were arrested by the FBI later.
It's the Libby fight that, apparently, let W figure out how to quit Dick, or maybe vice versa. That would've been the end of the relationship that first perhaps encountered difficulties in those early days after 11SEP01 when, by all accounts, Cheney was as gung-ho as any chickenhawk ever dreamed of being.
But Department of Justice lawyer John C. Yoo, the architect of the legal justification for torture of detainees, crafted a memo arguing that the Posse Comitatus Act doesn’t apply when the military is deployed domestically for a national security, rather than a law enforcement purpose.
The Yoo memorandum was declassified in March and stated, “The president has ample constitutional and statutory authority to deploy the military against international or foreign terrorists operating within the United States,”
Cheney’s solution was to bring in the military and declare them enemy combatants, which could be accomplished under a lower threshold of evidence.
Ultimately, the F.B.I, Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, John B. Bellinger III, the lawyer for the National Security Council and others argued against the plan, reasoning it would essentially look bad to have U.S. soldiers converge on a suburban neighborhood.
After the Obama inaugural, Bush retired to Texas -- nice house in Dallas, few speaking engagements, lots of exercise. Cheney, by contrast, isn't fading from the national -- or the political -- scene.
In response to the Time article, Cheney said, "Scooter Libby is an innocent man who was the victim of a severe miscarriage of justice. He was not the source of the leak of Valerie Plame's name. Former Deputy Secretary of State, Rich Armitage, leaked the name and hid that fact from most of his colleagues, including the President. Mr. Libby is an honorable man and a faithful public servant who served the President, the Vice President and the nation with distinction for many years. He deserved a presidential pardon."
On "The Early Show Saturday Edition," Time assistant Managing Editor Michael Duffy explained that Libby was the "vice president's top aide, long-time adviser on both domestic and foreign policy, and he got in trouble with the law. What we find fascinating is ... that the vice president pressed President Bush three times for this pardon. And even after the president had decided it once, twice, and with some finality, it kept coming back up.
"That was an interesting insight - a window into this relationship that was really the most important in the last ten years in our country, and not very well-reported, a hard-to-read, transparent, opaque, kind of very difficult relationship to understand, and this is the really first time anyone climbed into their back-and-forth.
"I think everyone on both staffs, the vice president's staff and the president's, realized this was coming to a head in a potentially very volatile way," Duffy continued. "Everyone was quite nervous about it; both sides took fairly hard positions. The president at one point told his own personal lawyer that, if he had to take a poll on whether to give Libby a pardon, it would be 100-1 against in his staff.
"And so, by the time the Bush White House is coming to a close in the final three or four days, it's really kind of both sides are at loggerheads with each other. And in the end, Bush would just have to give the news to the vice president himself."
Did Mr. Bush have concerns that Cheney wasn't being completely honest in insisting Libby had nothing to do with the leak?
"I think there was some concern deep down among some in the White House," Duffy told co-anchor Chris Wragge. "We quote people saying, 'Even we weren't entirely sure what the deal was between Cheney and Libby.' But I think Bush decided not to do it because he didn't feel Libby was remorseful and he felt that he had in fact broken the law.
"What's interesting is that, since they've left office, this is another place where the two men have gone separate ways, (with ) Bush retiring fairly quietly to Texas, and Cheney staying in the fray here (in Washington)."
The Time article indicates that Bush, as was his wont, made up his mind and stuck by his decision.
The Libby pardon, aides reported, had become something of a crusade for Cheney, who seemed prepared to push his nine-year-old relationship with Bush to the breaking point — and perhaps past it — over the fate of his former aide. "We don't want to leave anyone on the battlefield," Cheney argued.
Bush had already decided the week before that Libby was undeserving and told Cheney so, only to see the question raised again. A top adviser to Bush says he had never seen the Vice President focused so single-mindedly on anything over two terms. And so, on his last full day in office, Jan. 19, 2009, Bush would give Cheney his final decision.
I'm not sure what drove them apart. Yoo's memos were anything but conducive to the rule of law, and Cheney favored pushing the executive powers' envelope well past Constitutional limits thereupon.
Maybe there's more of his dad in W than we knew after all?
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Tap, tap, tap: is this thing
turned on?
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
why yes, yes it is!
i'm not sure what to make of this post, and i can't for the life of me find something that i read on the interwebz years ago, but it seems to me that bush sr picked cheney to be bush jr's vp, over bush jr's objections.
hi hipparchia! What I hoped to convey is NOT rehab for W,
but it does look that way in retrospect.
The big point for me is that in 2002 they actually tried to figure out a way to send US troops to a US town to arrest people. Whether Bush refused to go along out of fear that he'd get caught, as suggested below, or out of fear that he might not be able to get this past his dad, quien sabe? Or was there something else there -- if he let Cheney send troops to Lackawanna, was he scared Cheney might not need him anymore?
One of the things you have to remember about the Bush family is that W usurped the place they'd prepped for JEB, to hear them tell it. The BCF acronym has fallen out of fashion, but maybe we ought to revive it.
They want that other boy to get his turn at the money fountain too, now that it looks like their oldest isn't going to jail after all.
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
jeb!
yes, we here in florida are soooooo looking forward to having him as president! texas got a double whammy -- george jr as governor followed by george jr as prez. florida got a double whammy -- george jr as prez while geroge's bro was governor. if jeb gets elected president at anytime while i'm still on this planet, i'm going to lead a florida secession movement.
if he let Cheney send troops to Lackawanna, was he scared Cheney might not need him anymore?
that's an explanation i hadn't thought of.
i have to admit, my knee-jerk reaction to much of what bush jr did in office relates somehow to what bush sr wanted to happen, though whether he followed dad's orders, or resisted them instead, i don't know. but i always weigh everything in this framing precisely because of george's 'usurpation' of jeb's 'rightful' place.
gotta stop umm, before they mullltiiplllyyyyy (Bushes, that is)
I really cannot fathom how the BCF continues to command believability, let alone respect. Either there's a *lot* more money there than we know about, or somebody's got pictures of all their potential opponents in compromising positions with underage furries...
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
heh
your mulltiiplllyyy made me think of tribbles...
they've got money, they've got longstanding connections [as in multiple generations], and they've got oil. i think that last one may count for a lot.
Hi, hipparchia!! I stole it off a bugspray commercial on local
TV here. I'd forgotten about the "Bandar Bush" angle. Thanks for reminding me.
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
Much Worse!! Prob. Worse Than Many Could Ever Imagine!
Did Bush see through Cheney's fanaticism and push back as a matter of principle -- or did President Bush simply feel that old Dick was just pushing for too much too soon in terms of bringing to life their (mutual) dream of setting up a fascist dictatorship in the U.S. (w/Bush ostensibly as it's head)? I think it's perhaps a little bit of both but that mostly it's the latter. After the irregular (i.e. stolen) ending of the election and the narrow "win" in 2000 and the impending recession that Bush was already facing - I don't think that Bush had quite yet found his imperial footing and sense of absolute entitlement that was to characterize his later years as our supreme conmandante and so this led to some stand-offs. . it seems to me that (at this point) Bush was still having some fits of self-doubt and occasional moments of self-recrimination perhaps (at least) as to whether or not he could pull off some of this/these more galling/outrageous maneuvers that his staff was strategically presenting to him. .
After all -- pragmatically speaking -- if they got caught -- it would likely be the president and not his advisors who would bear the brunt of the responsibility (or so I imagine, the President's line of thinking ran) . . And so it was that Bush (probably only out of a fear of getting caught, I maintain) would try at times to keep his more power-mad subordinates (or attempt to keep them) in a state of check -- while they would in return attempt to steamroller/arm-twist him and (everyone else in kind) while asserting more and yet still more authority for themselves and their backing corporatist/stakeholder interests. . It was a war of the puppet against the puppeteers. . an internal power-struggle/warring of the GOP 'elites,' with the -- I think "inherited" authority (presumably seen as God given power, or power of birthright) of Bush's 'nobility' or 'blue-blooded' nepotistic claims (to the throne) (plus Bush's actual physical occupation of the Oval Office) versus Cheney's corporatist power, and sheer megalomaniacal greed and power-hungriness (and career-criminal level of experience) (minus Cheney's physical occupation of the lesser V.P. slot, which despite his alpha-dog superiority in most practical matters -- classified him, at least technically as a subordinate/2nd banana). Most of the time Cheney I think would get deferred to out of fear or respect (because let's face it Cheney was one scary mofo) but occasionally Bush would stand up for himself. . if only (as I say) in an attempt to cover his own butt. . But let's look at what we do know now --
Each time some new little tidbit of information is uncovered in the history of the BUSHCO criminal enterprise - the puzzle pieces seem to reveal whole new dimensions into this never-ending story of an organized criminal infiltration and takeover of our govt., . . it's part of a larger story of the Bush Crime family that goes back for generations, starting perhaps with the Prescott Bush's ties to the Nazi's back in WWII:
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/bushco...
Given what little we know -- which still isn't much/enough admittedly -- greatly due, in large part - to the Obama administration's pig-headed insistence on "looking forward and not back," (whatever that is supposed to mean, as it seems that very little progress can be made in this country until justice has been served w/regard to these matters, or at the very least attempted and until investigations are underway to find out exactly what happened and what must be done to correct..) and, given Obama's continuous efforts since inauguration at a concerted whitewashing and cover-up of any/all Bush era malfeasance -- (blah, de blah-blah) anyway -- from what we know, that is -- evidence has already surfaced that our fourth branch/imperial executive office was obviously engaged in a illegal power grab that stretches back to early on in the administration -- indeed very early -- illegal wiretaps and surveillance, for example and circumvention of FISA laws, etc., had begun as soon as (pre-9/11) 2001, as described in this article from Counterpunch, for example:
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02202...
"Bush pressured telecom companies to break the law in order to enable his illegal spying. In court documents, Joseph P. Nacchio, former CEO of Qwest Communications International, states that his firm was approached more than six months before the September 11, 2001, attacks and asked to participate in a spying operation that Qwest believed to be illegal. When Qwest refused, the Bush administration withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Nacchio himself was subsequently indicted for insider trading, sending the message to all telecom companies to cooperate with the Bush regime or else."
And, before that, even before Bush was elected, he was boastfully announcing to journalists that, "If elected, he was going to invade Iraq,"
http://www.infowars.com/bush-told-housto...
"Two years before the 9/11 attacks on America, George W. Bush told a Houston journalist if elected president, “I’m going to invade Iraq.”
Bush made the comments about starting an aggressive war to veteran Houston Chronicle reporter Mickey Herskowitz, then working with Bush on his book “A Charge To Keep,” later brought out by publisher William Morrow."
And so (or so I think anyway) we can safely assume that covert illegal activities (spying on political opponents, C.R.E.E.P.-like bags of 'dirty tricks' being deployed, covert assassination squads being formed, illegal and indefinite detentions ordered on flimsy, trumped up, or no evidence at all, torture programs implemented and kept hidden, concentration camps being set up both abroad by U.S.-run/personnel and by proxy in nations like Egypt, Turkey, etc., concoction of leading or 'fixing of' intelligence to suit pre-determined policy((i.e. invading Iraq))/'stove-piping' of intel'' and lying to the public to gin up reason/s/support for the Iraqi invasion/s, etc., etc.) that all of this that was already public knowledge to date -- was in fact only the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to examining the Bush administrations record of rampant criminality while in office (even - shockingly - ((gasp)) prior to 9/11/01, perhaps beginning as early as 2000, in my humble, if inexpert, opinion basing what I know on what little facts have been made available) . .
. . and given all of that -- I think that there was this strong ambition on the part of the buscist fashioners (Cheney being chief-most among them to be sure, but there were others, Addington, Yoo, Bybee, Rumsfeld, et al.) -- to put measures into place to prevent a possible public backlash -- whether from U.S. citizens or from independent news & grassroots organizations, or what have you. . perhaps from recalcitrant members of Congress. . (along similar lines there has been some question as to whether the 'anthrax letters' which began getting distributed back in Sept. 2001, were committed by an official or ((more likely)) officials w/in the U.S. govt. --see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_E._Ivins )
In sum, then, it seems (to me, anyway), that this planned 'preventive' invasion of Buffalo, NY - ostensibly to arrest a handful of (six) U.S. citizens suspected of being terrorists (the Buffalo née Lackawanna Six) and the corresponding attempted shift of precedent toward a militarized method of arresting and detaining U.S. citizens (and their subsequent classification as illegal 'enemy combatants', etc.) that all of this was plotted by 4th branch and it's OLC memo-writing flunkies in Sept. of 2002 apparently in an attempt at damage control and at laying down the future groundwork for a police state/militarization of the justice dept., JIC the sh*t really started to hit the fan w/regard to the ongoing criminal enterprises of Bushco -- and it began to blow-back against the imperial president and his 4th branch architects/puppeteers. This would seem to me, at any rate, the natural inclination of an administration that was already apparently involved in widespread covert illegal activities for years hoping to inoculate themselves against reprisals and recriminations for their activities.
Fortunately, I think that some (relatively speaking) "cooler heads" apparently prevailed in/on this matter and it was finally determined that this (military invasion of NY) was a bit too heavy-handed of an approach. . and that regular FBI arrests and detainments/trials and such were sufficient to do the job here.
Presumably as as corollary soon thereafter (months later in early 2003) Ashcroft attempted to ramrod his Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 (Patriot II) through congress (probably again, in an attempt to retroactively immunize the administration for actions they had been taking illegally for (most like) years, and were afraid they would get caught at) under the auspices of further protecting Americans from the growing variously color coded 'terrorist threat' that loomed but this time they were met with firmer opposition in Congress and Patriot II did not go through quite as well as version I did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_Se...
The Administration then moved onto it's invasion of Iraq the following May as presaged by Bush prior to his election in 2000.
See also office of special plans regarding stove-piping:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_S...
Given that the Bush Administration and it's apologists at this time were so fond of calling anyone who disagreed w/any of their actions or pronouncements 'terrorist sympathizers" and/or loudly questioning their patriotism and trying to label them 'traitors' and the like (as they are now in present day calling anyone and everyone ((no matter how moderate)) who disagrees with their policies 'socialists' and 'communists' once again in a throwback to the cold war and HUAC, etc.). . it seems to me that much or all of this hoo-ha back then was an attempt (again) to begin establishing (or laying the initial groundwork for at least) precedents and procedures for arresting/disappearing U.S. citizens with or without charging them and 'indefinitely detaining' them without access to lawyers under the guise of these people being 'suspected terrorists.'
BLamb
Not my analysis, but I read that this seems to be part of rehab
of George W. Bush's reputation: Things are going to "come out" which show him as the "good guy," trying to prevent the NeoCon excesses, fighting off the Cheney dark side, or some such approach. They've laid low, waiting for the Obama glow to subside a bit, and now are working the MCM* and spinning, spinning, spinning to rehab The Worst President Ever.
Good analysis and sources, BL. The Memory Hole is open for absorbing the truths of Bush's excesses and poor governance; the MCMers are getting the shovels out to scoop the truth into that Memory Hole. Much will be forgotten; most forgiven; then BushCo can take its rightful (actually wrongful) place in the pantheon of conservative Republican leadership....
Just you wait....
*MCM--Mainstream Corporate Media
The rehab is pretty simple, right?
The extreme stuff is everything that Cheney wanted to do that Bush stopped.
Everything else is stuff Bush did that Obama normalized.
Yay!
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Amy Winehouse ain't got nuthin' on these slime.
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JFK has been shot, we miss him a lot
He always knew what to do
-- Philly Cream