Gasp!
From Counterpunch:
May 15, 2007
Who's Looking Into Hookergate?
Cheney and the DC Madam's Cookie Jar
By Dr. SUSAN BLOCK
Recently, we learned that the tides of Hookergate II. rise much higher than we'd realized; that is, the Vice (as in "criminal") President patronizes prostitutes. This would be one big yawn; after all, prostitution should be decriminalized anyway, so who cares what this half-dead man does or did with his pallid little pecker? EXCEPT that this is the dick of Dick Cheney, Evil Puppet-Master of the Fascist Perma-War Universe, Chickenhawk Slaughterer of the Innocents, aimlessly shooting at hapless civilians, from children in Iraq to his own hunting buddy in the woods. With that in mind, we go to the report of my fellow Counterpunch writer and former U.S. Naval Officer Wayne Madsen:
"WMR has confirmed with extremely knowledgeable CIA and Pentagon sources that the former CEO who is on Deborah Jeane Palfrey's list is Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney was CEO of Halliburton during the time of his liaisons with the Pamela Martin & Associates escort firm. Palfrey's phone invoices extend back to 1996 and include calls to and from Cheney...while he was the CEO and maintained a residence off Chain Bridge Road in the Ballantrae neighborhood in McLean, Virginia, a few blocks from the headquarters of the CIA...."
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1992 - "It's the economy stupid." - Bill Clinton
2008 - "It's Iraq first and the economy second stupid." - the Public to the candidates
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How do you spell stooge?...Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute
I'm sure he wants that last star!
Posted by Seven of Six at May 15, 2007 03:29 PMUnfortunately, I don't think the biggest DICK in Washington is going to be touched by the DC Madame. The media movers and shakers are either enthralled by his manliness or constrained by NSA "research" into their personal pecadillos.
What might shake up the status quo is the fact that Michael Bloomberg is reported (yes, by the Washington Times!) to be ready to put a cool BILLION into an independent bid.
New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is prepared to spend an unprecedented $1 billion of his own $5.5 billion personal fortune for a third-party presidential campaign, personal friends of the mayor tell The Washington Times.
"He has set aside $1 billion to go for it," confided a long-time business adviser to the Republican mayor.
A $1 billion campaign budget would wipe out many of the common obstacles faced by third-party candidates seeking the White House.
"Bloomberg is H. Ross Perot on steroids," said former Federal Election Commission Chairman Michael Toner.
Now I am plenty worried about the effect of a rabid, independent run for the White House. That's because I think the dynamics strongly favor a Democratic candidate and the country would NEVER survive another Republic turd in the White Bowl after Bush.
However, let's think this through. I believe Bloomberg would suck up a lot of natural Democratic support. But I think, being a Republican, he would sweep up even more, non brain-dead Republican voters (I know! An oxymoron!)
Personally, I would be thrilled to see an independent candidate break through the duopoly of the Corporatist parties from which we now suffer. From what little I currently know of Bloomberg, he would be a HUGE improvement over ANY of the current Republican crop. Maybe even better than most of the Democrats. He is wildly popular with a majority of New Yorkers. If it was a three way race, I'd like to think it would be a contest between Bloomberg and the Democrat.
It would be a global tragedy if he allowed the Republican to squeak through an impossible victory, but I (hope) that the contest would push back the Republic, fruity candidate into the background and would be a choice between two semi-acceptable candidates.
Poor Lute doesn't realize that as soon as he signed on The Mad King, idiot son of George, began the search for the "War Pope". Once that's accomplished, he will then look for the "War Bathroom Attendant" and the "War Podiatrist". This Mad King is mysterious in his ways.
Posted by phidipides at May 15, 2007 04:16 PMHe is the war czar and he is not even a full general. What the heck is going on?
He is responsible for overseeing 2 wars and he isn't even a full general?????
Posted by Kimster at May 15, 2007 04:19 PMhunter is scout. Ignore.
Posted by iamcoyote at May 15, 2007 04:59 PMHe chose Lute this May so he can say "give Lute 6 months to clean things up." Thus, it is not Sept the new deadline for victory now Dec 2007.
I bet we are going to get another Mcain (Mcain has always said "give this policy 6 months to work"
Posted by mje at May 15, 2007 05:37 PMI was just reading Juan Cole's latest analysis. Evidently the US has 4000 men, nearly two brigades, searching for the 3 missing soldiers.
The searches are merely piling on new antagonisms and making more insurgents wholesale. Cole also points out that this is hardly an effective use of forces.
It tells the insurgents that they merely have to capture a few troops and vast forces will lurch away from any useful activity to go on a hopeless chase.
It is a glimmer of the mindless, directionless mess our war has become.
The insurgents are astonishingly deft at outmanuevering us and the question that haunts me lately is when will they hit a critical coordination to launch an Iraq version of the massive Tet offensive that unhinged the US War effort in Vietnam.
Milo regularly alludes to closer mortar fire encroachment on his base which suggests preliminary 'testing'.
Speakin O testing, can there be anything more baldly obvious than demented 'scout' attempting to reintrude as 'hunter' by doing a 'testing' post?
And does this deranged meth addled wreck get that even if he does slip a stupid post through, his crabbed sentence style and baldly obvious content will just shout "I'm scout" halfway through the first sentence?
Chris, you're right, the fighting is directionless, and the dying is pointless. And it's apparently illegal to put a military general in charge of the US forces. Even the SecDef has to be 10 years out of the military. There's a reason why civilians are supposed to be in charge of the military - to prevent them from taking over the government. Think maybe Cheney's got other ideas than War Czar?
Posted by iamcoyote at May 15, 2007 06:05 PMsince I ususally post on a subject before Soto puts it up, I'll just reprint my earlier post:
Bush has successfully located someone stupid enough to take the Iraq War off his back. Some General named Lute (last name, not first) is the War Czar !! Lute's duties will be to accept all blame from now on for Bush's Iraq War, including the deaths of 3400 GI's that preceeded his accepting the job, and the complete destruction of Iraq. From now on, all complaints about the War can and shall be directed at Lute. George W. Bush announced plans to leave immediately for Crawford, TX where he will cut cedar and mountain bike, no longer encumbered by Lute's Iraq War.
T2, how right you are my friend.
Another f*cking vacation at Crawford?
Posted by Judith at May 15, 2007 06:21 PMadditional comment: too bad for Rove that the death of the racist homophobe Foulwell stole the News Cycle from Lute's appointment/sentence. Actually, he couldn't have PLANNED it better....might be better to downplay the fact that George Bush, Commander in Chief, is incapable of commanding his own War, especially on the day the 3400th GI died fighting the Bush War on Terror (now known as Lute's War).
Posted by T2 at May 15, 2007 06:24 PMT2, as usual, in your gifted vision, YOU ARE CORRECT! Maybe we're better off with Lewd in charge. And Pansy Ass can go back to his ranch and blow off the rest of his stolen term in office, or he can blow those pigs on his farm. I'm very optomistic suddenly; FucHERwell is dead and Bush is no longer GOD!!!!
Posted by Mal Feasance at May 15, 2007 06:35 PMBREAKING: Lute has given Petraeus until December to show signs that Lute's Surge is succeeding. Congressional GOPers have warned Lute, in a "frank discussion" that they will have to see results of his Surge by January of 2008, or they may need to re-think their support of his Surge, or as the pundits have dubbed it, the Lurge.
Posted by T2 at May 15, 2007 06:53 PMCould there be some truth to the rumors out of the Middle East that Cheney's trip to the region was a warning flare to our allies that we are reducing our troop levels after Petraeus's report in September? Has the White House suddenly realized that GOP support will crumble after September?
The other clue is that the administration is trying to get the hydrocarbon bill pushed through the Iraqi parliament. My guess is that the reason the inside beltway crowd is nervous about Iraqi parliament taking the summer off is that the leverage the administration has over the deal will be materially less after September. The difference between a sort of standard deal and the one the administration drew up with the oil majors amounts to something like a trillion dollars worth of revenues. So I'm sure Cheney is going to lobby hard in Baghdad to get it passed. My guess, though, is that Iraqi parliament is in no rush to enter a bad deal; they expect their bargaining position to improve.
Posted by steve at May 15, 2007 07:06 PMNot convincing. Clearly, LTG Lute made his statements advocating the small footprint strategy at the same time that President Bush et al believed in it, too. It made sense, it just didn't work. That's happened in other wars, probably all of them. Events compelled Bush to change his mind and seek a different strategy. Isn't it reasonable that, perhaps, over the last 2 years, LTG Lute changed his mind about the course of action for the same reasons Bush did?
2 years ago, we criticized President Bush for being polly-anna'ish and stubborn in his advocacy of "stay the course". Well, he's since changed course from the small footprint to the local presence strategy. Are we now to flip-flop and criticize him for not sticking with the strategy we criticized him for 2 years ago? Because that's what we're doing by citing Lute's 2 year old comments.
LTG Lute’s role in the NSC will be to manage the cooperation and coordination of agencies and possibly act as a direct representative of the President who can move freely across bureaucracies vis-a-vis Iraq and Afghanistan . . . in other words, what the NSC does and should have been doing anyway.
The story here is more the NSC's failure to do its job than any radical departure of policy or command structure.
Isn't it reasonable that, perhaps, over the last 2 years, LTG Lute changed his mind about the course of action for the same reasons Bush did?
Of course it is when you continue to follow failed policy after failed policy.
2 years ago, we criticized President Bush for being polly-anna'ish and stubborn in his advocacy of "stay the course". Well, he's since changed course from the small footprint to the local presence strategy. Are we now to flip-flop and criticize him for not sticking with the strategy we criticized him for 2 years ago? Because that's what we're doing by citing Lute's 2 year old comments.
I don't know about you, but I (and a lot of us) have always critizied bu$h for being stubborn (or an idiot). And now, due to his current escalation or surge if you will, he has done nothing but increase the tension in Iraq and the whole Middle East.
The story here is more the NSC's failure to do its job than any radical departure of policy or command structure.
Let's put the whole failure where it lays, on the whole bu$h administration, and the 5-10 men pulling the strings on this whole neo-con fiasco!