From the Mercury News, Nov 27, 2005
As Cheney stands up, his polling goes down
BY MARK SILVA AND STEPHEN J. HEDGES, Chicago Tribune
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney, known for his deft exercise of power in the shadows...His stern, unbending activism, once seen as an advantage, now is being questioned, even by some who were early proponents of the Iraq invasion.
Larry Wilkerson, once chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, said the vice president, along with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, heads a cabal "of extreme nationalistic ... and messianic" voices within the Bush administration.
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Among Republicans, 80 percent in a Nov. 11-13 Gallup survey said they approved of Bush's job performance, while 68 percent approved of Cheney's. And a majority of all 1,006 voters surveyed rated Cheney's advice to the president as "bad."
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Officials at the State and Defense Departments have also groused about Cheney's opposition to a move to ban torture in the handling of detainees. Career diplomats have expressed worries about the implications of Cheney's position for the U.S. image abroad.
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...Cheney's supporters say he is merely seeking a balance that allows the United States to fight terrorists effectively.
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...Wilkerson said Cheney and Rumsfeld encouraged Bush to wield unbridled power in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"The vice president, the secretary of defense and others ... made this tremendous pitch for new world: `Mr. President, in this new world you are all-powerful. There is no power of the Congress that can stop you. You are commander in chief of the armed forces. You have the perfect right in this new world, where we are seeking security against this new and unprecedented threat, to make any rules or regulations you want.'"
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/13268733.htm"...American messianic nationalism...is an ideology rooted in the belief that the United States of America is uniquely an elect nation chosen by God to impose its way of life on the rest of the world by coercive economic means, and even by military force, if it deems necessary. Nations who pursue other ways of economic development than "free market capitalism" can be regarded as enemies, not only of the United States, but of God. This is particularly the case if they seek to mobilize a counter-bloc of nations against the global hegemony of the United States."
Rosemary Radford Ruether, the Carpenter Professor of Feminist Theology at Pacific School of Religion
http://www.witherspoonsociety.org/2004/ruether_call.htm