Did Cheney set Shrub up?

[JackSwift]

I have a conservative Republican friend who says to assume that every supposed screw up is in fact intentional (as a general rule in life and not applied to this case). And I have another conservative friend (only does local politics and on issues we agree on) who is not above constantly pulling dirty tricks to befuddle and embarass his enemies.

Now we know that Cheney knew for a fact the Niger document was crap. And we know that he and Rove both had a lot to do with day to day operations and would have insisted on approval of the final speech.

What was the upside for including this? They could have manufactured something vague and only oral and claimed it was secret. Yet they choose to use this. Why.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. Nope. He's into this one up to his ears...

No way this can take Bush and not take Cheney with him...too many fingerprints not enough clean hands.

[Bonobo]

2. That's an interesting theory...

It's worth thinking about anyway... Maybe Cheney is actually being controlled by secret subliminal messages from his pacemaker?

[NYC]

3. Hubris.

Most criminals think they won't get caught.

I think they truly thought they could get away with this.

[PurityOfEssence]

4. Accept it: they've screwed up

They've been more lucky than competent in their shocking run of good fortune. Plenty of enemies wait to do them in and they consistently overplay their hand.

That's just what this is, pure and simple: they wanted for years to "do" Iraq for the oil, get some other foothold in crudeville without having to rely on the highly unstable Saudis and avenge Daddy. They had to smack down an insolent slave, and they found a handy way to do it in an election cycle to force it through without organized resistance.

Because they'd strong-armed everybody on earth, they couldn't even bribe and threaten up a proper coalition. Cobbling together the most pathetic and flimsy innuendo and guesses to conjure some mythical danger, they stepped on toes, faces and ultimately, lives. They are roundly hated now, and the fear they've used to rule is that which causes people now to want them gone. Truly, they're hoisted by their own petards: lies, connections, thuggery and megagreed. They're not going to "share" anything with anyone, and the folks who thought they'd be able to coattail themselves to prosperity are "getting it".

They just fucked up laughingly.

Witness the SOTU response: had they not been tough-guy "decisive" jackasses, they might have kibbitzed a bit with the Brits and figured out that they had an easy way to just straight out say "hey, that's still good intelligence; they stand by it and their sources are privileged". Instead, they showed that it was a lie by bludgeoning Tenet into taking a bullet, which in itself was panicky and laughingly "non-male": they should have torched some subordinate so the other spooks might remain duped into thinking it could be encapsulated. By strongarming the man at the top, the whole intelligence community knows that they are all in peril.

They're fuckups, and with the sloppy but very real reciprocity of the universe, their fall will be suitably breathtaking.

[JackSwift]

5. I love it

but I still think that the reliance on this one mistake depends on it having legs.

[CWebster]

12. Nice work of it

.

[julka]

6. it's such fun watching the spin, though

[Merlin]

9. This is WAYYYY TOOO FUNNY!!!

LOL :-)

[Beetwasher]

16. THAT is friggin' HILARIOUS!

Kudos! LMFAO!

[nostamj]

19. Ann Telnaes is on the same wavelength today...

[invisibleplanet]

7. Cheney was part of Project New American Century.....

news from the world wide web, July 14th 2003

which has now 'disappeared' from the world wide web
it has been noted that between the dates July 3rd and July 13th, the website for the right-wing thinktank,
http://www.newamericancentury.org
which housed documents on Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Israeli/Palestine conflict, has disappeared from the web.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...rch?....century


it's good to see that some of it's pages are still cached in google so u can still read any docs u find if u click on cached

[newyawker99]

13. Hi invisibleplanet!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[bowens43]

8. The only set up was the administration

setting up Tenet to take the fall if they were caught. Bush Cheney, Powell, Rice and Rove knew the statements were lies.

[Gore1FL]

10. My answer is a bit more unique

Because inherently, the answer is yes, but not a specific yes, and not a pro-active "get bush " yes.

Bush has been and always will be a puppet. He serves the dual purpose of being "electable" and a convenient scapegoat, should the "electability" fail.

Look at the admin -- everything is done for politics. Should Bush accumulate too much baggage and lose "electability", they'll cut him out post haste and tie the strings to the next "front man".

IMHO, I believe the powers behind Bush see him as expendable, though they would prefere not to expend them.

Like everything else -- this is about getting and keeping power.

So to return back to the question posed in this thread:

Did Cheney (or others) set Bush up to fail? No

Did Cheney (or others) set Bush up to take a fall, if necessary? You betcha.

This isn't a power grab by Cheney, but it is the result of Cheney and companies policies.

[Ready4Change]

17. I agree with this, also.

.

[CWebster]

11. It doesn't seem likely since most likely he is often

pulling the strings. He is a shady character. Shifty-eyed, mean-spirited, sneaky. He needs Shrub because there is something fundamentally unappealing and untrustworthy about Cheney - something that he can't hide, that through unconscious mannerisms and underhanded deception, hits a sour note in the impression he projects. He needs the bumbling used car salesman as the front man, but I'll bet he resents it. He resents that smirking chimp incompetent boy. There was just a small segment of a speech Cheney gave reported on NPR. He joked about bush on the aircraft carrier, how he just loved wearing that jump suit: "He loved that suit so much he had a pair of pyjamas made just like it." Then at the dedication of the USS Ronald Reagan he made another reference to the crowd about how they would've preferred it if he had arrived on the deck of an aircraft carrier like Bush had. Something smells fishy.

[caledesi]

14. I think it's Cheney at the center of all of this.

He is the one who sent Wilson to Niger.
He got the results (Wilson said so).
Cheney didn't like the results.
Cheney is the one who had this bogus info put into every sppech he could.

My rule in finding the culprit is to look to see who is "hiding out" and that my friends is Cheney. Where is he? Why hasn't he chimed in? I mean when they were trying to sell this war, Cheney was on every talk show blathering away.

Where is Cheney and was hasn't he commented.

[noonwitch]

18. He must be at an undisclosed location again

Wasn't he getting his pacemaker checked while W was in Africa? Maybe the news wasn't so good.

[ronnykmarshall]

21. He's off running the "shadow" government.

Waiting for Chimpy to fall flat on his face.

I think there's something to this VP Dickhead waiting to take over from Shrub.

[Ready4Change]

15. 100% yes

On Sunday morning July 6th MTP turned a questioning eye on the Office of the Vice President, regarding the Nigerian uranium issue. Immediately the heat slid off Cheney and onto Bush, who's now playing hot potato with the CIA. But Cheney? Out of sight, out of mind.

I suspect, should it become obvious Bush is going to fall, that Cheney will be required to leave office "for health reasons" so that he can better avoid public scrutiny, rather than get put under the spotlight in the position of President. His doctor will cite undue stress from public office as causing heart problems.

All imho.

[Skittles]

20. NO

Bush is the frontman for the entire Bush Inc. scam. These arrogant f***ers actually thought Iraq was gonna be EASY, and questions that are arising now would be seen as sour grapes. No way in HELL did they know that soldiers would be dying everyday.