I really wasn’t going to write tonight, but I came home from school and who was right in the middle of my TV screen when I turned on Keith Olberman’s show but Dick Cheney. And what he was saying was not only incredible, it REALLY BRINGS UP SOME GOOD POINTS! If you didn’t see it, not only was Dick Cheney continuing his defense of torture – BLATANTLY CONFESSING THAT HE’S A WAR CRIMINAL RIGHT ON NATIONAL TV (I guess this happened on Face the Nation on Sunday June 10th, Mark it down! – but he also clearly implicated George W Bush! When Cheney was finished there could be no doubt that the order to torture came right from the desk of George Bush with the total complicity of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Tenet, Rove, Rice, Addington, and others “down the line.” More than “outing” his former boss (of course everyone knew this anyway – in fact Bush has admitted to authorizing waterboarding himself – it’s just the principle of this thug Cheney – I need to come up with a better word, because the man has NO principles!) Cheney went on to call for a full investigation of the torturing program – which he thinks will prove that torture is what “kept us safe” for 7 years.

As incredible as all this seems to me – surrealistic is a better way to put it – sometimes I think I’m in the middle of a bad dream. Dreaming that MY COUNTRY TORTURES people and then I wake up and there’s Cheney admitting to torturing people. It’s not a dream, these guys actually did all these horrible things they’ve been accused of. And for all the lying that Cheney did during his 8 years as Vice President, it sounds like he’s finally telling the truth. Probably because the truth is coming out whether he likes it or not, so now he has to go on the defensive to protect his interests which include a massive bank account “garnered” by funneling billions upon billions of dollars of no-bid contracts to Halliburton – one of the multi-national corporations which is happy to take mega tax dollars for jobs either poorly done or not done at all at the expense of our troops in Iraq – yet moved to Dubai in order to avoid paying a dime in taxes to the US and also to avoid potential prosecution for shoddy work in Iraq and Afganistan. Work that endangered the health and safety of the very troops Dick Cheney, George Bush, and the others were so willing to proclaim they were “supporting.”

And not that I want to get sidetracked here, but to give a little more “background” on the veracity of Cheney – the man that Rush Limbaugh is now proclaiming to “love his country” (these guys are such prolific liars that they believe their own lies before the words come out of their mouths) – let’s look at Cheney as CEO of Halliburton. Now, I don’t have a single statistic in front of me and I’m just using the logic and inferential skills I try to teach my SIXTH GRADERS – but Cheney had done nothing in the “private sector” prior to being named CEO at Halliburton that would indicate that he could run an oil services business. What he had done was head up the Pentagon and he knew the “ropes” on how to get cushy government contracts – you know the ones where the government pays a couple thousand dollars for a toilet seat and “deals” like that. I dare anyone out there – again, I’ll state that I don’t have a single statistic in front of me – to provide evidence that would refute what I believe is the inevitable result of Cheney being Halliburton’s CEO – and that is GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS (especially no-bid contracts) HAVE INCREASED EXPONENTIALLY SINCE HE TOOK OVER! I’ll even bet that the increase in government contracts didn’t slow down a bit once he became Vice President. The man has NO SHAME whatsoever – if anyone actually has the guts to fully investigate this crook, I believe what they find out will turn Dick Cheney into one of the most despised men in American history (and I’m pretty certain that Donald Rumsfeld will be right there with him should he be investigated as well).

Back to tonight’s “saga” on TV. Does anyone else out there find it interesting that Cheney is calling for an investigation and the Democrats – especially President Obama aren’t? As I’ve stated before, I believe with all my heart that President Obama, Attorney General Holder, and the Congress of the United States are obligated to give Cheney his wish. Not only that, he should be called before Congress and forced to testify about torture and a host of other allegations – UNDER OATH! Remember, Cheney doesn’t like to do anything under oath. The man clearly “outed” Valerie Plame Wilson, a covert CIA agent – a treasonous offense – everyone knows this, yet Congress refuses to investigate. Him and George Bush conspired to lie our country into a war of choice against a nation that posed NO THREAT to us – the first time in our history such a premeditated act has been committed, hundreds of thousands of people (by some accounts over a million) are dead because of this – and yet no investigation or accountability. Cheney, I’m sure of it, was behind the warrantless wiretapping (which is still going on – by the way) of millions of Americans which is a HUGE PILE of felonies if you take the law literally – unfortunately, our Justice Department apparently doesn’t take the laws seriously when the crimes are committed by high government officials – kind of like they do in THIRD WORLD NATIONS!

God Bless President Obama, I hope with all my heart that he turns the economy “around,” and I wish he didn’t have “so much on his plate.” But, the reality is that he does have so much “on his plate” and he has no choice but to act on this stuff or face the consequences of inaction. While President Obama is “reaching out” to Republicans, I guarantee you they are trying to figure out how to “stab him in the back.” Inaction regarding these clear offenses against the international laws against torture, not to mention our own laws against torture (remember, we were the driving force behind the Geneva Conventions) – plus looking the other way for all the other “stuff” will be a blight against Obama’s Presidency forever! If I could talk to him I would plead that he act decisively and quickly. I know he feels that “looking forward and not backward” will prevent us from going through a bitter fight as a nation, but I GUARANTEE YOU THAT LOOKING THE OTHER WAY WILL BE WAY WORSE AND WILL DIVIDE THIS NATION EVEN MORE. The Cheney position is INDEFENSIBLE. The idea of looking the other way is INDEFENSIBLE. All of the allegations of the Bush years need to get a full public AIRING! This stuff needs to ALL COME OUT – The health of our nation depends on it. Please President Obama, give Dick Cheney what he wants – a full criminal investigation of the Bush administration’s authorization of torture!

I would like to end there, but Cheney did something else that was beyond the “pale” tonight, and it put an exclamation point on where the Republican party is at present (and, keep in mind, despite my disgust with Republicans at this point, I’m really pulling for the party to get their act together – get rid of these tired old thugs who are seemingly in charge – we need an actual conservative party to challenge the Democrats – but they’ve got to have at least a bit of integrity. A couple days ago, I purchased “Conscience of a Conservative” by Barry Goldwater – I haven’t read this book for 40 years and I just wanted to see if my memory is that bad, or have these guys really strayed that far from where conservatives were in the 60’s – that book gave me my perspective on “conservative” and I don’t recognize any of it in ANY OF THE REPUBLICAN LEADERS!). While I believe Colin Powell allowed himself to be “used” in the run-up to the Iraq War, and he hasn’t spoken out like I believe he should have once the “truth” was known (the guy’s a soldier, and I believe he just couldn’t bring himself to be insubordinate to the “commander in chief”) he is one member of the Republican party I can respect. Tonight I actually heard Dick Cheney say he would prefer Rush Limbaugh as a Republican to Colin Powell. Of course, Powell came out in support of Barack Obama during the last Presidential Campaign – and, true to his nature, Limbaugh couldn’t give Powell the intellectual respect he deserves and stated that Powell’s decision wasn’t based on his judgement that Obama was the best candidate, but was based solely on race. Well, anyone who’s listened to Limbaugh at all (you don’t have to listen to him for an extended period of time to figure this out) knows he is a racist thru and thru. Powell has served as a General of Generals (can’t remember the exact title right now) for a Republican president, Secretary of State for George W Bush, he’s a decorated war hero (remember neither Cheney nor Limbaugh ever served a day in the military) and I’m convinced Powell could have been the Republican nominee for President had he wanted to run – the guy is the one Republican left with any credentials that might include honor – and Cheney is willing to “trade” him for Rush Limbaugh! Really, THAT SAYS IT ALL!