If you’ve been to this site before you could be getting as sick of Dick Cheney as I am. I’d really rather write about something more significant, but I just feel so strongly that these Republicans need to be put out to pasture – PERMANENTLY – for the sake of our nation that I’ve got to keep writing. I mean these guys ran us all into the poor house (well, not all of us – those trillions that were hijacked from our economy had to go somewhere – and I’m sure if you’re reading this, you have a good idea who got the money – you guessed it, all the right wingers who have been clamoring for tax cuts for the past 30 years while they’ve been raping this economy for unbelievable amounts of money – it appears they are insatiable!), they got us involved in a seemingly endless unwinnable occupation in Iraq, they have virtually worn out our military (you know, in case their dream comes true that we would be attacked under Obama’s “watch” we are borderline defenseless), and they’ve indebted us up to our ears to our worst enemies (at least they should be our worst enemies – for anyone who’s not paying attention, almost all the 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia).

And now Cheney just won’t shut up. He’s creating a pile of lies that could only happen in America where you’ve got a public TV Station disguised as a news outlet (Fox) which continues to give Cheney a forum to make the pile deeper. Unfortunately, there’s a fair number of Americans who will listen and watch this garbage and “take it to the bank.” I work with a man who has a Master’s Degree and should know enough to double check his information, yet he buys this crap hook line and sinker – which just tells me there’s many more people who do the same thing. It’s like they can’t see the forest for the trees. This particular man is likely to lose his job due to the incompetence of the Bush administration and their eight year attack on our institutions (I really am hoping that he doesn’t lose his job, but it looks inevitable to me) yet he continues to speak as if Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly has a microphone imbedded in his system. For a public school teacher not to be able to see past their overt racism is a bit unnerving to me, but I’ve always thought at some point I could get him to see past their lying rhetoric. My point is that there are a lot of good Americans who are unwittingly falling for Cheney’s crap. And, it’s up to the Democrats and President Obama to do something about this.

President Obama doesn’t want to “look backward” because of the divisiveness it will cause. Well, EARTH TO OBAMA, “looking forward” is causing more divisiveness. Cheney and the others know they are guilty of war crimes. It’s like they’re daring us as a nation to do something about it. Cheney has admitted to more illegalities than anyone I’ve seen in my lifetime – at least in front of a national TV audience. And, how can the Justice Department and the President of the United States pretend that they aren’t noticing this. It’s unbelievable to me that we are even having this conversation – on more than one front. First, I can’t believe that the Bush administration lowered themselves to the level of torturers, illegal domestic wiretappers, CIA outers, and liars extraordinaire to get us stuck in this endless occupation. That, in itself, seems unbelievable to me.

Then you have the national tour by Cheney where every day he admits to another major crime as he continually tries to justify “all of the above.” Today he admitted (finally) that there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11. He did mention the memo from Mohammed Atta that supposedly linked Hussein with Al Qaeda which was then proved to be a hoax. What he failed to say (and I was surprised that Keith Olberman didn’t know this) was that the memo in question was forged by the CIA on direct instructions that came right out of the Vice President’s office – according to a book written by Ron Suskind (I can’t remember the title off hand, and it’s one of the books I’ve taken to school for my workmates which has caused them to walk the other way when they see me coming, because the reality of what our government has done is too depressing to them to take the chance that I might talk to them about it – they’re all teachers and focused on teaching children not solving national problems). Cheney is the most egregious liar I’ve ever seen. George Bush is pretty adept at lying, but he’s no match for Cheney. Actually, Bush is coming out from under his “rock” and starting to echo some of Cheney’s lies, so I might have to alter this point in the near future. Remember, Bush’s lawyer was none other than Alberto Gonzales – who committed perjury more times than any person I’ve seen, at least on national TV (these guys aren’t shy – or proud), in my lifetime.

As disgusting as all of that is, probably the worst part of all this is the lack of courage by the Democrats in calling a “halt” to things that are so wrong. There shouldn’t be a second thought about standing tall against it. I don’t think I will ever be able to forgive Nancy Pelosi for taking “Impeachment off the table.” How does one in her position do that? If you take an oath to defend the constitution, and the remedy for executives in the government committing “high crimes and misdemeanors” is impeachment, I just don’t get the rationale that one person gets to over-ride a document which has been the backbone of this nation for well over 200 years (in fact, the way to destroy that document is to either not enforce it, or like what is happening in today’s Washington DC – selectively enforce it). And, now you have President Obama and his Attorney General looking the other way as members of the previous administration admit to crimes as harsh as war crimes – on a daily basis. I guess President Obama’s thinking goes something like “If I get the economy straightened out, people will forget about all this torture stuff and I’ll get re-elected” – which may be true, but it will happen without my vote.

Here’s the problem with that kind of thinking. There are going to be more recessions, the economy goes up and down like a roller coaster and will continue to do so, no matter how it comes out of this recession/depression. The only thing that is going to endure from what is happening on the national scene today is the legal crisis which seems to be secondary to our President. We will continue to be at odds with the Muslim world as long as we leave the impression that we are condoning the torture which took place at Abu Ghraib, GITMO, and the other secret prisons around the world. And, it would be those who want us to get attacked again who would be happy with an endless conflict with the Muslims in this world. Jesse Ventura surmised (and I’m thinking correctly) that the reason nothing is happening in the accountability phase of our torture debate is because the Democrats are culpible. Now, I’m thinking if any Democrats are culpible it would be Pelosi and maybe Senator Rockefeller (the guy who caved on the FISA legislation) and for anyone who thinks I’m totally partisan – if they’re guilty of something regarding the torture issue, LET IT BE KNOWN! If we don’t throw the book at the Bush administration (and anyone else involved in their shenanigans) our nation will pay the price for that for the indefinite future. THE REASON I KEEP HARPING ON THIS ISSUE, IS BECAUSE IT’S SO IMPORTANT!

More and more people on the national scene are beginning to come around on this issue. The other day I listened to General Ricardo Sanchez, the General who was in charge in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib scandal say essentially the same thing I’ve been saying for months. THERE MUST BE AN INVESTIGATION – he called it a truth commission. And, he said that the issue of accountability should be determined by the findings of the commission – nothing, including prosecuting the guilty parties, should be “off the table.” After the 2006 elections it was almost as frustrating for me to listen to Pelosi defend her “Impeachment is off the table” stance as it was to persevere during the final years of the Bush administration. And, it’s getting REALLY FRUSTRATING listening to Obama saying essentially the same thing about prosecuting war criminals. You have to wonder if the Republicans have “something” on the Democrats that “keeps them in line.” I know there is one thing I can agree with Newt Gingrich on (although our reasons are totally different) – I say that if there are not agressive hearings in the house regarding the torture, the dismissed justice department attorneys, the ignored subpoenas, the illegal wiretapping, the outed CIA agent, the lying us into war, and Henry Paulsen’s role in the TARP bailouts (to list a few of the outrageous acts of the Bush administration) – if she doesn’t think these things are important enough “to get to the bottom of them” – then just as Gingrich said – NANCY PELOSI SHOULD RESIGN AS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE!

I’ll end tonights diatribe by saying I’m not giving President Obama or Attorney General Holder a pass here either – It’s just that I’ve gone way over my limit already tonight. Their hesitancy to uphold our laws is unbelievable to me as well. And, I’m not trying to be totally negative – but, it’s been almost 6 months since Obama took over and as far as I can tell – NOT ONE BRIGADE HAS COME HOME FROM IRAQ. I’ll be speaking more to that issue soon, but if you read Thomas Ricks book “The Gamble,” and you look at what’s happening regarding the two wars which have made their way off the front pages of the news, I think you’ll agree that we are not coming home from Iraq anytime soon and Obama has bought into the “surge” and is applying the same “strategy” to Afganistan – so the reality is that our troops are going to be stuck in those two places indefinitely and we will remain vulnerable to the REAL THREATS that exist in Pakistan, North Korea, and Gaza. More to come on all that later …………..