The Long March of Dick Cheney

Good article on Cheney--Dicitynna

Thursday, 24 November 2005

Below is one of the best articles that Sidney Blumenthal has ever written, a chilling, precise and deadly accurate account of the rise of Dick Cheney and the profoundly anti-democratic faction of power junkies and war profiteers that he represents. The article is from the paid site of Salon.com, so we are offering it in full here. (Just click on "Read More" below.)

The Long March of Dick Cheney, by Sidney Blumenthal.

Nov. 24, 2005 | The hallmark of the Dick Cheney administration is its illegitimacy. Its essential method is bypassing established lines of authority; its goal is the concentration of unaccountable presidential power. When it matters, the regular operations of the CIA, Defense Department and State Department have been sidelined.

Richard Nixon is the model, but with modifications. In the Nixon administration, the president was the prime mover, present at the creation of his own options, attentive to detail, and conscious of their consequences. In the Cheney administration, the president is volatile but passive, firm but malleable, presiding but absent. Once his complicity has been arranged, a closely held "cabal" -- as Lawrence Wilkerson, once chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, calls it -- wields control.