From here, there is this:
Q&A: Lawrence Wilkerson
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, on the presidential importance of "getting the American people off their too-pampered butts."
Mother Jones: Of all the things the Bush administration leaves behind, what's the hardest one to fix?
Lawrence Wilkerson: The executive branch precedents that he, Cheney, and David Addington have established—which severely disturb the balance of power among the three branches of government. Candidates for the Oval Office can say, now, that they will reverse these precedents, but once in the presidential seat they will be very reluctant to relinquish power. This is not good for our republic.
MJ: What's the easiest?
LW: Our diminished reputation—close Guantanamo, denounce torture, restore habeas corpus, and declare, as John Kennedy did, that America is back to her time-honored tradition of not starting wars.
MJ: What would you say have been the president's most notable policy failures, foreign and domestic?
LW: Foreign policy failures: Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Lebanon, the trans-Atlantic relationship, the special relationship with the United Kingdom, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the neglected relationship with Japan, the now-collapsing relationship with South Korea due to beef and the failure to ratify the KORUS FTA, and the nonrelationship with Russia.
Domestic failures? A profligate management of fiscal affairs and a collapsing economy; no action on the huge unfunded liabilities the nation confronts—Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security leading the way—emergency disaster relief as in the responses to Katrina and Rita; no action whatsoever—other than negative action—on the nation's energy needs for the future coupled with a sustainable environmental protection program, including actions to begin to deal with planetary warming; and absolutely no tax reform worth a farthing—in fact, the tax system is worse now than ever in our history.
MJ: Is the damage caused by any of these failures irreparable?
LW: The damage the Bush administration accelerated majorly with regard to the economy will endure for a decade or more, and the lack of action on energy and the environment may be devastating.
MJ: Which problem created by the administration most urgently needs addressing?
LW: Energy and the environment and the economic morass the Bush administration leaves behind—a morass that clearly has its beginnings well before Bush but, as I said, was majorly accelerated by him.
MJ: What lessons about leadership should the next president glean from the past eight years? What are the dos and don'ts?
LW: Leadership from the Oval Office—and sustained, effective use of the bully pulpit—is essential to getting the American people off their too-pampered butts and into meeting successfully the long-haul challenges of fixing major problems in the very fabric of our republic's life, both domestically and in our international relations.
MJ: What legacy of the Bush administration will still be felt 50 years from now?
LW: Lack of positive action on energy and the environment and profligate and irresponsible spending with no commensurate action to deal with looming liabilities.
MJ: How are we safer and how are we less safe than we were on September 10, 2001?
LW: To give the administration some credit, we did make a significant shift in focus under this administration, once it was awakened by the attacks of September 11, in the struggle against global terrorism—which had been transpiring since the fall of the Shah in Iran in 1979. We moved from a strictly law enforcement focus to a more robust focus that included the military instrument in an effective way in Afghanistan. However, the lack of an accompanying strategy to use the other elements of our national power—predominantly our ideas through an effective public diplomacy—has almost nullified the other gains. So, on balance, I believe we are about in the same place with regard to the dangers of global terrorism. That is to say, we will be attacked again because though we have made tactical progress in disrupting our principal enemy, Al Qaeda, we have not made strategic gains in eliminating the reasons for such a group to exist and prosper. In fact, we have lost ground strategically. If any effort in the world has gained ground strategically, it has been the effort by moderate Muslims in the world to denounce and cease support for Al Qaeda. That effort has prospered despite US lack of attention to supporting it in meaningful ways and despite US actions, such as in Iraq, that made that effort all the more difficult to carry out successfully.
Then there is this, same Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson:
First, more Americans were killed by terrorists on Cheney's watch than on any other leader's watch in US history. So his constant claim that no Americans were killed in the "seven and a half years" after 9/11 of his vice presidency takes on a new texture when one considers that fact. And it is a fact.
There was absolutely no policy priority attributed to al-Qa'ida by the Cheney-Bush administration in the months before 9/11. Counterterrorism czar Dick Clarke's position was downgraded, al-Qa'ida was put in the background so as to emphasize Iraq, and the policy priorities were lowering taxes, abrogating the ABM Treaty and building ballistic missile defenses.
Second, the fact no attack has occurred on U.S. soil since 9/11--much touted by Cheney--is due almost entirely to the nation's having deployed over 200,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and not to "the Cheney method of interrogation."
Those troops have kept al-Qa'ida at bay, killed many of them, and certainly "fixed" them, as we say in military jargon. Plus, sadly enough, those 200,000 troops present a far more lucrative and close proximity target for al-Qa'ida than the United States homeland. Testimony to that fact is clear: almost 5,000 American troops have died, more Americans than died on 9/11. Of course, they are the type of Americans for whom Cheney hasn't much use as he declared rather dramatically when he achieved no less than five draft deferments during the Vietnam War.
Third--and here comes the blistering fact--when Cheney claims that if President Obama stops "the Cheney method of interrogation and torture", the nation will be in danger, he is perverting the facts once again. But in a very ironic way.
My investigations have revealed to me--vividly and clearly--that once the Abu Ghraib photographs were made public in the Spring of 2004, the CIA, its contractors, and everyone else involved in administering "the Cheney methods of interrogation", simply shut down. Nada. Nothing. No torture or harsh techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator. Period. People were too frightened by what might happen to them if they continued.
What I am saying is that no torture or harsh interrogation techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator for the entire second term of Cheney-Bush, 2005-2009. So, if we are to believe the protestations of Dick Cheney, that Obama's having shut down the "Cheney interrogation methods" will endanger the nation, what are we to say to Dick Cheney for having endangered the nation for the last four years of his vice presidency?
Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002--well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion--its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida.
So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney's office that their detainee "was compliant" (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP's office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa'ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, "revealed" such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.
There in fact were no such contacts. (Incidentally, al-Libi just "committed suicide" in Libya. Interestingly, several U.S. lawyers working with tortured detainees were attempting to get the Libyan government to allow them to interview al-Libi....)
Less important but still busting my chops as a Republican, is the damage that the Sith Lord Cheney is doing to my political party.
He and Rush Limbaugh seem to be its leaders now. Lindsay Graham, John McCain, John Boehner, and all other Republicans of note seem to be either so enamored of Cheney-Limbaugh (or fearful of them?) or, on the other hand, so appalled by them, that the cat has their tongues. And meanwhile fewer Americans identify as Republicans than at any time since WWII. We're at 21% and falling--right in line with the number of cranks, reprobates, and loonies in the country.
When will we hear from those in my party who give a damn about their country and about the party of Lincoln?
When will someone of stature tell Dick Cheney that enough is enough? Go home. Spend your 70 million. Luxuriate in your Eastern Shore mansion. Shoot quail with your friends--and your friends.
Stay out of our way as we try to repair the extensive damage you've done--to the country and to its Republican Party.
Contrary to that, there are those who in a way know Daddy's gone, but they hope and hope:
Oh Daddy I - I'll love you for ever and ever!