And now it begins. Dick Cheney's impending bust sets up the hijacking of the Presidency. Fitzmas is on the way! However, it could be very, very bad for the US if Cheney resigns, due to a plan I believe has been put into play. The neocons are playing a shell game, and palming the pea.
There are many ways to subvert democracy, since the process itself lends itself to machinations that often are not caught until well after the fact, and the way American law is structured it often yields neither justice nor equity. In a classic example of the well-connected making sure we got the "leader" we deserved, remember that when Vice President Spiro Agnew went down under indictment for corruption from his days in Baltimore, Nixon replaced him with a consumate insider, Gerald Ford. Nixon thus made sure that if/when the process actually caught up to his own criminal behavior, he'd have someone in there to guarantee a pardon, supposedly "for our own good."
National healing and reconciliation and all that other blather were used to let Nixon off the legal hook, floated out there by good Repub Ford, who if you will recall was a member of the Warren Commission that whitewashed the assassination of John Kennedy. This is a perfect historical example of one hand washing the other, with truth the victim and the American public forcefed the lies that perpetuate certain national myths.
Which brings us to this article. Our nation and its government are under a very dark cloud of uncertainty due to the impending indictments to be announced this week. That some will be indicted is almost inevitable; how many, and how high up into the administration the indictments lead, is unknown except that we are told it definitely involves Cheney and the WHIGs, or White House Iraq Group that sold us the lies leading us to a disastrous war. There could be relatively few, or as many as two dozen.
In any case, it's not a good time for the neocons who thought they were above the law and could use the government in a brutally fascist manner to stifle all dissent and even put people's lives at risk. Not just Ms. Plame's, but all of her contacts overseas, as well as everyone who can be linked to her and the "company" she worked for. Foreign intelligence agencies are not stupid. Some are even more efficiently run than our own bloated, turfy, multi-headed hydra.
This sets up several possible scenarios, none of which portend anything remotely good. There is the possibility that there will be more than a few people indicted (including Scooter Libby) who will take the fall in a club Fed facility for awhile, keeping their mouths shut waiting the day of release when they will be well compensated for their silence. This assures the present illegal hierarchy stays in place while officially exonerating the real criminals. The same situation would be true even if Rove himself is indicted, with the only variation being a presidential pardon, since Rove knows where all the skeletons are buried and still is valuable to the Repub hierarchy as a strategist and tactician.
However, there is another set of possible ways this could play out that could very well be the hijacking of democracy and spell a disaster for America. Let us suppose that Dick Cheney as well as Libby is indicted. Cheney will have to step down, whether "for the good of the country," "to avoid a public spectacle," or simply "for health reasons." Since Dubya is a lame duck, he'd have nothing to fear by pardoning Cheney for his past public service. He's already demonstrated that he doesn't give a tinker's dam about what public opinion thinks of his actions.
Whether he did or didn't, if Cheney resigns for any reason it will necessitate Dubya naming a replacement veep. With Congress more or less running from their own scandals, they'd be all too quick to certify someone as veep, which of course would have to be a Repub with cred. Bush already claims the right to name whoever he wants whenever he wants, and expects people to go along with it. There would be very few Repubs who would try to block whoever he named, which leads to two possibilities.
One, he would name a place holder. Two, he would name a neocon to fast track into the next convention. Either way, he would have to make sure that the one he named would pardon whoever needed it, in case Dubya himself could be tied to an obstruction of justice or conspiracy charge. If it worked for Nixon/Ford, it could be assumed that it would work for Dubya and whoever was appointed to be the official water carrier in our time of "national trauma." After all, we can't allow ourselves to look "weak and divided while we're at war." It's merely a variation of the current mantra which insists that dissent helps the enemies of democracy.
Whoever was named would blunt McCain's momentum should he decide he wants to run in 2008, and guarantee said appointee a very high profile with which to appear presidential in the middle of scandal, war, etc. Not a bad way to sell a stealth candidate for people to rally around. Sort of a dress rehearsal for the next primary season while bypassing the bloodletting. Or in the case of a place holder, it would be a plausible "leader" with no larger aspirations who would fill in while the Repubs prepared their standard bearer for 2008.
I personally believe this may be the case, since it would be the perfect "beard" to keep everyone speculating while the other plan was put into play. Either way, given the pandering to the red meat wing of the Republican party, it would have to be a true believer, one with a proven track record of his ability to handle the job, and definitely someone trusted by the neocons to stick with the program. Whether a placeholder or a potential candidate, an appointed vice president is in a unique position to turn the public dialogue in a different direction, never having been elected. It's a manipulation that circumvents the process while appearing to be the process.
If they went with a potential presidential candidate, it would have to be someone who would promise to follow Dubya's path and lead America to glory, prosperity, and perpetuate the neocon strategy of global economic and military dominance. It would have to be someone who has already been publicly vetted for skeletons, someone owed a lot of favors, someone with at least a bit of the old Bush charisma, and someone with name recognition. A real dedicated public servant who would rise to the occasion in our time of national division, someone who could urge us to avoid the blame game, putting the past behind us while offering the masses soothing bromides giving hope for a better future.
Who does that sound like? There is one person, part of the original neocon group who signed the
Project For The New American Century declaration, someone with a proven record, someone with name recognition, someone who could easily be believable as the torch bearer for the cause. Someone with no obvious or discoverable skeletons, someone who is ambitious, someone who was thought to be presidential material. Someone who has already demonstrated his willingness to perpetuate what has been called "the neocon blueprint: Borrow to fund tax cuts, then sound the trumpet of supposed fiscal stewardship to justify program cuts."
This individual is tight with Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfozitz. He publicly has stated his humble desire not to be considered a candidate in 2008, making him more desirable through playing coy. (A caveat here: he may have a skeleton we don't know about which creates his momentary resistance while it's being laundered.) Even his father has publicly stated that he thinks he would make a good president. He probably wouldn't be appointed as the caretaker veep, since it would appear unseemly and nepotistic. But you can bet he'd be someone the neocon machine would love to promote to the top job in our government. His name? Surely you know by now.
Variations crossposted at
Political Physics and my diary at
My Left Wing