Yesterday I wrote a diary about different types of Repub corruption, using DeLay, Rove and Bush as examples, finally coming to Cheney as an example of, well, it was hard to say what. What is it that has corrupted Cheney? What is his motivation? Of course, I came to the surprising conclusion that it must be "Pure Evil." And the poll confirmed this for me.
However, today Salon has a Sidney Blumenthal column all about the History of the Dick. From Nixon to Ford and onwards. How Cheney created Team B, undermined General Schwartzkopf, and engineered his own selection as VP. Boy, was I ever right yesterday. Cheney is Pure Evil. (And Rummy too!)
Come with me to see some of his evilosity revealed:
Blumenthal writes, in
Salon:
Nixon's resignation in the Watergate scandal thwarted his designs for an unchecked imperial presidency. It was in that White House that Cheney gained his formative experience as the assistant to Nixon's counselor, Donald Rumsfeld... From Nixon, they learned the application of ruthlessness and the harsh lesson of failure....
Under Ford, Rumsfeld and Cheney quickly gained control of the White House staff, edging out Ford's old aides. From this base, they waged bureaucratic war on Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger, a colossus of foreign policy, who occupied the posts of both secretary of state and national security advisor. Rumsfeld and Cheney were the right wing of the Ford administration, opposed to the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, and they operated by stealthy internal maneuver. The Secret Service gave Cheney the code name "Backseat."
In 1975, Rumsfeld and Cheney stage-managed a Cabinet purge called the "Halloween massacre" that made Rumsfeld secretary of defense and Cheney White House chief of staff. Kissinger, forced to surrender control of the National Security Council, angrily drafted a letter of resignation (which he never submitted). Rumsfeld and Cheney helped convince Ford, who faced a challenge for the Republican nomination from Ronald Reagan, that he needed to shore up his support on the right and that Rockefeller was a political liability. Rockefeller felt compelled to announce he would not be Ford's running mate....
At the Republican Party Convention, acting as Ford's representative, Cheney engineered the adoption of Reagan's foreign policy plank in the platform. By doing so he preempted an open debate and split. Privately, Ford, Kissinger and Rockefeller were infuriated....
I think that's enough of the article to reprint here. But go read the rest, it's a portrait in evil, alright. Cunning, vicious, backstabbing, eyes-on-the-prize, take-no-prisoners, long-standing Evil.