Dick Cheney, Lamar Alexander and the Republicans layed out their cards May 7th for all to see. Their cards are, I believe, the answer to some of the questions we've wondered about for nine years as to why Congress and the Obama administration have been so reluctant to fully investigate and punish Cheney, Bush and their war crimes cabal.
Nancy Pelosi, Eric Holder, Harry Reid, Barack Obama and the Democrats fear what Dick Cheney and his Republican agents will do, or if they don't fear it, they simply don't want the nuclear meltdown of DC that Lamar Alexander promises if he is investigated and brought to justice.
Follow below the fold for the smoking gun that seems to be the Cheney retaliation plan laid bare, answering our questions of the past nine years.
Here's the smoking gun. The later portion of this video was front paged today, about Brandon Friedman's appearance on Olbermann's Countdown. Watch now the first 2:50 minutes of the intro section of the show not posted on the front page (but found on the DKOS TV page under the header, GOP threatens investigation of Clinton administration), that describes how Cheney and the Republicans threaten not only to investigate Pelosi but Holder, Congress, and even the Clinton administration if the Democrats dare to pursue torture and war crimes investigations against Dick Cheney.
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I believe that Cheney has shown his hand. It is his intent to grind DC to a halt with retaliation should he ever be investigated and prosecuted by Congress or the Obama administration over torture.
While the Republicans have no real power in Congress, they do have a large amount of media power they can use to force controversies, to force enough public demand for investigations of Democrats on every matter imaginable, matters beyond torture, perhaps, that Dick Cheney has compiled over the years in his man sized safe full of embarassing files, and his intelligence agency and other ops units files. I believe, per the Lamar Alexander threat in the video ("who knows where all this may lead"), this may go far beyond the Democrats' culpability in torture issues to whatever else Cheney has in his files. The threat also encompasses a willingness to unearth past (and perhaps present) scandals that upset the intelligence agencies, the Pentagon and other agencies of the U.S. govt. that would be very agitated to find their dirty laundry paraded about. This speaks to a willingness to wage political war with the national security apparatus of the U.S., something that will enflame the permanent govt. of the Village in DC and its elites.
Today's front page post on Daily Kos, Is "who knew what" about torture in Congress important? by David Waldman addresses the Democrats' culpability issue and concludes, of course rightly, that with Bushco's unitary executive doctrine, Congress' views on torture were irrelevant to the Bush Admin. --they were responsible for the creation and execution of these policies. I believe, though, there is likely more that we do not know about, in Cheney's imaginary or real "files" about the Democrats. With the possible aid of the FISA program among other surveillance and investigatory arms of the government, Cheney and now Lamar Alexander have threatened to ask "who knows where an investigation of Democrats will lead?"
I think this video from Jed at DKOS TV answers the questions we've been wondering about as to why Democrats have been so reluctant to investigate, prosecute, or even have "truth" commissions, and why Harry Reid seeks Warren Rudman for cover and cover ups as a last ditch backup plan to mollify calls for investigations and prosecutions on torture.
I suspect Reid, Pelosi, Holder and Obama's reluctance to prosecute may be due to these threats having perhaps been made in private in the past, the same threats made public on May 7th 2009.