Cheney Denies Being Human

Posted by David Swanson at 9:37 AM on August 29, 2007.

This post, written by David Swanson, originally appeared on After Downing Street

Every corporate media outlet in the country believes a story that Democrats.com reported months ago is the top news of the day. Here's the Los Angeles Times version:

BREAKING NEWS: Sen. Craig denies being gay

"I am not gay," Sen. Larry Craig said twice during a 10-minute statement today following news that he had pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after being arrested at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on suspicion of lewd behavior in a men's restroom in June.

Numerous major media outlets did not report the following:

BREAKING NEWS: Cheney denies being human

"I am not human," Vice President Dick Cheney said twice during a 10-minute statement today following news that he had refused to comply with subpoenas, created and advocated for the "Unitary Executive Theory" which is used by the White House to defy laws duly enacted by Congress and thereby justify dictatorial action, played a key role in setting up illegal spying programs, coordinated a campaign to obstruct the investigation conducted by Patrick Fitzgerald, organized a campaign of retribution against whistleblower Joseph Wilson that included the outing of a covert CIA operative, led efforts to institute the routine use of torture, spearheaded a campaign to manipulate pre-war intelligence, created a secret Energy Task Force which operated in defiance of open-government laws, directed massive no-bid contracts to his company, Halliburton, profiting from the same illegal war he had defrauded the American public to launch, and threatened an aggressive attack on the nation of Iran.

Instead, the LA Times reported:

"I did nothing wrong at the Minneapolis airport and I regret the decision to plead guilty," the Idaho Republican added. He said he had "overreacted" to the stress of the moment and did not consult with family or an attorney. The revelations of the arrest and guilty plea, first made by John McArdle in the Roll Call newspaper yesterday, threw the conservative world of Idaho politics into turmoil.

Not a single media outlet in the nation reported:

A major push in the House of Representatives to impeach Attorney General Alberto Gonzales helped spur his resignation. That Cheney and Bush have committed impeachable offenses is not disputed by anyone in Washington. They have made refusing to comply with subpoenas a routine occurrence. The House Judiciary Committee in 1974 passed an article of impeachment against then President Richard Nixon for the same offense. In possibly the most direct attack on the separation of powers possible, President Bush has posted numerous "signing statements" drafted by Cheney's office on the White House website announcing his intention to violate laws that he himself signed into law. A Government Accounting Office study looked at a sample of these signing statements and found that in 30% of the cases examined, the executive branch has proceeded to violate the laws in question. Of course, Bush has confessed to violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and is on videotape on several occasions over a period of years dishonestly claiming he was not doing so. Far from being unaware of this, Congress has gone to the trouble of legalizing it.

Yet, the 20 cosponsors of articles of impeachment against Cheney do not have the support of the Democratic leadership. Congressman Rahm Emanuel has told the Washington Post that the Democrats want to be sure to keep the occupation of Iraq going until the 2008 elections. Senator Hillary Clinton's military advisor has told Ted Koppel that she intends to keep the occupation going until at least 2017. Asked what she thought of this, an ordinary American said "What's the scam? You're writing for the corporate media and you want to know what I think? Do you have me confused with some billionaire with a similar name? All right, I'll play along. I think Congress is throwing our nation away and endangering the planet for the sake of an election strategy that is doomed to fail because a lot of other people agree with me. The Democrats aren't weak on terror, as I'm sure you'll end up writing. They're weak on Bush and Cheney."

Bizarrely, the Democratic leadership is claiming that there is no evidence of impeachable offenses, that impeachment would take too long, that there are other priorities, and that they "don't have the votes." Essentially no one believes this line, since the evidence is public knowledge, there are 18 months left in Bush and Cheney's terms, any bills legislating Democratic priorities are virtually certain to be vetoed, and public pressure would either sway votes or punish impeachment opponents at the polls.

Several major media outlets did not announce that they would conduct surveys to gauge the public's support for impeachment. Instead, the Los Angeles Times reported on the grave matter of another closet homosexual Republican Senator:

The 27-year veteran of Washington said the stress was compounded by the Idaho Statesman newspaper, which he said had for eight months "relentlessly and viciously harassed" him and his family. He apologized to his family and the people of Idaho. The 62-year-old Craig is up for reelection next year, but his political future seems clouded now in what has been a safe Republican Senate seat since the days of Ronald Reagan. Even conservative bloggers such as Hugh Hewitt were urging Craig to give up his seat today and allow another Republican to salvage it in a political year when the GOP already must defend more congressional seats than the Democrats.

Nobody asked the public nationally whether they gave a flying fig for this story, and no strategists put it in the context of the endless cases of Republicans getting ugly pathetic intellectually-challenged hypocrites elected who voted the way their crowd wanted them to vote, which might have tended to suggest that the public sometimes cared about substance.

In Washington, Senate Republican leaders called for an investigation by the ethics...committee. "This is a serious matter," according to a statement by the leadership, which includes Sens. Mitch McConnell, Trent Lott, Jon Kyl, John Ensign and Kay Bailey Hutchinson. They also said they would investigate to determine if further action was warranted.

Tagged as: cheney, media, impeachment

David Swanson is a co-founder of After Downing Street, a writer and activist, and the Washington Director of Democrats.com.