RX: "RN"

When Dick Cheney had his first heart attack in 1978, he was in the midst of his first campaign for Congress. He recuperated by bench-pressing 37's 1013-page autobiography, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, which was evidently prescribed by Nixon's editorial assistant, Frank Gannon. N.C. Aizenman reports:

Cheney said he asked the internist who was caring for him — there were no practicing cardiologists in Wyoming at the time — whether he would have to give up politics for a less demanding line of work.

“He said, ‘Aw hell, Dick, hard work never killed anybody,’ ” Cheney recalled.

Still, the doctor did prescribe some major lifestyle changes for Cheney — who had been smoking two to three packs a day as President Gerald Ford’s chief of staff.

He took a month-long rest, during which he said he “sat under a tree” reading an advance copy of President Richard Nixon’s biography, which a friend had helped ghost write, while his wife, Lynn, campaigned on his behalf.

Defying The President

In a slashing critique of Donald Rumsfeld's new memoir, "Slate"'s Fred Kaplan essentially accuses the former secretary of defense and Vice President Dick Cheney of defying President Bush and helping fuel an insurrection that cost thousands of lives.

At issue are two disastrous orders by Jerry Bremer, who ran Iraq after the U.S.-led coalition ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003. One was to disband the Iraqi army, the other to ban members of Saddam's Baathist party from the new government. Many whom Bremer scorned ended up joining the bloody insurgency. Kaplan surmises that the orders came from Cheney, with Rumsfeld's blessing and in spite of decisions to the contrary in which the president had participated:

[T]he NSC did take up the issue of what to do with the Iraqi army and the Baathists. On March 10, a week before the invasion, a principals meeting—attended by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and all of their top aides—decided that, after the war, a truth and reconciliation commission would be set up, similar to those in post-apartheid South Africa and post-Communist Eastern Europe, to ferret out the undesirable Baathists from those who could work for a new government. Staff analysts predicted that only about 5 percent of the party would have to be removed. On March 12, at another principals meeting, it was decided to disband the Republican Guard—Saddam's elite corps and bodyguards—but to call the regular army's soldiers back to duty and to reconstitute their units after a proper vetting.

Both of these decisions were unanimous. In other words, Bremer's first two orders constituted acts of massive insubordination. Most of the NSC officials, including Bush, first read about the two orders in a newspaper.

Rumsfeld doesn't mention either of these meetings in his 815-page memoir.

Man Up, And Pass The Iced Tea

Richard Dreyfuss's snarling caricature of Dick Cheney in Oliver Stone's "W." seemed way off base. but now the former president himself has described being called out by his real-life #2 over fine bone china:

At one point during their private weekly lunch, Mr. Cheney questioned whether Mr. Bush would follow through on the threats against Mr. Hussein. “Are you going to take care of this guy, or not?” Mr. Cheney demanded.

Obama Is The New Cheney

Republicans are lashing out at President Obama for telling Bob Woodward:

We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever … we absorbed it and we are stronger.

And yet as John Dickerson writes, former VP Cheney said:

We have to assume there will be more attacks. And for the first time in our history, we will probably suffer more casualties here at home in America than will our troops overseas.

Race For The Pure

A civics lesson from Matthew Yglesias:

I know some liberals who are excited about the prospect of a joke candidate like Sarah Palin or Dick Cheney getting the GOP nomination in 2012. Not me. The basic fact of the matter is that power tends to alternate between the two political parties. Ultimately, the nation’s interests require both parties to nominate the best people possible. So I hope the Republicans find someone who’s very smart and compelling and does an excellent job of identifying and explaining the flaws in Barack Obama’s approach.

That's not what actually happens. Whether the races are local or national, the best, and best-funded, candidates end up in campaigns where they have a good chance to win. Was Bob Dole really the best candidate to run against Bill Clinton in 1996 or Walter Mondale against Ronald Reagan in 1984? And as a matter of fact, it's not just Democrats who are rooting for a Palin candidacy in 2012. If Republicans nominate her or someone similar and lose as decisively to Barack Obama as I assume she would, Republicans will learn the kind of lessons about being an inclusive, winning party that only two consecutive losses can teach.

Not Bedfellows At All?

Nixon and Kissinger vs. Haig, Rumsfeld, and Cheney? Very interesting indeed. Len Colodny sent me this "Library Journal" review by Stephen K. Shaw of his new book, The Forty Years War: The Rise and Fall of the Neocons, From Nixon To Obama:

Colodny (coauthor, Silent Coup) and [Tom] Shachtman (Airlift to America), two experienced investigative reporters, offer a rigorous and critical examination of the neoconservative movement and the bureaucratic, ideological battles over American foreign policy from 1969 to 2009.

During this period, there was infighting, primarily in Republican administrations, between pragmatists, e.g., Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, and ideologues, e.g., Alexander Haig, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney, for the privilege of conducting foreign policy and establishing American supremacy in world affairs.

Central to this account of the origins and evolution of crusading conservatives and ideologically driven theorists, such as the mysterious, influential Pentagon operative Fritz Kraemer, is a focus on the domestic and international prospects and perils of a foreign, military-driven policy that has sought to re-create the world in America's image. The authors essentially direct our attention to John Quincy Adams's advice that his country should not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.

VERDICT: Anyone who has read Jane Mayer's The Dark Side or Jack Goldsmith's The Terror Presidency would be well served by this captivating chronicle. Highly recommended, especially for students of U.S. foreign policy and/or presidential politics in the post-World War II era.

"Come Home America" Watch, Day 37

Dick Cheney accused President Obama of dithering over Afghanistan. George Will (who, it must be noted, wants our troops out) has fired back. "The Huffington Post":

"A bit of dithering might have been in order before we went into Iraq in pursuit of non-existent weapons of mass destruction," Will said on ABC's "This Week. "For a representative of the Bush administration to accuse someone of taking too much time is missing the point. We have much more to fear in this town from hasty than from slow government action."

"Come Home America" Watch, Day 34

After Dick Cheney accused President Obama of dithering over Afghanistan, Cheney's fellow Republican, former Gov. Lamar Alexander, spoke wisely:

I think President Obama is entitled to take sufficient time to decide what our long-term role ought to be in Afghanistan. Then I think he should come to Congress and say to the American people what that plan is and see if he can persuade us and all of the American people of the rightness of it because he needs to have support all the way through to the end of that mission, so I want him to take the time to get it right.

Hat tip to the "Daily Dish"

Nixon: Stuck In The Middle Again

Some Nixonites argue that when RN was handing out swords, the anti-Vietnam liberals twisted them with the most relish. Now comes Silent Coup co-author Len Colodny with his and a new collaborator's latest book, The Forty Years War: The Rise And Fall of the Neocons, From Nixon to Obama, which argues that it was the nascent neoconservatives (often domestic and social liberals, just to make it more confusing) who helped maneuver Nixon out of office because of his course-changing policies toward the Soviet Union and China. Len sent me an early notice, from Kirkus Reviews:

In this readable history, the authors tell many intriguing tales, including the neocon incubator that was Scoop Jackson’s senate office; the military spying on Nixon’s National Security Council; Haig’s maneuverings during Nixon’s final days; the rise of Cheney and Rumsfeld under Ford and their denouement under Bush II; the neocons' shameless readopting of Reagan after his accords with Gorbachev proved successful; the controversial decision to leave Saddam Hussein in power after the Gulf War; and the continuing and curious role of reporter Bob Woodward in the neocon story. A well-reported, fast-paced history lesson on the eternal conflict between ideologues and policymakers and the hubris that always accompanies success.

No Fun With Dick And Nancy

Andrew Sullivan called for the prosecution of former Vice President Cheney because, he says, Cheney broke the laws against torture. Sullivan now says that if congressional leaders, including Speaker Pelosi, knew about the alleged felonies but did nothing, they too should be held accountable. But he hasn't yet written that Pelosi should be indicted and prosecuted as an accessory to a felony.

I'm not accusing Sullivan of hypocrisy, because I don't think he has partisan motives for dogging the Bush administration so relentlessly over torture. But eventually he'll have to confront the preposterousness of prosecuting government officials. We now know that in the wake of Sept. 11, all three branches of government, including leaders from both parties, acted as though the U.S. was facing an existential threat. We're talking not about a lawless administration but a government-wide state of mind, reflecting the mentality and wishes of voters, in the face of a danger that felt and appeared virtually unprecedented in our national experience.

A truth commission to understand what happened and why in order to guide future Presidents, yes. Locking up a former VP and the woman who is second in line to the Presidency, no.

Air Force Two Is Probably Cool

How about our wacky Vice President? If he were us, he wouldn't ride on planes or subways or be in confined spaces with other human beings. Beyond that, don't panic! According to CBS radio news, the White House issued a statement saying he meant flights to Mexico. Whether he also meant subways to Mexico is unclear. I'd glad we didn't elect that incompetent, Gov. Palin. Of course, if Dick Cheney had said such a thing...Oh, never mind.

Cheney Of Command

The demonizing of Dick Cheney intensifies. I predict the effort to prosecute him will fail. His sin, if any, grew from a zealous, overpowering ambition -- to protect his country.

Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan

That Campaign Would've Been Torture

Former blogger Ross Douthat, the New York Times's latest new conservative, thinks Dick Cheney should have run for President last year instead of Sen. McCain so George W. Bush's interrogation techniques could have been adjudicated politically instead of legally.

Dick Cheney: Elusive Scapegoat

At The New Nixon, reflections on Cheney, Nixon, and scapegoats. From my reply to historian and former archivist Maarja Krusten:

On leaving office, GWB obviously decided to play it old school, letting his successor have his 100 days and assuming, no doubt, that Obama would give him the same cover that RN gave LBJ by not overtly scapegoating him. The preponderance of Obama's public comments makes clear that this is where his heart is. But with the left (significantly abetted by the world's most influential blogger, Andrew Sullivan) defying him and demanding torture prosecutions, I think Cheney heard the rumble of footsteps heading for the Bastille and decided that he was not about to sit meekly and wait for the knock on the palace door.

Have his sometimes aggressive-sounding interviews encouraged his critics? Maybe just a little. And yet by the same token, by essentially saying, "You want a piece of me?", he's rallied both the right and the pragmatic middle (including people such as I, not that anyone's listening) and thus increased the political danger to Obama if he permits a witch hunt. Right now I hear official Washington -- government and media elites alike -- concurring 1) we need to get to the bottom of torture but 2) without legally scapegoating individuals in the prior administration, which would tear the country apart....

Richard Nixon ended up being a perfect scapegoat for Vietnam. In a way, his resignation helped us avoid ever having to come to terms with the war. My guess is that Cheney has decided he doesn't want to go gently into the San Clemente sunset.

A Word From Deacon Philip

Besides being a top official in the Bush State Department, Philip Zelikow was executive director of the Sept. 11 commission. His even-handed New York Times op-ed anticipates what the executive summary of a bipartisan fact-finding torture commission report (as opposed to a partisan get-or-save-Dick-Cheney free for all) might sound like:

A professional evaluation of the C.I.A.’s claims [about the effectiveness of the harsh interrogation techniques] would have to examine these cases to sift and weigh the contributions. The Senate Intelligence Committee is embarking on an important effort to sort out the claims and counterclaims.

What the committee may well find, after all the sifting, is that the reports were a critical part of the intelligence flow, but rarely — if ever — affected a “ticking bomb” situation.

That "rarely -- if ever" brings the reader up short. Tell us, please, if there was such a situation. But whether the techniques were effective or not, Zelikow argues that the U.S. Army's anti-al-Qaeda program in Iraq, which complied with international standards, was highly effective as well. As for the CIA's program, allies and even the FBI kept at arms length because they couldn't or didn't want to be associated with practices that smacked of torture. From studying Sept. 11 closer than anyone, Zelikow knows all too well what happens when intelligence gatherers aren't working togeteher.

Let's At Least Avoid The Political Torture

If there's one place where President Obama's political and diplomatic interests coincide, it's keeping the controversy over whether the Bush administration illegally sanctioned torture from descending into a partisan witch hunt. While cultural elites may think that an exhibitionist accountability exercise will ennoble the U.S. in the eyes of the world, it's more likely to provoke opportunism among our enemies and bemusement among our friends. At home, it will make it harder for Obama to command the center and rebuff the GOP in the 2010 midterm elections.

Though Nancy Pelosi and other liberal Democrats, seemingly intent on punishing Republicans, want a special panel on alleged torture, Obama and Senate Democratic leaders don't, and they held the line today -- an improvement on several days' mixed signals from Obama. A bright partisan spark was thrown by one of his lieutenants yesterday when House Republicans, angered because Obama released Bush-era memos authorizing harsh interrogation techniques (which some call torture), pressed Secretary of State Clinton on charges by Dick Cheney that the Obama administration is covering up evidence that the interrogations worked. She pressed back:

It won't surprise you that I don't consider him a particularly reliable source of information.

Ouch! Yet the same day, "Politico" reported:

Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair acknowledged in a memo to the intelligence community that Bush-era interrogation practices yielded had "high-value information,” then omitted that admission from a public version of his assessment.

So Clinton accused Cheney of being a liar even as it was made clear that her colleagues are spinning the torture story, just like he said. If there was ever a subject in need of a no-spin zone, it's this one. And yet the Clinton-Cheney contretemps is a reliable preview of what Pelosi's process would look like. I say full disclosure on the alleged torture as well as all terrorist plots discerned and thwarted since 2001. If it's still too dangerous to talk about the latter, then it's probably premature to investigate the former and impossible to do so fairly and dispassionately.

Your Move, Mr. President

"Politico":

Former Vice President Dick Cheney last month formally asked the Central Intelligence Agency to de-classify top secret documents he believes show harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding helped prevent terrorist attacks against U.S. targets, according to source familiar with the effort.

Kindle Love At The Highest Level

Dick Cheney has a Kindle and just finished reading James M. McPherson's Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief.

Cheney Ends Up As The New Nixon, Anyway

The VP was evidently so grateful to Chris Wallace of Fox News for defending the Bush Administration against comparisons to Richard Nixon that he agreed to give Wallace an “exit interview” — ironic, since Mr. Cheney’s interview with Wallace has itself drawn a comparison by Matt Corley to RN’s famous assertion to David Frost about the President’s latitude during a national security crisis.

As TNN’s Robert Nedelkoff has noted, when Frank Langella, portraying RN, says that when the President does something, “it’s not illegal,” the script makes it appear as though he’s talking about the Watergate break-in and cover-up. In real life, Frost and the former President had been talking about the Huston Plan for wartime intelligence-gathering about domestic radicals. The plan was approved and later rescinded by the President.

It’s hard to defend illegal activity by the government under any circumstances. But it would be interesting to know how much latitude the American people would give it in the event of an imminent threat. At his appearance at the Nixon Library on Friday, Bill O’Reilly said that arguments against extreme measures would lose much if not all of their salience if the U.S. is hit again as on Sept. 11.

That doesn’t justify such actions, either. But journalists should not assume that Americans are of one mind on the subject. That’s why, at the start of the new administration, debate and dialogue would be better than the legal scapegoating of Bush Administration officials which is so intensely craved by the President’s and VP’s political opponents.

As for “Frost/Nixon” director Ron Howard and playwright-scriptwriter Peter Morgan, it would be interesting to know why they chose to misconstrue RN’s quote. Without knowing their motives, its likely that most theatergoers are more appalled by the “not illegal” formulation when it’s applied to political shenanigans as opposed to wartime national security policies.

O'Reilly On Obama's Unknown Factor

Bill O'Reilly, host of the most popular news program on cable television, believed that he's summoned, and uniquely positioned, to serve the public, which he calls "the folks," in an era of change and crisis. "The television 'Factor' is going to be a major factor in this country," O'Reilly said Friday evening before a crowd of nearly 1,200 at the Nixon Library. "The O'Reilly Factor's" mission in the year to come: Figuring President Obama out and, if necessary, holding him accountable. "Nobody else in the media's doing what we're doing," he said.

While O'Reilly believes that Obama realizes his political future depends on rescuing the economy in his first two years, the PE's perspective on the war on terrorism seems murkier. One reason: his aggressively anti-torture AG-designate. "There's not an intelligence guy in the country who wants to look over his shoulder and see Eric Holder, who may indict you for anything," O'Reilly said, adding that his sources tell him that professionals are leaving the intelligence services at a startling rate as Bush Administration opponents demand indictments and trials. If there's no new terrorist attack, O'Reilly said, "then they'll harass Bush and Cheney until 2022." If, heaven forbid, there is a new attack, then the anti-torture movement will lose its salience: "Bush and Cheney will say, 'Yeah, [when we were in] we beat the crap out of 'em'."

As harsh as that looks in type, it went over great with O'Reilly's audience, with whom he got into an easy rhythm the moment he took the stage. He's plain-spoken, non-ideological, funny, and unapologetic about his sometimes aggressive populism. It sounded as though everyone watches his show daily and had seen the recent greatest hits, including his famous brawl with Rep. Barney Frank. "I haven't paid for a sandwich and soda in a deli since that interview," he said, adding that the secret of his success is that "I just reflect what you feel." Whether on the left or right, he said, Americans are angry, "and it's justifiable, when your 401(k) evaporates, and people on Wall Street are stealing us blind."

One of the reasons Sen. McCain lost the election, O'Reilly said, is that he didn't sound angry enough at those who had brought the economy to the brink of chaos. O'Reilly said he was sorry he too hadn't paid more attention to economic issues on "the Factor" before the mid-September crash. "We were busy looking to the outside for the threat," he said.

O'Reilly is promoting his fifth non-fiction bestseller, the highly readable memoir A Bold Fresh Piece Of Humanity. He invoked old-fashioned virtues of family and discipline as learned from his parents in Levittown, New York and the nuns in parochial school. An opponent of gay marriage, he said Obama's choice of the evangelical Pastor Rick Warren to pray at his Inauguration was "a stroke of genius" designed to further separate himself from his controversial former pastor and friend, Jeremiah Wright. "Obama's thinking, 'Okay, the gays are mad. Where're they gonna go?' My five-year-old son says, 'I'm running away,' and I say, 'See you later'." Only if Obama fails to deliver on key domestic issues such as national health insurance, O'Reilly said, would he be in danger of losing substantial elements of his so-called progressive supporters.

Asked about President Nixon, O'Reilly said that Fox News colleague Monica Crowley, an aide in the former President's New Jersey office, has told him of RN's graciousness and many unheralded gestures of support to those in need. "He was on the way of doing some significant things when he got hung up on Watergate, the same way Bush got hung up on Iraq," he said. "He paid for his mistakes."