Former Congressman Mickey Edwards: Done with defending Dick Cheney

[sabra]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/5658810.html


Done with defending Dick Cheney


By MICKEY EDWARDS


For at least six years, as I've become increasingly frustrated by the Bush administration's repeated betrayal of constitutional — and conservative — principles, I have defended Vice President Cheney, a man I've known for decades and with whom I served and made common cause in Congress. No longer.

I do not blame Dick Cheney for George W. Bush's transgressions; the president needs no prompting to wrap himself in the cloak of a modern-day king. Nor do I believe that the vice president so enthusiastically supports the Iraq war out of a loyalty to the oil industry that his former employer serves. By all accounts, Cheney's belief in "the military option" and the principle of president-as-decider predates his affiliation with Halliburton.

What, then, is the straw that causes me to finally consign a man I served with in the House Republican leadership to the category of "those about whom we should be greatly concerned"?

It is Cheney's all-too-revealing conversation last week with ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz. On Wednesday, reminded of the public's disapproval of the war in Iraq, now five years old, the vice president shrugged off that fact (and thus, the people themselves) with a one-word answer: "So?"

"So," Mr. Vice President?

...

Cheney told Raddatz that American war policy should not be affected by the views of the people. But that is precisely whose views should matter: It is the people who should decide whether the nation shall go to war. That is not a radical, or liberal, or unpatriotic idea. It is the very heart of America's constitutional system.

Edwards served in the House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993.

[JerseygirlCT]

1. Some people are painfully slow

But I suppose better late than never.

[acmavm]

3. You were posting this while I was posting mine. That's funny.

[JerseygirlCT]

4. LOL. Great minds... nt

[acmavm]

2. He says he's known cheney for a long time? He didn't understand before

now the kind of 'person' he was dealing with?

The guy's a little slow on the uptake, isn't he? But I guess better late than never applies in this situation (like so many lately).

[skooooo]

5. Hey Mickey - FU!

[SpiralHawk]

6. No more deferments for Chickenhawk Cheney

[HawkerHurricane]

7. Another ostrich pulls it's head out of the sand.

Better late than never, I suppose.

[DURHAM D]

8. Poor Mickey - I have known him since long before he was elected to congress.

He had to leave office because he was one of the "dirty" ones in the House post office/personal loan scandal. He was one of the three original founders of the Heritage Foundation.

Mickey truly believes that citizens are subjects of the crown.

His real and only problem with Cheney is that he showed the contempt in public.