Dick Cheney – If His Memory Is So Bad, Should Anything He Says Be Believed?

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is making quite an after-politics career of going around on the speaking circuit, giving his opinions on why his administration was so great, and why the current one is doomed to failure and disgrace.

Now he seems to have that infamous political selective memory, only recalling the feel of how it was in the country on his watch…secure, safe, warm, fuzzy, wonderful, etc. However, when asked for details about any decisions, or the motivations for any actions, his memory fails him. He is rather old, and so, like Ronald Reagan, he could actually not remember, but I think only little children and fools believe that.

The problem is his memory has never been that clear, as an FBI interview about the Valerie Plame – Scooter Libby hubbub shows. It makes me wonder why the nation took this garbage from this administration for so long. Party loyalty only goes so far, and should never take precedence over duty to one’s country. Isn’t it strange that the administration that pointed out dissenters as disloyal to the nation can’t heed their own words, and tell the truth about their own actions.

This piece on ABC News tells a bit about the amazing run of memory difficulty  that Mr. Cheney had.

Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald famously declared in the Valerie Plame affair that “there is a cloud over the vice president.” Last week’s release of an FBI interview summary of Dick Cheney’s answers in the criminal investigation underscores why Fitzgerald felt that way.

On 72 occasions, according to the 28-page FBI summary, Cheney equivocated to the FBI during his lengthy May 2004 interview, saying he could not be certain in his answers to questions about matters large and small in the Plame controversy.

The Cheney interview reflects a team of prosecutors and FBI agents trying to find out whether the leaks of Plame’s CIA identity were orchestrated at the highest level of the White House and carried out by, among others, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff.

Among the most basic questions for Cheney in the Plame probe: How did Libby find out that the wife of Bush administration war critic Joseph Wilson worked at the CIA?

Libby’s own handwritten notes suggest Libby found out from Cheney. When Libby discovered Cheney’s reference to Plame and the CIA in his notes — notes that Libby knew he would soon have to turn over to the FBI — the chief of staff went to the vice president, probably in late September or early October 2003.

Sharing the information with Cheney was in itself an unusual step at the outset of a criminal investigation in which potential White House witnesses were being ordered by their superiors not to talk to each other about the Plame matter.

In the FBI interview of Cheney on May 8, 2004, investigators specifically asked the vice president and his lawyers not to talk to other witnesses in the probe. It was important to ensure that everything be done to keep the recollections of other witnesses from being influenced, Fitzgerald told Cheney, according to the FBI interview summary. Cheney lawyer Terrence O’Donnell replied that he could not make a binding commitment to refrain from discussing the interview with people who may need to help O’Donnell properly represent his client, the FBI summary stated.

Eight months earlier, Libby had gone to Cheney, telling the vice president that “I have a note saying that I had heard about” Plame’s CIA identity “from you,” according to Libby’s grand jury testimony.

And what did Cheney say in response? Fitzgerald asked Libby.

“He didn’t say much,” Libby testified. “You know, he said something about ‘From me?’ something like that, and tilted his head, something he does commonly, and that was that.”

Cheney’s version of the conversation, as related in the FBI interview summary?

Cheney “cannot recall Scooter Libby telling him how he first heard of Valerie Wilson. It is possible Libby may have learned about Valerie Wilson’s employment from the vice president … but the vice president has no specific recollection of such a conversation.”

On another basic point, Cheney simply refused to answer.

While the President showed remarkable equanimity on the subject of prosecution of Bush Administration players, the question of how these people came to be above the law remains unanswered. I doubt that if the roles were reversed, and Bush/Cheney had followed Obama/Biden into the top offices the situation would be similar.

The problem I see is that the debate has become one of party affiliation rather than right and wrong. No amount of jail time would make the least bit of difference to these people, so that is not what we should seek. On the other hand, people of this ilk seek the spotlight, and recognition. They should be punished in a way they understand best,

Bush, Cheney and the rest of the gang should be publicly disgraced, stripped of any honors earned while in the government, and be shunned by anyone who has any sense of justice.

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