Did Dick Cheney give Bush plausible deniability?

Dick Cheney was an assistant at the White House when Watergate was unfolding. By the time the scandal forced Richard Nixon to resign the presidency in 1974, the young Wyoming Republican had returned to the private sector. The new president, Gerald Ford, called him back. Cheney became deputy to Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld, seen here on right when the two were named on Nov. 7, 1975. And when Rummy left (to run the Pentagon, but that's another story), Ford promoted Cheney. At 34, Richard Bruce Cheney became the youngest person ever to serve as White House chief of staff.

In his new book "The Way of the World," author Ron Suskind argues that Cheney concluded from his perch at the White House during those years that Nixon fell not because of his abuse of government -- he asked agencies such as the IRS and the FBI to shadow his enemies. Or because of the break-in of the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee by criminals with ties to CREEP (The Committee To Re-Elect the President). Or even because of the cover-up.

Suskind believes Cheney concluded that Nixon had been "overbriefed" and that his aides had failed to give him "plausible deniability." And so, a la Suskind, that is what Cheney set out to give George W. Bush.

Asked about it last night on Keith Olberman's "Countdown" on MSNBC, John Dean, White House counsel in the Nixon presidency, said Cheney has been so successful at this that it will prevent impeachment proceedings against Bush.

"Cheney's been very effective in setting up his deniability and always being the failsafe for Bush. Unless they start waterboarding the vice president, which it not too likely, he is the man, the trail ends right there."

Dean, the one who told Nixon there was "a cancer on the presidency," was convicted of obstruction of justice and admitted supervising hush payments to the break-in defendants. The author of a book called "Worse Than Watergate," Dean argues that the sins of the earlier Nixon era "didn't kill anyone," whereas those of the current administration include torture and war.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Harvey Georges /Associated Press

Comments

[One of the People]

No like Bush. No like Dick.

[Chuck]

If they lie to you, you can pretty much count on it that its not to help or protect you... It's to screw you!

[wdw]

The cowards in the House needed to impeach. They didn't. They will live with the shame forever. We will live with the expansion of presidential power and illegal activities forever as the legacy of the failure of the House to impeach.

[Reapor]

Waterboard this skanky, wrinkly spook already!

[plankbob]

What's striking to me is how the mainstream media are ignoring the revelations/allegations in Suskind's book. There's some discussion on blogs like this but almost no reporting.
Ask yourself why and then go about your (shopping) business.
Liberal media? Let's lay that myth to rest along with massive tax cuts for the wealthy spurring economic growth.

[alan]

Obvious & disturbing. If he's given Bush plausible deniability in regard to actions taken by the administration, he's also shown that Bush was not in control of his own administration.

Like Iran-Contra, it's another page from Regan-era politics.

[Puciret]

Between Cheney and Rove the village idiot has been manipulated beyond belief. That doesn't mean Bush should not be included in malfeasance charges and impeached but it does mean that Cheney and Rove should be held and charged along with the rest of his cabinet. Executive privilege should be denied for all of these war criminals and a tribunal should be formed charging them and post haste. The message that these persons , because of their station in life, should not be held accountable for their heinous crimes should be negated because of the seriousness of their crimes against humanity. They must be taken to task in order to preserve what is left of our Constitution and way of life. Otherwise we become what we fought so hard to defeat.

[Alan D.]

Ok, here's what should happen:

The day after Obama is sworn in, the top 20 members of the current administration should be declared enemy combatants, rendered to a secret prison in an unnamed country, subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques until they confess crimes against humanity, whereupon they should be sent to Guantanamo Bay indefinitely.

Then, President Obama should rescind every single executive order the former Criminal in Chief issued.

[Bob]

The big problem for Ron Suskind, Howard Dean and Keith Olbermann is that it's not a crime to be incompetent and an idiot . . . . . which, to date, is the only proveable transgressions committed by GW Bush. That's the real reason there have been no impeachment hearings.

[Bob]

Suskind's allegations are no more proveable than any other allegations the left are pawning off as "facts." If you've got a case, then impeach. If you don't impeach . . . . then the common guy should assume accusers of this administration really don't have a case for criminality . . . . although certainly a case for "idiocy and incompetence." Time to put up or shut up.

[muzzamon]

PELOSI is the best double agent the Republicans have.

[Phil]

George Bush will be remembered by history as one of our best presidents. He kept the US safe for 8 years during a time of world terrorism. Bush will be remembered much like Ronald Regan.

[tvlam59]

This current regime is nothing but criminals in people eyes, the only different between these people and other criminals are they have power and they control all the media outlets.

[slp]

So we know for sure that Cheney is a slim bucket, so what else is new.

[adam]

If the trail ends at the number 2 guy and the number 1 guy can plausibly deny knowing about it, you still fire the number one guy for being incompetent in managing his people.

[Just Weird]

Little did Nixon and Ford know that these two would become the architects of Armageddon. Make no mistake, this is where we are headed. Bush/Cheney are leaving behind such a mess that no one is going to be able to clean it up.
It's way too late in the game to impeach Bush. Anybody taking the idea seriously is a worse idiot than Dubya hisself. Oh, and tell the Cambodians that Nixon's sins didn't kill anyone.

[RJay]

Republicans represent greed and fear. It makes no sense to be middle class or working class and vote Republican. That would leave very few citizens proportionately to vote for Republicans. Guys like Cheney and his other Republican cronies are laughing in their Country Club parlors about all the suckers they get to vote for their party. How can any middle class or poor man vote for a Republican unless they are being duped, because they are getting screwed by the Republicans and yet they still many vote for them. Problem is, the Republicans know how to prey on the publics fear and prejudice and so many fools fall for it. Why is the American public so stupid?

[Fred Michaels]

I fear for my country with what is going on in Washington. If I had the money I would leave. Bush is the idiot but Chaney is the Devil incarnate, most dangerous. Then with our elected house and senate that hide porkbarrel crap in important bills so they get passed. It might be interesting if for once they forget being Democratic or Republican and just be Ameerican for Americans. Is it time for "the People" to take not only responsibility for who gets to go to washington but maybe have the power to get rid of anyone that displeases "the people" quickly, before they destroy this country.

[Bob]

George Bush will be remembered by history as one of our best presidents. He kept the US safe for 8 years during a time of world terrorism. Bush will be remembered much like Ronald Regan.

Posted by: Phil

Then Phil thinks that Bill Clinton was also one of our best presidents since he did the same....