Vice President Dick Cheney's last hours in power

WASHINGTON -- There is something fitting about the symbolism.

Dick Cheney, known to the Secret Service and his critics as "Angler," reviled by the left as the Darth Vader of the Bush administration, survivor of enough heart ailments to keep a medical practice in business, spent his last hours in power in a wheelchair.

Felled by a box.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino explained that Cheney pulled a muscle in his back while moving boxes into his new home in the D.C. suburbs -- no more government housing -- and the doctor recommended that he take to a wheelchair for a few days.

The idea of Cheney bested by a bunch of boxes might delight his foes.

But the thing is, what boxes was he packing? Presuming that there are staffers for the heavy lifting, maybe he was taking personal control over the boxes of his papers.

Just Monday, a federal judge rejected the claims of a coalition of historians and nonprofit groups charging that Cheney was planning to spirit away some of his official records instead of sending them to the National Archives. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly took Cheney aide Claire O'Donnell at her word -- given under sworn testimony -- that the soon-to-be former vice president will comply with federal requirements in selecting the records to be turned over.

A history professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School who was part of the lawsuit, Stanley Kutler, said he remains suspicious of the secretive Cheney's motives. "When the Archives goes to open Cheney's papers, they are going to find empty boxes," he told the Washington Post.

Maybe the guy in the wheelchair will have the last laugh.

-- Johanna Neuman

Comments

[Jeremiah]

Who cares. This man is sleeze and greed personified!

[JAR]

Cheney in the wheelchair looked just like Mr. Potter in the film "It's a Wonderful Life"....remember Mr. Potter the banker..knew where the money went....and urged "Hurry Home George..the whole town is looking for you!"
Just a thought...

[Chuck]

Im certainly surprised he made the whole term without a house falling on him.....

[DChapman]

Cheney was a very courageous leader. While his critics were driving to work each day in their gas guzzling trailor house-sized SUVS, he was ensuring that fossil fuel based industrialized nations such as ours would maintain a high standard of living without the nuisance of terrorist thugs who don't have a clue what to do with fossil fuels.

[Larry]

He is a great man, and was a great Vice President. It is one thing to disagree with his politics, but to call him "sleaze and greed personified" is immature and ridiculous. All you people talk about how horrible you think he is, yet most of you don't know a damn thing about politics....You listen to whatever the media tells you, failing to ever actually form educated opinions of your own.

[Lorri]

Well, as I do have a Master's in poly-sci (political science), I think I can form an educated opinion.Larry, I think the man IS AWFUL!!!!

[chrys rosen]

Cheneys most egregious act, of course, was starting an unnecessary, unilateral war in which 100,000s of human lives have been taken. Also lying to the American people and the world about WMD was unconscionable. He knew better he was told there werent any WMD by people around him that knew firsthand. He was so bad that many in the cabinet came out against him and turned whistleblowers. More so than Bush, they came out against Cheney. His 13% approval rating that he leaves office with today..speaks to this.

The next most egregious act was to give Halliburton and Blackwater (his former companies)--no bid contracts. Most would say a little conflict of interest....but he didn't say it---"give me more" was/is his motto--(he is going to rot along with Madoff in a hot nasty place)--those two corporations received billions of dollars of no bid contracts (which is illegal---they broke the law over and over and the American people let them)

. And to add insult to taxpayer injury, the two mega corps didn't even do the work they were contracted to do, or they did it so poorly that there were devasting results and deaths ( a few service people died from electrocution in one of the buildings that Halliburton built because the wiring was not installed properly and corners cut).

Of course too, there was the killing of unarmed civilian Iraqis by Blackwater employees (aren't they still on trial or did they get off already? the Iraqis should try them).

Other corporate cronies of Cheney saw their fair share of the profits as well. Dickie oversaw removing oversight known as deregulation (can you say deregulation) of the financial market...what a blessing to his friends the banking industry and the fat cats on Wall street...they were free to give loans to anyone and sell multiple bad loans together as packages to investors. They cleaned up thanks to Dickie. Kids in a candy store, they paid themselves fortunes of our money and then begged for bail outs because their greed acted up...who would've thunk it.

Cheney was certain that no one had to look over and regulate Wall Street. Of course they were mature enough to monitor themselves and of course they never would allow greed to impose itself on them and their companies and their bonuses and their expensive weekend long spa hotel partiese and their multi million dollar homes with 24 K gold fixtures and expensive sports cars. Of course they were entitled. Just like Madoff, entitled to spend away other peoples hard earned money, life savings, retirement funds, etc. . Even after the bail out, Cheney, et al has allowed Wall Street to pay out 32.5 billion dollars in bonuses for 2008. That is only 10 billion less than 07. Again, no oversight of 350 million dollar bail out Bush/Cheney now with Paulsen had to get the cronies set up again (they had lost some serious money and at least one car). To the bitter end Bush and Cheney screwed America and the world. The global economy will not recover for some time. We are bankrupt and over our head in debt to China. We could become a third world country owned by China (worst case scenario of course)..but think about it---that is Dickie's contribution to our world...his life's work...to screw everyone. Such valiant work it is too.

To undo the massive devastation from the last 8 years will take a great deal of time and effort and sacrifice and comraderie. And who knows how long or even IF we can pull it out in the end.

Thankfully, we have someone now that is very much up to the job. But we should not even have to be in a position where we are forced to undo what was so selfishly done with such unconscionable actions. It is literally horrifying and disgustingly obscene that we are in this position. There are really not enough appropriately horrific words to describe what he has done to the world.

Cheney is not a nice man and Darth Vader may have more heart than Cheney at least in the end. Fortunately, our days of tolerating his abuses are now gone. All that remains is the prosecution for war crimes...torture and illegally starting a war.

Good Riddance....and how very fitting he leaves small in stature, reduced to a low level in a wheel chair as he has destroyed and deflated so shall he be destroyed and deflated.

[David J. Lesar]

On behalf of Haliburton, Inc, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dick for eight great years.

[Justin D]

Perfect writeup by Chrys. To expand on that, Harper's has a huge data summary covering the Bush years. Of course, never take numbers at face value… then again, I gave up after the items I researched all came up as accurate. *sigh*

http://harpers.org/archive/2009/01/0082319

[muzza]

Dick threw out his back last night by throwing himself on the floor in front of Bush to beg for his presidential pardon. All those network admissions of torture Cheney made last week were meant to pressure Bush into blanket pardons. Didn't work. Did ya notice there was never a two-shot of B& C together at the inaug? No not one. Bush wanted to go out with his head held high, which means continuing legal exposures still exist for :
Cheney
Rumsfeld
Tenet
Rice
Powell
Yoo
Addington
Prince
Wolfowitz
Bremer
Libby
Rove
Lott
DeLay
Gonzales
Paulson
Bush is a loyal guy. But only for as long as he needs to be. He doesn't need them anymore. Only the library matters now.

[BennyandtheJets]

"Yes we can", and "change we can believe in", more redistribution with all the Clintonistas back, led by Bill and Hillary whom collected a cool tax-exempt $500 MILLION in 08 alone for thier "charity (themselves)". No wonder Blago had his senator seated immediately and is going to get away with it, even though he was recorded. This isn't like the hallucinatory Cheney/Halliburton nor Plane conspiracy fictions, this is the real stuff, but the "news" media will never cover it because they're part of the problem. Thanks to dis genuineness, naivety and ignorance the foxes are now all in control of the hen house. God help us.

[Jon Snow]

I could not agree more with chrys rosen .

Cheney is a criminal who should answer for his crimes along with all the other unscrupulous Republican fat cats ripping off our economy and environment !

[Baraq O'Blammer]

Dick Cheney would have been the ideal pick for President. Instead, we got the evil Obama.

Long live Haliburton and Blackwater.

Baraq O'Blammer

[gregory lee shoshone]

The man is a good decent man by all accounts. He helped creat trust fund for native Iindian community nationwide. The first time federal government has done so in 500 yrs. May amitabha buddha bless him.

[Steve Brown]

We had a zero deficit and jobs when Clinton was in office. Eight years of Bush and all who followed him leveled this Country. They should all be fired with no benifits. Do not expect anyone to turn eight years of destruction and greed around in one,two,or three years. Stop pointing fingers and being distracted. It is still residual damage from prior years.No excuses. Everyone should be on the same SS plan, health care plan, and available affordable education. Watch how fast our quality of life turns around then.