Dan Froomkin – Cheney Sticks to His Delusions

It’s not a coincidence that Cheney was talking to Limbaugh yesterday. The show has been one of Cheney’s favorite venues.

As I wrote in my January 29 column, The Unraveling of Dick Cheney, Cheney is increasingly out of touch with reality. He seems to think that by asserting things that are simply untrue, he can make others believe they are so.

In Limbaughland, he’s right.

In Limbaughland, not only were Saddam and Al Qaeda linked but — more significantly — liberals hate America. In Limbaughland, Cheney can say a lot simply by failing to disagree with his host’s assertions.

Consider a few of yesterday’s exchanges.

Limbaugh was complaining to Cheney about how the Democrats seem to be primarily motivated by a desire “to make sure we come home defeated.” [mjh: asshole.]

Limbaugh: “Can you share with us whether or not you understand [Democrat’s] devotion, or their seeming allegiance to the concept of U.S. defeat?”

Cheney: “I can’t.” …

Limbaugh called [Sam “Swift Boat”] Fox “a great American” and praised the White House for making an end-run around Democratic opposition.

Limbaugh: “This is the kind of move that garners a lot of support from the people in the country. This shows the administration willing to engage these people and not allow them to get away with this kind of — well, my term — you don’t have to accept it — Stalinist behavior from these people on that committee.”

Cheney: “Well, you’re dead on, Rush.”

The two also chuckled about the White House move.

Limbaugh: “You go on vacation, this is what happens to you.”

Cheney: “If you’re a Democrat.” They both laughed. …
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So why is the White House so angry [about Pelosi in Syria]?

[Joe Conason writes in Salon]: “The neoconservatives, both within and outside the White House, resent Pelosi for publicly dissenting from their ideology of war and their rejection of diplomacy. [Neo-con’s] own vision has collapsed in ruins; they have gravely harmed the American military and discredited the ideals of democracy, and they have run out of ideas.” …
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Matt Spetalnick writes for Reuters: “With George W. Bush struggling to stay relevant in his final 22 months in the White House, his administration is looking more and more like the incredible shrinking presidency….”
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Joe Klein writes in his opinion column for Time about what he calls “the epic collapse of the Bush Administration”: “[T]he three defining sins of the Bush Administration–arrogance, incompetence, cynicism–are congenital: they’re part of his personality. They’re not likely to change. And it is increasingly difficult to imagine yet another two years of slow bleed with a leader so clearly unfit to lead.”