[Peace-discuss] Your old men will dream dreams

[C. G. Estabrook]

[We remarked at the time the change in Bush's second term, as the "realists" in 
the permanent government took over from the neocons and reasserted the standard 
forms of US foreign policy -- which are being continued and intensified almost 
seamlessly by the new administration. The firing of Rumsfeld and the 
marginalization of Cheney occurred parallel to the rise of the Petraeus faction 
in the Pentagon (with the resulting loss of influence of the JCS).  Perhaps we 
should be worried by the present tense in the observation below that Cheney 
"'...really feels he has an obligation' to save the country from danger": a coup 
to save the country? --CGE]


	Cheney Felt Bush Stopped Listening to Him
	Posted August 13, 2009
	By Brian Kates
	DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Dick Cheney grouses that President Bush "went soft" in his second term, caving 
in to public pressure and failing to take his hardline advice, according to 
associates working with the former vice president on his memoirs.

Cheney, one of American history's most influential second bananas, is offering 
glimpses of his memoirs in chats with authors, diplomats and policy experts 
prior to publication in 2011, the Washington Post reports.

"In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him," one participant 
told the newspaper. "He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the 
criticism he took....The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or 
rather Bush had hardened against Cheney's advice.

Bush "showed an independence that Cheney didn't see coming," the insider said.

Despite an ailing heart, the former vice president, 68, rises early, reads 
voraciously, enjoys attending the soccor and softball games of his oldest 
grandchildren, Kate and Elizabeth, and spends time fly fishing near his vacation 
homes in Wyoming and on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

But most of his days are spent hunkered down in an office in the garage of his 
McLean, Va., home, working on his memoirs, which will cover his career from 
chief of staff under President Gerald Ford to vice president under Bush.

Cheney, who has said "the statute of limitations has expired," now tells 
confidants that his memoir will describe his heated arguments with Bush in full.

Bush halted the waterboarding of accused terrorists, closed secret CIA prisons, 
sought congressional approval of domestic surveillance and reached out 
diplomatically to Iran and North Korea, all of which Cheney opposed.

Cheney told one small group recently that he had no interest "in sharing 
personal details," as Bush said he plans to do in his upcoming book.

But he is expected to serve up a particularly stinging account of his former 
boss' refusal to pardon I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, after the vice -president's 
former chief of staff was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in 
leaking an undercover CIA officer's name to the media in 2007.

John P. Hannah, Cheney's second-term national security adviser, said the former 
vice president is as driven now as he was while in office by fears of enemies 
acquiring nuclear weapons and passing them to terrorists.

He acknowledges "doubts about the main channels of American policy" in Bush's 
second term, Hannah said. "He really feels he has an obligation" to save the 
country from danger.

Cheney gives no weight, close associates told the Washington Post, to his low 
approval ratings or to complaints by Republicans about his effect on the GOP's 
decline.

"What impressed me was his continuing zeal," said an associate who discussed the 
book with Cheney. "He hadn't stepped back a bit from the positions he took in 
office to a more relaxed, Olympian view.

"He was still very much in the fray. He's not going to soften anything or 
accommodate shifts of conscience."

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/politics/2009/08/13/cheney-felt-bush-stopped-listening-to-him.html