Posted on Sunday 21 June 2009
Just a note from a reader of "Angler" [me]. Gellman’s portrait of Cheney is hard to put down and hard to pick up. I was on a weekend trip to South Carolina, a fascinating visit with the Bear Clan of the Cherokee to see some of the vestiges of the "lower villages" [gone since the late 18th century]. But I read "Angler" in the down moments. Gellman’s view of Addington and Cheney adds a dimension or two to the picture – particularly their global pessimism. They were pessimistic that anyone else knew anything, could do anything right, would do anything right, but also, that anything good could happen in general.
There was another thing I didn’t know – Cheney was intimately involved with the fiscal policy of the Bush White House – operating with "supply side" economic theories that promoted escalating the debt, promoting tax cuts, and fostering deregulation. In fact, to my surprise, the vignette that most demonstrated Cheney’s deceitful manipulations of Bush had to do with his second round of tax-cuts.
And, if Gellman is right, Addington was directly involved with the drafting of Yoo’s Memos – and they were kept in Addington’s office safe, unknown to most of the DoJ Staff. You couldn’t make this stuff up! [Joy says I have to read "The Dark Side" next, so I ordered it]…
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Reading Angler is kind of painful. It’s the story of two master-manipulators [Cheney and Addington] with a few lackeys [Yoo and Bybee] taking advantage of a lightweight leader [Bush] and outmaneuvering anybody remotely right-thinking [Rice and Powell]. If it were a summer spy novel, one might be tempted to admire their cunning and sleight of hand, but knowing it’sa real story takes all the fun out of it, and turns it into a tragedy.
Gellman is a fine writer. He tells nuclear pieces of the story, and makes the meaning of the events crystal clear. The story of the day of 9/11 is an example. Cheney got called in the Bunker with the news that another high-jacked plane was on the way towards Washington [flight 93]. Should they shoot it down? He said "yes." It wasn’t for him to say. Later, the President backed him up from Air Force One. But he and Bush both said that the President had been contacted and told him to give the order. They each told a variety of versions of how that happened. But the fact is, Bush couldn’t have okayed it beforehand – there’s overwhelming evidence that Cheney made the decision on his own.
Of course nobody cares. It was a crazy time, and good for Cheney for acting – whether he had the authority or not. But Gellman’s point is that both Bush and Cheney lied, saying the proper protocol had been followed – and stuck to their stories. Gellman points out that this was the "template" for everything that followed. Trying to make what they did look okay, by the book, when it was, in fact, anything but that. It was the megalomaniacal smoke and mirrors of two painfully flawed men. 
"I’m terribly disappointed. I was told that it had been determined that my White House Watch blog wasn’t ‘working’ anymore. But from what I could tell, it was still working very well," Froomkin said. "I also thought White House Watch was a great fit with The Washington Post brand, and what its readers reasonably expect from the Post online."
I couldn’t help posting the Ensign quotes, but I sort of wanted to stay out of the scandal mode. We’ve had more than enough of that recently – Foley, Craig, Vitter, Spitzer, Ensign., ya-da ya-da. Political porn is kind of a yawner. But reading snips throughout the day suggests that this story is more complicated than some. The families [Ensigns and Hamptons] were friends. Ensign employed them both and their 19 year old. Ensign and his wife were separated during the affair. The Haptons bought a million dollar home. There was crooked stuff with the RNC finances. Ensign went missing in 2000 for several weeks, a previous affair? Was there blackmail by Cynthia Hampton’s husband? A lot of messy stuff suggesting some kind of wierdness involved. And where are the Hamptons? There are apparently absolutely no pictures of the Hamptons on the Internet – suggesting that they knew about Ensign’s going public in advance and scrubbed things.
Somewhere, in some idealized future, society is going to figure out what it has the right to demand from all of us [laws] and what it doesn’t [morality]. Senator Ensign didn’t break a law [that we yet know of]. He broke a promise – maybe more than one. The real question about him is why didn’t his own experience influence and inform his political life. The reason to drum him out of politics is not his own "immorality," it’s his using elective office to impose a morality that he obviously doesn’t follow on others, and using that feigned morality to get votes. 