{"id":4278,"date":"2010-08-02T21:24:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-03T01:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=4278"},"modified":"2010-08-02T23:02:36","modified_gmt":"2010-08-03T03:02:36","slug":"i-doubt-that-will-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/08\/02\/i-doubt-that-will-happen\/","title":{"rendered":"I doubt that will happen&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<br \/>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"center\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/voices.washingtonpost.com\/44\/2010\/08\/dick-cheney-still-in-hospital.html?wprss=44\" target=\"_blank\">Dick Cheney still in hospital after heart surgery<\/a><br \/>    Washington Post<\/strong><\/div>\n<div align=\"center\">August 2, 2010<\/div>\n<p>   <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">Former State Department official Liz Cheney made some news Sunday  when she told &quot;Fox News Sunday&quot; host Chris Wallace that her father,  former Vice President Dick Cheney,&quot; remains hospitalized after <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/07\/14\/AR2010071404430.html\">undergoing heart surgery in early July<\/a><\/strong>. From the transcript: <\/div>\n<ul>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong>WALLACE:<\/strong> Liz, I got to start with you. How&#8217;s your dad? Is he still in the hospital?<\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong>CHENEY:<\/strong> He is still in the hospital, but he&#8217;s doing well. He&#8217;s out of  the intensive care unit and hopefully will be home later this week. <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong>WALLACE:<\/strong> Now, I mean, I read, as every American did, I guess, about  this heart pump. In fact, will he be able to go back and have a good  active life and fly fish and hunt? <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong>CHENEY:<\/strong> Absolutely. He&#8217;s looking at fly fishing and hunting dates for later on this year, so we&#8217;re very hopeful. <\/div>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">Cheney, who has suffered five heart attacks, announced July 14 that he  had undergone surgery the previous week to implant a pump into his  heart. Little more information had been released about his treatment and  status until his daughter&#8217;s comment Sunday.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\">Meanwhile, on the front page, Obama was in Atlanta making a speech:<\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/08\/02\/AR2010080202710.html?hpid=topnews\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Obama highlights fulfilled promise of Iraq drawdown in speech to veterans<\/strong><\/a><br \/>  <strong>Washington Post<\/strong><br \/>  By Scott Wilson<br \/>  August 2, 2010<\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\"> President Obama  outlined the changing U.S. role in Iraq on Monday to an organization of  disabled veterans, saying that beginning next month the  more-than-seven-year war effort will change from a primarily military  enterprise to a diplomatic one. &quot;The hard truth is we have not seen the end of American sacrifice in  Iraq,&quot; Obama told the Disabled American Veterans group in a speech in  Atlanta. &quot;But make no mistake, our commitment in Iraq is changing&#8211;from a  military effort led by our troops to a civilian effort led by our  diplomats. And as we mark the end of America&#8217;s combat mission in Iraq, a  grateful America must pay tribute to all who served there.&quot; <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\"> His remarks began a month-long effort by the White House designed to  remind American voters that Obama campaigned on a pledge to wind down  the Iraq war and that he is carrying out those plans largely on  schedule. The U.S. combat mission will end in Iraq at the end of the month, a  milestone that comes after a steady troop drawdown since Obama took  office. Some 50,000 U.S. troops are scheduled to remain in Iraq by the end of  the month, the deadline Obama had set for the end of the U.S. combat  mission. That means more than 90,000 U.S. soldiers and Marines have left  Iraq since his inauguration. <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\">I genuinely believe what I wrote yesterday [<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/wp-admin\/..\/index.php\/2010\/08\/01\/the-truth-theory-dick-cheneys-yet\/\" target=\"_blank\">the <em>truth theory<\/em>: Dick Cheney&rsquo;s &ldquo;yet&rdquo;&hellip;<\/a><\/strong>], that Cheney&#8217;s wish to topple Saddam Hussein arose in the first Gulf War or earlier and persisted until all the pieces he envisioned were in place a decade later when he had a more malleable Bush to contend with. In the comments to my last post both Joy and Ralph point to the dilemma for us of Cheney&#8217;s current illness [which seems fairly dire to me]. He is a human being who deserves the sympathy due to a father, a husband, a public servant, and a fellow human being. In fact, were he not so good at doing his version of public service, he could never have brought it off. The obvious problem is multi-faceted. First, the War was a disaster in all dimensions &#8211; for the US, the UK, the UN, and the world. Second, the problems of al Qaeda, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, and Israel were largely unaddressed because of the War itself. And finally, people talk about how the rest of the world views us because of it, but how about how we see ourselves? We rallied behind our leaders, waving flags, swallowing our political differences, picked up our rifles or sent our children to fight, and we were betrayed and left to deal with what we had done on our own. Dick Cheney hurt us in ways that we cannot yet fathom. Thus the dilemma.<\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\">Were he a person that I knew personally, I&#8217;m sure I would hope he gets to do some more fly fishing and hunting. I love my own retirement, because it allows me to think about whatever I want to think about whenever I want to think about it. And some of that time, I think about things I&#8217;ve done in my life &#8211; things I&#8217;m proud of, things I might have done differently, things that were just plain wrong things to have done. I don&#8217;t spend a lot of time reflecting like that, but it&#8217;s pretty important to me &#8211; making peace with my life is how I see it. And I run across some things that I understand now so much better than I did at the time. I would hope that if Dick Cheney gets to the point where he can do that kind of reflection, he&#8217;ll be free enough from his endless self-justifying and rhetoric to really see his invasion of Iraq with some perspective. <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">Do I want him to feel pain? Probably. But I think maybe he could say some things that might release some people from his spell &#8211; notably his daughter, maybe a lot of others. But I doubt that will happen. I can think of no instance where he&#8217;s questioned anything he&#8217;s ever done&#8230;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dick Cheney still in hospital after heart surgery Washington Post August 2, 2010 Former State Department official Liz Cheney made some news Sunday when she told &quot;Fox News Sunday&quot; host Chris Wallace that her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney,&quot; remains hospitalized after undergoing heart surgery in early July. From the transcript: WALLACE: Liz, I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}