sophiaserpentia | Jan. 30th, 2004

from Will Dubya Dump Dick?:

While Democratic rivals battle for the presidential nomination in a succession of grueling primary elections, Vice President Dick Cheney appears to be fighting to secure his spot on the Republican ticket behind President George W. Bush.

... The reasons are simple: instead of the moderate voice of wisdom and caution that voters thought they were getting in the vice president, ongoing disclosures about his role in the drive to war in Iraq and other controversial administration plans depict him as an extremist who constantly pushed for the most radical measures.

... In addition, Cheney's association with Halliburton, the giant construction and oil company he headed for much of the 1990s and that gobbled up billions of dollars in contracts for Iraq's postwar reconstruction, is growing steadily as a major political liability.

... Reports were already surfacing two months ago that a discreet "dump-Cheney" movement had been launched by intimate associates of Bush's father (former president George H.W. Bush) -- his national security adviser Brent Scowcroft and former secretary of state James Baker, who now has a White House appointment as Bush Jr.'s personal envoy to persuade official creditors to substantially reduce Iraq's 110-billion-dollar foreign debt.

In addition to their perception that Cheney's presence would harm Bush's reelection chances, the two men, who battled frequently with the vice president when he was defense secretary in the first Bush administration, have privately expressed great concern over Cheney's unparalleled influence over the younger Bush and the damage that has done to U.S. relations with longtime allies, particularly in Europe and the Arab world.

from Perle Must Resign: Or be fired... via

antiwar_dot_com

When Richard Perle, high-visibility neocon and co-author of a recent book that faults the Bush administration for being soft on terrorism, spoke at a rally associated with the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian terrorist group once allied with Saddam Hussein, the "mainstream" media was nowhere to be seen. The music-oriented event, billed as a fundraiser for victims of the Iranian earthquake -- and, incidentally, calling for "regime change" in Tehran -- was held this past weekend, and had generated a fair amount of controversy before the curtain opened on the first act.

Representative Bob Ney (R-Iowa) -- who sounded the alarm on the MEK long ago in Washington -- called for an official investigation of the terrorist fundraiser: the Red Cross, originally slated to accept funds raised at the rally, withdrew. So did La Leche International. But Perle claims that he gave the keynote speech at the event anyway, because he was "unaware," as the Washington Post put it, of the group's terrorist connections:

"'All of the proceeds will go to the Red Cross,' Perle said. Informed that the Red Cross had announced before the event it would refuse any monies because of the event's 'political nature,' Perle said: 'I was unaware of that.' Perle declined to say how much he received."

According to the Post, "FBI agents attended it, and, as part of a continuing investigation, the Treasury Department on Monday froze the assets of the event's prime organizer."