Feet of Clay

I heard a buzz earlier today about possible running mates for the Democratic and GOP tickets. I wasn't surprised to hear the list of governors, retired Senators and various officeholders that might add to the cachet of a John Kerry ticket.

What did shock me was the tacit admission that Dick Cheney was not a lock for a second term; in fact, that pundits were discussing possible running mates for W this fall means that the media was given the green light to ruminate publicly. I'm amazed that Cheney would allow himself to be marginalized, but since he now has lifetime retirement, medical and perpetual quasi-royal status as a former Veep, the reasons to stay on the ticket seem fewer and fewer.

The list of negatives Chey has brought to W's administration is a long and impressive one, even by Washington standards. Cheney has refused to turn over documents in three separate investigations involving his office. He has continued to receive annual payments from Halliburton while serving in office, a decision that taints his association with his former company and the Oval Office; Halliburton's contract in Iraq was given without so much as a single competitor and now the overcurious run into the billions and still Halliburton is on the job in the Middle East. Cheney insisted in the gravest language that Iraq was a threat which has proved to be false. There is his dubious leadership and almost criminal disregard for West Coast consumers whose states were nearly bankrupted by the trebling of electric rates in 2000 by energy wholesalers like Enron, who bought and traded energy illegally to artificially drive up the prices. There is the worrisome connection to Antonin Scalia, a Supreme Court Justice who has shown by word and deed that he considers himself above reproach, common decency, the appearance of basic fairness or even in some cases the law itself. There is the Supreme Court decision to stop the counting of votes in Florida, which if allowed to continue would have resulkted in a majority of votes for Albert Gore, which in effect meant that Scalia and co installed Dick and W into the Oval Office. There is Cheney's deplorable character, a man who went into hiding after 9-11 while insisting that postal workers show up to work during a biological attack administered through the postal service. There is Cheney's disdain for the American people themselves, emerging from his undisclosed location only to speak to those audiences monied enough to thoroughly grease his fat white palms and refusing press questions and interviews he cannot completely control. Cheney has been alternately sneering to the press corps and simply absent. His associates, from Perle to Rummy, have become synonymous with obfuscation and double speak, an almost unbelievable turn of events when you consider that Perle and Rummy were seen as reassuring blunt talkers who gave the American people the whole story without concern for politics.

In fact, the GOP looks more and more like the GOP of the late 70s, filled with operatives willing to cut any corner to advance the agenda of the priviledge few. The Senate Justice committee has uncovered a scandal involving the hacking into Democratic committee members' computers - something like 3,000 documents were found to have been stolen, according to the sergeant at arms of the Senate. The White House and the Republican leadership of both bodies of Congress are unconcerned about the thefts, secure in the knowledge that only Congress can deem conduct, even felonious conduct elsewhere, as illegal or even punishable.

There is the disturbing news that the U.N. has also been violated at the highest levels, where GOP staffers have been caught hacking into UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's office to gain information about the posture of other nations surrepticious. There is the Energy Meetings of 2000, conducted in secret, and which the White House refuses to give even the most basic information about - who was there, the topics of discussion - even though Enron and other energy traders have been proven to have manipulated consumers in the months following the meetings and whose conduct it can be argued ultimately cost the governor of California his job.

There is not a figure in the White House considered honest by any plurality of Americans, no matter the party or the income or the region. We know we cannot trust the President, nor his Vice President, nor his Secretaries of State, Labor, Defense or Environmental Affairs. Most troubling, Colin Powell is being floated about as a viable second man on the GOP ticket. Powell may have a future in ambassadors with nations who don't have a native distrust in the US, but his days as a statesman are over.

Powell, in his UN performance leading up to the Iraqi invasion, was the key in persuading Americans and the "coalition of the willing" that invading a country who was secular, had virtually no religious zealots in power and who was essentially a republican country in a sea of royalists and religious xenophobes with a hatred for anything outside of the Muslim paradigm. Powell convinced enough of us that Iraq was definitively a threat, and that secret and classified evidence would eventually come out that would prove to the world how worthy and necessary the sacrifices and casualties of our actions. Time has indeed brought the facts to light, and they cast a sallow shadow upon Powell and the quality of the intelligence he quoted.

This weekend Aristede's bizarre resignation and then mysterious whereabouts were suddenly and wrenchingly challenged early Monday by those able to speak with Areistede. By nightfall Monday evening, Aristede was allowed a few interviews, in whgich he decried the shabby treatment by the armed cadre of American soldiers, the trickery, threats and half-truths which he claims enabled the US to engineer a coup d'etat less than 50 miles from our borders. Powell indignantly claimed in careful words that Aristede had willingly gone with the soldiers and that we had saved his life.

Like many who spoke with the press after being allowed limited access to Aristede and his family, Americans cannot trust anything this administration says or does. In the light of day and after the dust settles, invariably there are strange connections, blind eyes turned to conflicts of interest, leaks, blame-placing and semantic discussions rather than admissions of false statements, misleading intel and the direct misuse of media to distract the populace from unsavory facts making their way into the press.

Powell is not a viable candidate for office any longer. He is, like so many men who have given unquestioned loyalty and obedience to this administration, forever branded a man of questionable ethics, a consummate performer who has proven he can convincingly argue a point he knows is not accurate. Worse, he is willing to sentence entire nations to thousands of casualties in the name of... What? Loyalty to the administration? A seat on the Board of Halliburton once he retires? It is one of the strangest episodes I have ever seen in my lifetime, a man of distinguished service and a man who seemed imminently trustworthy who has chosen to speak half truths, to spin facts to the extent that mnost would call lying, a man who has knowingly allowed the killing of both American and Iraqi casualties for questionable purposes.

Powell has not demanded as a once military commander, that Hallibuton's contract be frozen or given to another company who would, one would hope, not use the cover of battle to overcharge the American people and inadvertently put the lives of soldiers at risk. He has said nothing except the scripted pieces the administration has given him to say, always in full military dress, to the carefully selected corps pf press reporters who are sympathetic to the administration or at least willing to play by W's rules.

It is a sad thing when a man is shown to be fallible. After all of the hand wringing about one lie to cover up a workplace affair, you would think that the GOP would see that the American people are not likely to blindly trust someone after they have been proven a liar. Even the intelligence community has been shown as corrupt, with artifacts from Iraq being sold on eBay, and the looting of the mass graves at WTC in New York for the priviledged in the FBI and CIA to keep as "mementoes".

Cheny, Perle and even Colin Powell have lead what appears to be perfectly honorable married lives. I am unaware of any accusation that any of the man of the current administration are womanizers, or gamblers or even drinkers. But these are men that have proven to Americans they are untrustworthy when dealing with facts, or the military, or when it comes to personal connections affecting public and civic exchanges of money and personal enrichment. President Clinton may have been a man who was impeached by a very evenly divided Democratic Senate and Republican House, but he did not lie or use war to steal or deliberately trick world leaders.

The White House is filled with men who are walking on feet of clay. I do not know of anyone with the integrity or the personal strength to stand up and fight against the corruption of the Executive branch who would even be willing to work among such an array of characters. It cannot be anyone who is currently within the White House, or among the GOP leadership. Maybe Jim Jeffords can bring enough decency to the ticket that Americans might be willing to chance another four years of this administration. One thing is certain: W may not be able to find a man willing to sit on the ticket and replace Cheney; the benefits of serving in the White House, though certainly lavish and lifelong, may not be enough to justify the wholesale destruction of a man's good name and honor. To some people, character is more than a talking point, it is a legacy and a personal priority. It will be interesting to see if and when such a Republican emerges and if the risks of association are not a deterrent to public office.

the Curmudgeon