more on the big dick

from intervention magazine

When Dick Cheney gave President Bush distorted pre-war intelligence it was more than a simple lie to advance a war, it was the “noble lie” necessary when superiors are inferior. By Scott O'Reilly Dick Cheney’s 19% approval rating makes him about as popular as an IRS agent at a bingo parlor. Cheney may have even one less admirer these days -- the president himself. The reason is both simple and compelling: the man Bush relied on to provide him with unvarnished advice may have buffed up the intelligence reaching Bush so that the president would reach a pre-determined conclusion. In other words, Cheney provided the president with information and advice that favored war while suppressing intelligence that might have led the president to reach a different conclusion.This would fit a well-established pattern with Bush going back to his days as the governor of Texas. As reported in Vanity Fair, Alberto Gonzales provided then-governor Bush with one-sided and wholly inadequate death penalty briefs upon which Bush was asked to make life and death clemency decisions. Similarly, as Stephen Hall reports in his book Merchants of Immortality, Bush was inadequately briefed on the merits of stem cell research; the president listened to two ethicists on different sides of the political spectrum, but both opposed stem cell research. Unfortunately, Bush, who has boasted he doesn’t read newspapers or follow the media, has put himself at the mercy of advisors who may have an agenda.............