Wow, this boggles the mind. Now that he's left the bunker, gone on his never ending farewell tour(Or maybe not farewell, but "I'm still here" tour), Dick has been doing everything ahort of calling for President Obama's impeachment on the grounds of treason. Now it seems Leon Panetta (Who has his own negatives with progressives) has come out and said what many are thinking. Panetta said, that it seemed to him Dick was "[almost] wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point."
Well, that bastion of impartiality, The National Review, has come to Dick's rescue, accusing Panetta of "Slander". I thought something had to be untru to be slanderous?
http://media.nationalreview.com/
The New Yorker's June 22 edition will include an interview with CIA chief Leon Panetta, who suggests that former vice president Dick Cheney is "[almost] wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point."
Three reactions:
(1) Has a sitting CIA director ever slandered a major American political figure like this before? It's alarming that Panetta evidently felt it appropriate to engage in partisan attacks in the first place. This type of inflammatory statement may be expected in the lefty blogosphere, not passing through the lips of a top intelligence official whose position is explicitly and necessarily non-partisan. Good thing the era of "politicizing intelligence" is over.
(2) One can only imagine the hue and cry we'd have heard if a Bush appointee of similar stature had insinuated that, say, Al Gore was secretly hoping for a terrorist strike against America. Will Republicans defend Cheney and demand an apology?
(3) With due respect to Mr. Panetta, Cheney has already made his point, and did so quite effectively. He managed to win this debate simply by employing persusasive arguments and appealing to reason. No outside "help" was necessary.
I'd say there should, in the interest of fairness, be a 4th reaction:
"Yep, Dick is hoping that the nation is attacked, vindicating his treasonous position that the US needs to torture, start pre-emptive wars and send our soldiers into fights that need not be fought"
I guess that's expecting too much from that bastion of impartiality, The National Review"