Holte's corner

Unfavorable comparisons to Tony Soprano

In the "The Ba-Da-Boom Crew," Eugene Robinson (Tuesday, January 30,
2007; Page A17; http://tinyurl.com/38hnwt )

He writes: "If you've been following the Lewis "Scooter" Libby
perjury trial, I can understand how you might confuse Dick Cheney
with Tony Soprano." ( http://tinyurl.com/3bmd8 )

But of course that is insulting the Sopranos. They have more class
than this bunch;

"Cheney's office is beginning to sound a lot like the Bada Bing,
minus the dancers."
http://tinyurl.com/ytubx9

He notes: "Court has been in session for only a week, and already
we've heard about characters being set up (Libby, allegedly, to save
political wizard Karl Rove)"

Libby's defense against charges against perjury is that his memory
was faulty because a; he was too busy to pay such a little thing any
mind, b; was set up by others; and c; others were worse than he. But
so far all both defense and prosecution are proving is that this cast
of characters are wanna be Tony Soprano's. A bunch of mafioso. Not
surprising to me, but if I were a Republican I'd be in revolt.

"strung along (media bigwigs, who were to be played like patsies)",
http://tinyurl.com/2s48t9

"buried in mud (former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who questioned the
raison d'etre of the Iraq war)"
http://tinyurl.com/2s48t9

"and ratted out (the famously leak-averse Cheney, revealed to be
willing to leak like a washerless faucet when it suits his purposes)."

But of course these comparisons are between professional thugs, and
obviously unprofessional thugs. These people are to the Sopranos the
way the Three Stooges are to Hitler. He goes on:

"Cheney's no Tony, though. For one thing, Tony would never let one of
his top henchmen go by a preppy-sounding handle such as "Scooter."
For another, this kind of all-in-the-family mess would send Tony
moping to his long-suffering shrink, whereas Cheney shows no
inclination to deal with uncomfortable issues or face harsh
realities."

No they just hit at each other, at Democrats, and shout out "wise
guy!!"

"Increasingly, the vice president is sounding as if he lives in a la-
la land of his own imagining, a place beyond truth."

At least Tony actually visits a shrink. These guys could use a
resident Shrink alongside the Surgeon General.

"In Cheney's world, the Iraq war is an enormous success. The idea
that anyone would think otherwise is hogwash. The midterm election
doesn't seem to have happened yet -- some sort of time warp may be
involved. Polls that show overwhelming public opposition to the war
do not even merit a nod of acknowledgment."

Speaking of which the other news item which really hit me hard today
was the coupled reports of more Reservists being mobilized, along
with reports that the US has run out of Armor and proper equipment to
equip them for duty in Iraq. In other words, the Bala Bing Set, are
sending more people to be offed by the opposition. This is the third
world generaliship. And really makes the Hitler comparisons unfair to
his general staff. More like the idiots who prosecuted the Argentine
Side of the Falklands war. Men who knowingly sent young men to death
because they were too drunk, too corrupt, and too cheap to equip them
for battle.

The one time Cheney almost sounds like a human being, he tries to
shoot down his friends:

"And it's "out of line," as Wolf Blitzer learned, to ask Cheney about
a glaring personal contradiction -- the administration he serves
wants to ban gay marriage, and meanwhile his lesbian daughter and her
life partner are having a baby. Cheney acts as if he's willing to go
to any lengths to keep people from learning that on the subject of
homosexuality, he's probably pretty enlightened."

But of course this is third world stuff too. Have to play to the
base, to the ignorant, to the angry, to the mob.

"Let's hope that Cheney isn't really out to lunch, that he's just
playing politics. A conservative friend reminded me the other day
that all the White House has left, in terms of public support, is the
hard-line Republican right. Let's hope Cheney is just tossing out red
meat to keep these stalwarts on the team."

What makes these things mutually exclusive?

"But, yes, he is coming across as a little crazy. I'm glad he's not
the Decider -- excuse me, now it's the Decision Maker."

Those who ride the wild wind get spun by their spin.

"Cheney's weirdness is almost enough to summon nostalgia for the days
being revisited in the Libby trial, a time when Cheney and his
minions at least were rational in their machinations. Forget the
byzantine, eye-glazing details of the case and look instead at how
the vice president's office operated."

No nostalgia for me. But I catch the "almost" irony. I just wish
these truths had come out in October 2004 instead of in 2005 and 2006.

"The primary stated reason for the war -- Saddam Hussein's supposed
nuclear weapons program -- had already been discredited, and now this
guy Wilson was claiming that the White House knew beforehand that
some of the most damning evidence of a nuclear program was bogus.
Cheney convened a war council, organized an effort to counter
Wilson's claims and then sent Libby out to leak anything that would
make Wilson look less credible. In other words, they went after the
messenger rather than the message.

Kill the messenger! It's an ancient greek practice.

"One problem was that Cheney's office had been so taciturn that
reporters rarely bothered to call, knowing that all they were likely
to get was a cold shoulder. Cheney's former press aide testified that
at one point there was a frantic search for a phone number for
someone, anyone, at Newsweek. That leak finally had to be attempted
via voice mail."

This was reported during various testimonies. The facts are showing
that not only did Cheney's office emit the ooze, they had to go out
of the way to get anyone to accept it.

"Flash forward to the point when it became clear that someone in this
supposedly tight-lipped administration had leaked the fact that
Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent. Amid much finger-
pointing, the White House issued a statement that categorically
absolved Rove of this potentially criminal leak -- but that didn't
mention Libby."

Gosh I hope this prosecution leads to others. So far the testimony is
revealing he was part of a pack of liars.

"You get the sense of Cheney and his crew as a semi-independent power
center, a family within the larger family. You see them hunkered down
in their office suite, much like Tony and crew in the back room of
the Bada Bing, plotting ways to cover their behinds and do in their
rivals -- whether those rivals are found in Baghdad, Tehran or the
West Wing."

We just have to thank god that so far it hasn't occured to them (yet)
to start offing people literally.

"Scooter worried he was being thrown to the wolves, according to his
attorney. A note scribbled by Cheney, the lawyer says, revealed that
he had smelled a plan to "sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick
his neck in the meat grinder."

Kind of like Nixon's comments about leaving people "twisting in the
wind."

"Now that really sounds like something you'd expect to happen in
Tony's world."

Welcome to the Robo-cop present.

http://tinyurl.com/38hnwt
further reading:

http://www.psywar.org/falklands.php
better:
http://www.falklands.info/history/hist82article13.html
Chris

Posted by cholte at January 30, 2007 10:46 PM