http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/dick-cheney-betrays-george-bush-new-boo

By John Amato
August 26, 2011

Dick Cheney is once again telling everyone how much he loves waterboarding and torture. NBC is teasing an in-depth interview about Cheney's new book, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir, which is being released at the end of August. Other bits and pieces are coming out to help promote the sales of the book like this article in the NY Times today: Cheney Says He Urged Bush to Bomb Syria in ’07

During George Bush's entire presidency the question of how much influence and authority VP Dick Cheney was given was always been part of the discussion. Cheney openly disdained rules, conventions and laws, pushing the concept of the Unitary Executive further than Nixon ever dreamed. Was Cheney making all the important policy decisions? Cheney once believed he was highly qualified to be president and threw out a trial balloon in 1996.

Revealed: Ashcroft, Tenet, Rumsfeld warned 9/11 Commission about ‘line’ it ’should not cross’
By Sahil Kapur
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 -- 9:11 am

Senior Bush administration officials sternly cautioned the 9/11 Commission against probing too deeply into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, according to a document recently obtained by the ACLU.

The notification came in a letter dated January 6, 2004, addressed by Attorney General John Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and CIA Director George J. Tenet. The ACLU described it as a fax sent by David Addington, then-counsel to former vice president Dick Cheney.

In the message, the officials denied the bipartisan commission's request to question terrorist detainees, informing its two senior-most members that doing so would "cross" a "line" and obstruct the administration's ability to protect the nation.

consortiumnews.com

Yoo's on First?

By Ray McGovern
April 10, 2008

Is it because John Yoo, the former Justice Department's hired hand, is such an easy target? Is it because of the cheeky, in-your-face way in which Yoo argues that the president has the authority to have your eyes poked out and your sons' testicles crushed, because we are "at war" and he is commander in chief?

Or is it because our press is STILL reluctant to go after Yoo's guys – first and foremost his ultimate client – President George W. Bush? Oh, but that would be hard, you say.

Nonsense.

Available on the Web, in its original format, is a 7 Feb. 2002 action memorandum that the president signed to implement the dubious advice he was getting from Yoo and those at Justice who hired Yoo – and from the vice president's office which guided Yoo.

Yoo did their dirty work (and now he takes the rap).

Weren't Yoo's co-conspirators careful to keep their fingerprints off the more blatantly offensive memoranda? Sure they were.

David Addington is Cheney's chief of staff (since Scooter Libby's fall), and the chief legal architect of most of the unlawful things that this administration has done. Addington has been the chief lawyer promoting Bush and Cheney's unlawful war on terror, and was once described by U.S. News and World Report as "the most powerful man you've never heard of".