[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 23 (Tuesday, February 28, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E217-E218]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: RESIGN FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR COUNTRY

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 28, 2006

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce into the Record an 
opinion piece by Bob Herbert in the February 16, 2006 edition of The 
New York Times entitled ``Mr. Vice President, It's Time to Go.''
  Anyone who has been a long-time reader of Mr. Herbert's columns in 
the Times as I have knows Mr. Herbert has deplored the unshared 
sacrifice of this war, the fact that it is one small percentage of the 
people of this country who bear the burden of the war. He has been 
consistent in his criticism of the hubris of this administration and 
the secrecy surrounding everything it does. This is the most secretive 
administration in the Nation's history. Mr. Cheney is if not the 
designer of this secrecy policy, is certainly the most prominent member 
of the administration using the policy which he clearly believes allows 
him to keep secrets not only from the Congress, but also from the 
President.
  Before the hunting incident now before the public's very interested 
eye, there are many

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examples of Mr. Cheney's policy of not telling anyone anything. Going 
as far back as Mr. Cheney's meetings with the Energy mogul's who helped 
him shape this country's lopsided energy policies in which Exxon Mobile 
posted the greatest profits ever made in the history of this country 
last year when energy prices were so high some of America's poor have 
to depend on the charity of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela to make it through 
the winter.
  Mr. Cheney is so secretive he implemented and managed a system of CIA 
prisons and torture cites in Europe called ``black sites'' which 
violated not only our laws and treaties but those of the European 
Union. And practically no one in the Congress of the United States knew 
anything about these prisons until the Washington Post disclosed their 
existence.
  Mr. I. ``Scooter'' Libby just disclosed at his perjury trial that Mr. 
Cheney gave him classified information to give to the press. That was 
classified information about an undercover secret service agent, 
Valerie Plame.
  Since the Congress and the public know only egregious examples of 
what exposures by whistles blowers and the press has made in the 
interest of the public's greater good, we, the American people, know 
nothing of the Vice President's doings of the last 6 years. That is a 
scary thought.
  This hunting accident, in which Mr. Cheney defied all White House 
protocol by not informing the President, the White House Press Office, 
the Police or Sheriff until at least 24 hours after the shooting, has 
reinforced the opinion that Mr. Cheney is out of control. That is, he 
is above the law, rules and regulations of ordinary mortals. He doesn't 
even have to do what the President wants him to do. He isn't just above 
the law; he is the law.
  The story had many conflicting versions as they were told by the 
owner of the ranch, the doctors treating the shooting victim, Scott 
McClelland and finally, Cheney himself. This has opened the White House 
to increasingly hard questions about the inconsistencies in these 
stories. The White House can't reconcile these differences because, it 
appears, Mr. Cheney feels he doesn't have to explain anything to the 
President or the White House Press Secretary. Mr. Cheney is an official 
who works for the people of the United States. But don't try to tell 
him that. It doesn't fit with his view of himself or the way he carries 
out his office of Vice President.
  Mr. Herbert points out in his op-ed piece: ``The shooting and Mr. 
Cheney's high-handed behavior in its immediate aftermath fit perfectly 
with the stereotype of him as a powerful but dangerous figure who is 
viewed by many as a dark force within the administration. He doesn't 
even give lip service to the idea of transparency in his private of 
public life . . .''
  Dick Cheney is a constant reminder of those things the White House 
would like most to forget: the bullying, the intelligence failures, the 
inability to pacify Iraq (Mr. Cheney told Tim Russert: ``I really do 
believe, that we will be greeted as liberators,'' he said) the misuse 
of classified information and the breathtaking incompetence that spread 
through the administration.
  I agree with Mr. Herbert's conclusion: ``Mr. Cheney would do his 
nation and his president a service by packing his bags and heading back 
to Wyoming. He's become a joke. But not a funny one.''

                [From the New York Times, Feb. 16, 2006]

                  Mr. Vice President, It's Time to Go

                            (By Bob Herbert)

       It's time for Dick Cheney to step down--for the sake of the 
     country and for the sake of the Bush administration.
       Mr. Cheney's bumbling conduct at the upscale Armstrong 
     Ranch in South Texas seemed hilarious at first. But when we 
     learned that Harry Whittington had suffered a mild heart 
     attack after being shot by the vice president in a hunting 
     accident, it became clear that a more sober assessment of the 
     fiasco at the ranch and, inevitably, Mr. Cheney's 
     controversial and even bizarre behavior as vice president was 
     in order.
       There's a reason Dick Cheney is obsessive about shunning 
     the spotlight. His record is not the kind you want to hold up 
     for intense scrutiny.
       More than anyone else, he was fanatical about massaging and 
     distorting the intelligence that plunged us into the flaming 
     quagmire of Iraq. He insisted that Saddam Hussein had 
     chemical and biological weapons and was hot on the trail of 
     nukes. He pounded away at the false suggestion that Iraq was 
     somehow linked to Al Qaeda. And he spread the word that the 
     war he wanted so badly would be a cakewalk.
       ``I really do believe,'' he told Tim Russert, ``that we 
     will be greeted as liberators.''
       Well, he got his war. And while the nation's brave young 
     soldiers and marines were bouncing around Iraq in shamefully 
     vulnerable Humvees and other vehicles, dodging bullets, bombs 
     and improvised explosive devices, Mr. Cheney (a gold-medal 
     winner in the acquisition of wartime deferments) felt 
     perfectly comfortable packing his fancy 28-gauge Perazzi 
     shotgun and heading off to Texas with a covey of fat cats to 
     shoot quail.
       Matters went haywire, of course, when he shot Mr. 
     Whittington instead.
       That was the moment when the legend of the tough, hawkish, 
     take-no-prisoners vice president began morphing into the 
     less-than-heroic image of a reckless, scowling incompetent 
     who mistook his buddy for a bird.
       This story is never going away. Harry Whittington is Dick 
     Cheney's Monica. When Mr. Whittington dies (hopefully many 
     years from now, and from natural causes), he will be 
     remembered as the hunting companion who was shot by the vice 
     president of the United States. This tale will stick to Mr. 
     Cheney like Krazy Glue, and that's bad news for the Bush 
     administration.
       The shooting and Mr. Cheney's highhanded behavior in its 
     immediate aftermath fit perfectly with the stereotype of him 
     as a powerful but dangerous figure who is viewed by many 
     as a dark force within the administration. He doesn't even 
     give lip service to the idea of transparency in his public 
     or private life. This is the man who fought all the way to 
     the Supreme Court to keep his White House meetings with 
     energy industry honchos as secret as the Manhattan 
     Project. (Along the way he went duck hunting at a private 
     camp in rural Louisiana with Justice Antonin Scalia.)
       This is also the man whose closest and most trusted aide, 
     Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, has been indicted for perjury and 
     obstruction of justice as a result of the investigation into 
     the outing of a C.I.A. undercover operative, Valerie Wilson.
       Mr. Cheney is arrogant, defiant and at times blatantly 
     vulgar. He once told Senator Patrick Leahy to perform a crude 
     act upon himself.
       A vice president who insists on writing his own rules, who 
     shudders at the very idea of transparency in government, 
     whose judgment on crucial policy issues has been as wildly 
     off the mark (and infinitely more tragic) as his actions in 
     Texas over the weekend, and who has now become an object of 
     relentless ridicule, cannot by any reasonable measure be 
     thought of as an asset to the nation or to the president he 
     serves.
       The Bush administration would benefit from new thinking and 
     new perspectives on the war in Iraq, the potential threat 
     from Iran, the nation's readiness to cope with another terror 
     attack, the development of a comprehensive energy policy and 
     other important issues.
       President Bush's approval ratings have dropped below 40 
     percent in recent polls. Even Republicans are openly 
     criticizing the administration's conduct of the war, its 
     response to Hurricane Katrina and assorted other failures and 
     debacles.
       Dick Cheney is a constant reminder of those things the 
     White House would most like to forget: the bullying, the 
     intelligence failures, the inability to pacify Iraq, the 
     misuse of classified information and the breathtaking 
     incompetence that seems to be spread throughout the 
     administration.
       Mr. Cheney would do his nation and his president a service 
     by packing his bags and heading back to Wyoming. He's become 
     a joke. But not a funny one.

                          ____________________