[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 38 (Thursday, March 30, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E481-E482]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: AGAIN, RESIGN FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR COUNTRY

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 30, 2006

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce into the record an 
opinion piece by Eugene Robinson in the March 21, 2006, edition of The 
Washington Post entitled ``The Planet of Unreality.'' Mr. Robinson 
opens his article by the statement: ``This is not good.'' He is 
referring to the absolute detachment from reality evidenced by Vice 
President Cheney most recently on the Sunday March 19, 2006, program 
``Face the Nation.''
  On ``Face the Nation'' Vice President Cheney made the jaw-dropping 
statement that his earlier predictions about the war in Iraq including 
his infamous pre-invasion prediction that U.S. troops would be 
``greeted as liberators'' and his more recent ``the insurgency is in 
its last throes'' were ``basically accurate and reflect reality.''
  Let me second Mr. Robinson's statement: ``This is not good.'' I can 
find nothing good about the lies, the deliberate effort made by the 
Vice President to connect the 9/11 attack to the war in Iraq, and the 
continued rosy pictures of the Iraq War the Vice President continues to 
make; statements that are unconnected to facts in any way. ``This is 
not good.''
  The Vice President is either deliberately restating his opinions 
long-ago proved to be lies, or perhaps more frightening, he is now 
entirely in the grip of pathological self-delusion.
  I believe the Vice President is continuing his lies and deceit with 
no care as to whether what he says is true, harmful to our country or 
deepens even more the profound distrust of the Bush Administration the 
American people have expressed. The Vice President hurts Americans in a 
variety of ways. This country, this shining democracy is being hurt, 
possibly, permanently, by just being the second in command and 
unaccountable to anyone in an unprecedented way. The fact that 
President George Bush does not fire him, hold him accountable, or 
contradict his false statements, creates the assumption on the part of 
the rest of the world that the U.S. is a rogue state with a Cheney-Bush 
regime bent on imposing its un-American policies of pre-emptive war, 
torture of prisoners, disregard of its Constitution and the will of its 
people. The statements and conduct of Vice President Dick Cheney which 
can only be characterized as secretive, un-American and 
unconstitutional create the impression that the American people no 
longer care about their democracy. His conduct creates the impression 
that America is a dictatorship, or worse becoming a fascist state. The 
Vice President's intentional disregard of the Constitution, the 
Congress and the people of this great country sets the worst standard 
of conduct for the fledgling democracies the President states we must 
bring to every country in the world.

  Mr. Cheney's statements so contrary to the facts are far worse than 
merely confusing and dizzifying; they are damaging and unmindful of the 
best interests of this country. Mr. Cheney's reckless disregard for the 
truth is undermining the already low credibility and esteem in which 
our government is now held. When the Vice President undermines the 
credibility of our government he is also violating the Constitution of 
the United States which he is sworn to uphold.
  It is no small thing for the Vice President of the United States to 
have the inglorious reputation of being the power behind the 
President's war conduct and treatment of prisoners, but to also be 
recognized as the American official who has most steadfastly insisted, 
contrary to the truth, that we went to war in Iraq because the attack 
of September 11, 2001 was carried out by terrorists trained, encouraged 
or given haven by Saddam Hussein.
  I find the Vice President a source of deep embarrassment because of 
his persistent efforts on behalf of his agenda, his devotion to ``the 
ends justify the means'' mentality and his lack of acknowledgement of 
the deaths of 2,300 Americans, the wounding and maiming of 17,000 more 
and the tens of thousands of deaths and maiming of innocent Iraqi 
civilians.
  It is clear to me that the Vice President should be removed from 
office if he does not have sufficient patriotism and good grace to 
resign for the good of the country. He is engaged in ``business as 
usual'' with no concern for how this ``business'' affects his country 
or the world.

               [From the Washington Post, Mar. 21, 2006]

                        The Planet of Unreality

                          (By Eugene Robinson)

       This is not good. The people running this country sound 
     convinced that reality is whatever they say it is. And if 
     they've actually strayed into the realm of genuine self-
     delusion--if they actually believe the fantasies they're 
     spinning about the bloody mess they've made in Iraq over the 
     past three years--then things are even worse than I thought.
       Here is reality: The Bush administration's handpicked 
     interim Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, told the BBC on 
     Sunday, ``We are losing each day an average of 50 to 60 
     people throughout the country, if not more. If this is not 
     civil war, then God knows what civil war is. Iraq is in the 
     middle of a crisis. Maybe we have not reached the point of no 
     return yet, but we are moving towards this point. . . . We 
     are in a terrible civil conflict now.''
       Here is self-delusion: Dick Cheney went on ``Face the 
     Nation'' a few hours later and said he disagreed with 
     Allawi--who, by the way, is a tad closer to the action than 
     the quail-hunting veep. There's no civil war, Cheney 
     insisted. Move along, nothing to see here, pay no attention 
     to those suicide bombings and death-squad murders. As an 
     aside, Cheney insisted that his earlier forays into the 
     Twilight Zone--U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators, 
     the insurgency is in its ``last throes''--were ``basically 
     accurate and reflect reality.''
       Maybe on his home planet.
       Donald Rumsfeld, meanwhile, was busy on The Post's op-ed 
     page, abusing history. Leaving Iraq now, he wrote, ``would be 
     the modem equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the 
     Nazis.'' The bizarre analogy was immediately disputed by 
     foreign policy sages Henry Kissinger (who noted that there 
     was ``no significant resistance movement'' in Germany after 
     World War II) and Zbigniew Brzezinski (who just called the 
     comparison ``absolutely crazy'').
       George W. Bush, who speaks as if he has ascended to an even 
     higher plane of unreality, marked the third anniversary of 
     the invasion Sunday by touting a ``strategy that will lead to 
     victory in Iraq.'' I know that ``victory'' is a word that 
     focus groups love, but did anyone else hear an echo of 
     Richard Nixon's ``secret plan'' to end the war in Vietnam? 
     Does anyone else remember that there was no ``secret plan''?
       It's reprehensible when our highest elected officials act 
     cynically, as I believe this administration has done--Bush, 
     Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest knew the evidence for weapons 
     of mass destruction in Iraq was less than conclusive, but 
     they hyped it anyway to build support for an invasion they 
     were determined to launch. It's dangerous when our leaders 
     act cluelessly, and the Bush White House has done plenty of 
     that as well--experts who called for a much bigger invasion 
     force were silenced and shoved aside, assurances that Iraqi 
     oil revenue would defray U.S. costs turned out to be a sick 
     joke, and there was no effective plan to get the electricity 
     turned on, much less deal with thousands of insurgents.
       But cynicism and cluelessness are one thing. Actually being 
     divorced from reality is another. Do Bush et al. really see 
     only the democratic process they have installed in Iraq and 
     not the bitter sectarian conflict that process has been 
     unable to quell? Do they realize that whatever happens, 
     there's not going to be a neat package, tied up with a bow, 
     labeled ``victory''--certainly in the 34 months (but who's 
     counting?) that the Bush administration has left in office?
       Rumsfeld, I think, gets it. ``History is a bigger picture, 
     and it takes some time and perspective to measure 
     accurately,'' he wrote in his op-ed piece, the whole tone of 
     which reminded me of Fidel Castro's famous declaration as he 
     was being jailed after his first, failed attempt at 
     revolution: ``History will absolve me.'' Condoleezza Rice 
     seems to get it, too, telling Australians the other day that 
     ``beyond my lifetime'' people would appreciate what the 
     administration had done for the Middle East.
       But what about the two men at the top?
       Cheney lamented this weekend that ``what's newsworthy is 
     the car bomb in Baghdad,'' and ``not all the work that went 
     on that day in 15 other provinces in terms of making progress 
     towards rebuilding Iraq.'' Yesterday Bush recounted a 
     successful anti-insurgent operation in one town, calling it a 
     good-news story that people wouldn't see in their newspapers 
     or on their television screens.

[[Page E482]]

       Fine, blaming the media is a time-honored tactic. I just 
     hope they're being cynical about it. I hope they don't really 
     believe the nonsense they're trying to sell.

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