For Villagers, Republicans are “moderates” if they’re reasonable dinner party guests.

via Eschaton: It’s Just Tone.

Yes, and this revisionist policy position syndrome affects more people than you think. See one Bill Maher.

I’ve heard him say quite often that former Vice President Dick Cheney is to the left of President Obama on marriage equality.  President Obama has successfully led the repeal of DADT, extended benefits to domestic partners of executive branch employees, supports Civil Unions, stopped the DOJ from defending DOMA in court. Prior to that, Obama as US Senator and US Representative had a record of supporting Civil Rights for LGBT Americans including supporting hate crimes legislation that includes LGBT as a protected class. The sticking point here is that Obama supports civil unions (short of gay marriage), while Dick Cheney supports marriage equality although like Obama  he says (marriage is the province of the states). But Cheney’s strong personal support of LGBT rights amounted when hedged against the Bush/Cheney’s platform resulted in substantial setbacks to marriage equality and civil rights for LGBT Americans.

Cheney was a long serving US Representative, a  Secretary of Defense, director of the Council of Foreign Relations and a very powerful vice president for the bulk of George W. Bush’s 8 years in office. It’s true, as  Secretary of Defense he was first quoted on the record as referring to the policy of banning gays in the military as “an old chestnut”. But not that old of a chestnut:

Increasingly, toward the end of his tenure, Cheney had to consider social issues affecting the military forces, particularly the status of homosexuals in the military and the role of women in combat. In the face of pressure from some members of Congress and the public at large, Cheney reviewed standing DoD policy on these matters. He decided that the existing policies–a ban on homosexuals serving in the military and the exclusion of women from combat positions–were correct and did not need to be changed.

During and after his tenure as VP, Cheney also professed his belief in full marriage equality, but he did little beyond these proclamations of personal belief to advance the rights of LGBT Americans with regards to these issues. Cheney picked himself for the number two job in the Bush administration as head of Bush 2000 VP search committee and it was evident then that a Bush/Cheney administration would never support repeal of DADT or marriage equality and in fact would push for less civil rights for LGBT groups. During the 2000 and 04 elections Bush/Cheney, ran on a platform that made them the bulwark protecting real ‘murkins and their children from teh ghey marriages.

This was a big motivator for evangelicals, the group that when energized supercharges the ground game for Republicans. To tweak the issue prior to the US Presidential Election in 2004 and Mid Term elections in 2006, the Bush Administration introduced legislation for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and woman. These “sanctity of marriage” amendments failed, but showed that no federal action was possible. “The Sanctity of Marriage” was up to social conservative evangelical voters.  With this demagoguery as a motivator, from 2002 to 2008, social conservatives proposed and passed anti-marriage equality ballot measures in 29 states that amended their constitutions to be anti-gay marriage.

Degree, magnitude, process and consequence of political actions matter. Cheney was vocal or personally adamant in his support for marriage equality and civil rights but this was largely absent from Cheney’s legislative, cabinet and vice presidential agendas. These same issues have been political priorities in President Obama’s considerably shorter political career. Cheney squandered his opportunity to be politically “on the left” of Obama on these issues in any substantial way.

Progress as measured by VPs 2004 to 2010 (c/o Blame it on the Voices)

President George W. Bush and his senior aides considered — and rejected — a military response to Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia, according to a new history of the conflict and interviews with former officials in the Bush administration.

With desperate Georgians begging for American help in closing down the key route through which Russian soldiers were pouring into the country, Bush’s national security aides outlined possible responses, including “the bombardment and sealing of the Roki Tunnel” and other “surgical strikes,” according to a new history of the conflict and independent interviews with former senior officials.

“In that moment of desperation these issues came onto the table, and came to the principals committee” consisting of Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and top Cabinet members, said Ron Asmus, a Clinton administration State Department official whose book, out this week, is called “The Little War That Shook the World.”

“There were people on [Vice President Dick] Cheney’s staff and [National Security Adviser Stephen] Hadley’s staff who said, ‘We can’t let Georgia go down like this.’”

via U.S. pondered military use in Georgia – Ben Smith – POLITICO.com.

Simply Unbelievable. If Cheney’s staffers and advisors thought  ”We can’t let Georgia go down like this” that means Cheney agreed and was probably the source of that hawkish opinion. Contrast that with how Cheney declined Bush’s request that he head up Katrina relief. (Wrap your head around that: the Vice President declined to fulfill a request to head up a domestic emergency relief mission from the President). You know, we are lucky the country wasn’t in worse shape when Obama took office.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney (Fox News Channel)

Ali H. Soufan, F.B.I. special agent from 1997 to 2005, writes for the New York Times:

The inspector general’s report distinguishes between intelligence gained from regular interrogation and from the harsher methods, which culminate in waterboarding. While the former produces useful intelligence, according to the report, the latter “is a more subjective process and not without concern.” And the information in the two memos reinforces this differentiation.

They show that substantial intelligence was gained from pocket litter (materials found on detainees when they were captured), from playing detainees against one another and from detainees freely giving up information that they assumed their questioners already knew. A computer seized in March 2003 from a Qaeda operative for example, listed names of Qaeda members and money they were to receive.

via Op-Ed Contributor – What Torture Never Told Us – NYTimes.com.

Soufan and other experts keep asserting, with mounting proof, that conventional interrogation of terror suspects produced all intelligence needed to thwart terrorism and Bush Administration approved torture was a collection of brutal, criminal, non-productive methods used to personally destroy those suspected of being terrorists. The Cheney Daddy and Daughter team continue to lie and yet are never called to respond to facts. Even when they are, they lie or deflect. Just like the run up to Iraq war, talking heads sit idly by them and nod approvingly.