Electric Monkey Pants

Arlen Specter does not sound very happy about Cheney’s hardball tactics. Cheney has been leaning heavily on various Republican members of the Judiciary Committee in order to get their word that no substansive hearings will be held. Specter, as chairman, does not like that:

In a letter to Cheney that the senator released to the news media, Specter said the vice president had cut him out of discussions with all the other Republicans on his own committee about oversight of the administration’s eavesdropping programs, a subject on which Specter has often been at odds with the White House.

The trigger for Specter’s anger was a deal Cheney made with the other Republicans on the committee to block testimony from phone companies that reportedly cooperated in providing call records to the National Security Agency.

Specter, who had been considering issuing subpoenas to compel telephone company executives to testify, learned of Cheney’s actions only when he went into a closed meeting of the committee’s Republicans on Tuesday afternoon, shortly after encountering the vice president at a weekly luncheon of all Senate Republicans.

What’s funny to me is how childish Specter seems when talking about how Cheney dissed him by ignoring him at that party last week:

“I was surprised, to say the least, that you sought to influence, really determine, the action of the committee without calling me first, or at least calling me at some point,” Specter wrote. “This was especially perplexing since we both attended the Republican senators caucus lunch yesterday and I walked directly in front of you on at least two occasions en route from the buffet to my table.”

Awwwwww… isn’t that cute? Specter’s pissed because Cheney’s not talking to him. This is so fucking highschool.

Obviously, I support Specter in this little dustup because Cheney is clearly trying to squash dissent, as he always does. This time he might not be able to stem the tide. Well, we can only hope. It’s not like we have any power or say in the matter. This is just a squabble among the elites. The rest of us can only watch.

Reuters is running a story on the wire that quotes Fitzgerald as saying that Cheney’s feelings on the matter are directly relevant to the case.

Could this be a prelude to a Cheney indictment? A guy can hope.

“At the time, the vice president, rather than other potential witnesses, was upset that his personal credibility had been attacked unfairly in his view,” Fitzgerald said.

…(snip)…

In the court filing, Fitzgerald said Libby has acknowledged that the vice president directed him “to get out to the public all the facts” in response to the article.

“Therefore, the state of mind of the vice president as communicated to defendant is directly relevant to the issue of whether defendant knowingly made false statements to federal agents and the grand jury regarding when and how he learnt about Ms. Wilson’s employment and what he said to reporters regarding this issue,” Fitzgerald said in the court filing.

Oh man. He is so guilty. Cheney that is. Of course Libby is guilty; he was just following Cheney’s orders, like any good right-hand-man should do. In this case, though, they overplayed their hand and got caught. Well, maybe they just got sloppy. They fight so dirty with detractors, you have to wonder why Cheney and Co. are filled with so much hate.

One more reason to hate Dick Cheney (as if I needed more). I was driving back to work after my eye appointment this afternoon when traffic came to a complete stop on 494. I could see up ahead the rode was bare after a certain point. As it became clear that we were stuck on the bridge (over the river), heading west, just before the airport, people started getting out of their cars and chatting. I looked around a bit and I could see police cars’ lights up ahead. It seemed they had cordoned off the whole lane (the other lane was unencumbered).

I started chatting with a middle-aged guy with a cellphone. He told me his buddy said it was Air Force One (or Two or whatever) and that Dick Cheney was in town. This idea was corroborated by other fellow travelers. So basically, Dick Cheney shut down one of the largest freeways in the state for 20 or 30 minutes so that his motorcade could travel unmolested by traffic. Allow me to recap:

Fuck you, Dick Cheney. Fuck You.

How about traveling on the same roads as the rest of us? Here’s an idea: maybe you shouldn’t take a huge motorcade with a limo everywhere! Maybe nobody would notice if you drove around in an old Pinto. But no. Dick Cheney has to emerge from his secure location to lord over the rest of us and show off just how powerful he is. He can shut down a highway, with cars backed up for miles, while he gets his ass chauffeured whereever he wants to go. I’m sure he’s not even driving, so what’s the big deal if there’s traffic? I can’t understand it as anything other than a powerplay on his part. It’s so typical of him to inconvenience thousands of people for nothing.

Granted, this is far from the worst thing he’s done, but it affected me, so it’s on my mind. And it just happened like 30 minutes ago. This is some seriously up-to-the-minute blogging here.

My only regret is that I couldn’t catch up to his motorcade to flip him off as I drove past him at 90 miles an hour, late for work. Fuck you, Cheney.

Update: Here’s a link to the Trib story about Cheney’s arrival.