Cheney’s Dilemma–No dick or that is His Name? (UPDATED)

Pity poor old Dick Cheney. He barely knows who he is. Mind is slipping for sure. Latest evidence that he is living in the land of delusion is his insistence that the Bush Administration was on top of the Afghanistan problem because they undertook a review in the fall of 2008. Great! Someone tell Dickie that we sent forces to Afghanistan in 2001 and he and George Bush diverted U.S. military resources to Iraq for the next seven years.

Now we have further evidence that Dick’s mind was slipping back in 2004. Today’s release of the FBI’s interview notes with Cheney about the leak of Valerie Plame’s name and identity as a covert CIA officer proves conclusively that Cheney’s gone soft in the noodle. Here’s the transcript.

If you can’t wade thru the bullshit, here’s the AP summation:

Vice President Dick Cheney told the FBI he had no idea who leaked to the news media that Valerie Plame, wife of a Bush administration critic, worked for the CIA.
An FBI summary of Cheney’s interview from 2004 reflects that the vice president had deep concern about Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador in Africa who said the administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq.
Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was convicted of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI in the probe of who leaked Plame’s identity to the news media. At the end of Libby’s trial, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said that “there is a cloud over the vice president” in the leaking of Plame’s identity.
Following Libby’s conviction, President George W. Bush commuted Libby’s 30-month prison sentence but rejected Cheney’s vehement appeals to pardon Libby.
The 28-page FBI interview summary was released Friday to a watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sued to get the material under the Freedom of Information Act.
In the interview, whose participants included Fitzgerald, Cheney told agents that he did not recall having a conversation about either Plame or her husband with Bush.
The vice president said he probably discussed Wilson with Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, but told the FBI he would not have talked to Rove about Wilson’s wife.
Cheney’s denials that he talked about Plame are among the few things in the lengthy interview with the FBI that Cheney appeared certain about. He repeatedly said he could not recall key events. Among them, he said he did not recall discussing Wilson’s wife with Libby before her CIA employment was publicly revealed by conservative columnist Robert Novak in mid-July 2003.

That Cheney, when he is on the Alzheimer’s express, is a funny motherfucker. He’s miffed at the CIA that they would think he wanted information about Iraq and its quest for nuclear weapons. Why would they think that? Just because he asked his briefer for more information does not mean the CIA will take the VP’s request seriously.

And why in the world would the CIA send Ambassador Joe Wilson to Niger to find out if there was any credibility to the report? What the hell qualifies Joe Wilson? OK, just because he was the acting Ambassador in Iraq and faced down Saddam Hussein and saved American hostages does not mean anything. Just because Joe Wilson was the U.S. point person in Iraq for monitoring Iraq’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons does not mean he is that qualified. He may have been one of the more informed people in the United States about Iraq’s nuclear activities and its efforts to acquire uranium yellow cake, but that is no reason to send him on a mission to Africa.

And what in the name of Allah does Joe Wilson know about Africa? Ok, let’s ignore the fact that he served as foreign service officer in several countries in Africa, he was an Ambassador in Africa and he was in charge of Africa at the National Security Council. Just because he followed the issue of uranium exports from Niger and their possible use in nuclear proliferation does not qualify Joe Wilson to do anything but drink green tea.

Talk about amateur hour. The CIA sent a former Ambassador, with area knowledge of the two countries involved in a possible sale of uranium, and then, when he came back, sent over a reports officer and debriefed the old has been (a subsequently produced a classified intelligence report). Boy, talk about goofy procedure. (Of course, that is exactly how an intelligence agency operates but why should that little fact trouble the empty mind of Dick Cheney?)

When it comes to who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame we now can make the startling announcement that Dick Cheney is Butterfly McQueen (which means he has no dick). He don’t know nothing bout leakin no name of a CIA gal.

When shown the NY Times article with Cheney’s own handwritten scribbles in the margin (which just happened to become the basis for the talking points subsequently employed by Republican lackeys to attack Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie, is just a damned miracle) the absent minded Vice President really had no idea why anyone would want to know anything about Valerie Wilson.

Yet his notes tell a different story:

In neat writing above the text of the column, prosecutors say, Mr. Cheney wrote: “Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an Amb. to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?”

If Cheney really did not know much about Valerie Wilson then why did he suggest she “sent him on a junket?”

Why worry about such discrepancies. Let’s remember who the real bad guy is–Joe Wilson. He had the audacity to report the same information that the U.S. Ambassador to Niger and the Deputy Commander of EUCOM had previously reported–Niger was not selling Iraq uranium and had not sold uranium to Iraq. Let this be a lesson Joe, don’t tell the true. We preferred being lied to. That’s why we placed George W. Bush with Barack Obama. We traded one liar for a better liar.

UPDATE: Nick Baumann at Mother Jones took time to list Dick Cheney’s dramatic memory loss:

1. Whether the Wilson trip was discussed during any of the visits he made to the CIA with his Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby.

2. Any reaction he had to Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times’ article about the Wilson visit at the time the article was published.

3. Whether he discussed the Wilson situation with George Tenet at their meeting on June 10, 2003.

4. Who he spoke to about Joe Wilson’s July 6, 2003 editorial (he did remember speaking to someone, but not who it was).

5. What happened to the Joe Wilson op-ed after he wrote on it suggesting that Valerie Plame Wilson had sent Joe Wilson on a “junket,” and put it in his outbox.

6. Any specific advice he gave his press people in the May-June 2003 timeframe regarding the Wilson trip to Niger.

7. Whether he discussed the Wilson situation with Eric Edelman, one of his national security advisers.

8. Whether Cathie Martin, his press secretary, entered his office while both he and Scooter Libby were present and advised both of them that Joe Wilson’s wife was employed by the CIA.

9. Discussing Joe Wilson or Wilson’s wife with his former press secretary Mary Matalin, although he said it was possible.

10. Ever discussing Valerie Plame Wilson with Libby prior to the publication of Novak’s column.

11. Whether Scooter Libby knew about Valerie Plame Wilson on July 12, the day before the publication of the Novak column.

12. If Libby ever told Cheney he had independent knowledge of Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert identity.

13. Dictating notes to Libby on July 12, 2003 that Cheney said looked and sounded like something he might have dictated to Libby.

14. Discussing the Novak column or any of its contents with anyone at the time it was published.

15. Whether he discussed the Wilson trip with Libby as a sort of “boondoggle” or “junket,” although he believed it possible that he had such a conversation.

16. If Libby told him that Libby was not Novak’s source.

17. Libby telling him how he first learned that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA operative.

18. Whether he told Libby that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA operative.

19. Waving off Libby when Libby offered to tell him everything he knew about the Wilson matter.

20. Anyone on his staff, including Libby, ever meeting with Judith Miller during the week of July 7, 2003.

21. Having a conversation with Libby during which Libby said he wanted to share the judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate with Judith Miller.

22. Whether Libby told him that certain material in the NIE had to be declassified before it could be shared.

Keep these memory lapses in mind next time you hear Dick Cheney talk about anything that happened prior to last week. Could be dementia or Alzheimers. Thank God he has Government health care.