Former Vice President Dick Cheney walked onstage without any assistance and spoke for an hour and 15 minutes without seeming to tire in his first public engagement since he underwent a heart transplant three weeks ago.

“He has been an unmitigated disaster to the country,” Cheney said of President Barack Obama.

“I can’t think of a time when I felt it was more important for us to defeat an incumbent president today with respect to Barack Obama. I think he has been an unmitigated disaster to the country,” Cheney said at the Wyoming Republican Party state convention in Cheyenne on Saturday.

“I think to be in a position where he gets four more years in the White House to continue the policies he has, both with respect to the economy, and tax policy, and defense and some other areas would be a huge, huge disappointment,” the former Vice President said.

Source: Real Clear Politics. Video at link.

Philip Zelikow, top adviser to Condoleezza Rice, talks to the Guardian about his top secret 2006 memo on interrogation

A senior Bush administration official and former head of the 9/11 Commission has described CIA interrogation techniques used on alleged terrorists as torture and said he warned in a secret memo at the height of the “war on terror” that they breached the US’s own war crimes laws.

Philip Zelikow, who was the US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice’s most senior official, told the Guardian that he now regards what officials euphemistically called “enhanced interrogation”, such as sleep deprivation and waterboarding, as torture – although he did not use that word at the time and is reluctant to use it now.

Zelikow, whose official position was counsellor to Rice, said he had her support on the issue. As the state department’s representative on the National Security Council committee considering legal issues around violent interrogations, he expressed his concerns at the time in a top secret 2006 memorandum.

The memo, to other members of the committee who represented the justice and defence departments and intelligence services, warned that the CIA’s use of waterboarding and other abuses were almost certainly in breach of US and international law. But the memo so alarmed the administration that it was immediately rejected and all copies were ordered destroyed.

A draft version of the memo, found at the state department, wasreleased this week following a freedom of information request by the National Security Archive in Washington.

Zelikow told the Guardian in an email exchange that while he did not use the word torture in the memo, he believes that is what the CIA was using. “I do regard the interrogation practices and conditions of confinement, taken together, as torture – in the ordinary layman’s use of this term. But … ‘torture’ is also a term with a carefully worded legal meaning and definition. So I tend to avoid talking about ‘torture’ because it would appear I’m accusing officials of criminal activity, which I’m not sure was the case,” he said.

“I have sometimes just referred to ‘physical torment’ instead, which seems expressive and is accurate.”

Zelikow said he is uncertain whether individuals in the CIA or other services are guilty of war crimes or have other criminal liability over the use of torture because they were told by the office of legal counsel, which provides legal advice to the president, that techniques such waterboarding, which causes the sensation of drowning, sleep deprivation and stress positions, were legal.

“For better or worse, but mainly better, to be a crime one must violate the law. To be an intentional crime … So the attorney general’s legal position telling officials their conduct is legal really did matter,” he said. “Had I been in the attorney general’s or OLC’s position in 2002, I would not have interpreted either the war crimes statute (as written then) or the torture statute in the way those officials interpreted them. But they made their choices and had the authority to make them.”

But he said he has little doubt that the methods were unacceptable. “I think what they did was wrong,” he said.

CONTINUEd at The Guardian.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Here we go again, another critique if you will on another primary debate for the GOP candidates who want to go head-to-head with Obama in 2012. This debate was the first to include, now front-runner, Texas Governor Rick Perry. He is a vile douchebag that I wrote about in ”American Psycho: The Ballad of Rick Perry“. This was also the first debate to not include Tim Pawlenty, as he dropped out of the race like a defeated little bitch even though he was voted third place after the last debate. As with all the other debates besides the first, Gary Johnson was nowhere to be found, which is fucking sacrilege. Thaddeus McCotter, another GOP candidate was also left out. He’s a guy I’d like to hear more from, even though his record is somewhat questionable. Then again, it’s nowhere near as bad as the records of the mainstream media’s handpicked golden boys.

The lineup this round consisted of my favorite candidate Ron Paul, the only one that matters; there were others as well however. The media’s new chosen golden boy Rick Perry was ready to duke it out with their original golden boy Mitt Romney. Awesome business man and non-politician Herman Cain was on stage, as was the lord of fire Newt Gingrich and supermom Michele Bachmann. Oh yeah, some how Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman were invited too.

This debate was the first one to air on MSNBC as it was hosted by NBC and Politico. While those two organizations try to pass of as impartial and non-partisan, they are very liberal organizations. This is not a bad thing at all however. The contrast between the philosophies of the panel of moderators and the candidates should make for some entertaining television and give us a fresh perspective in this long drawn-out election cycle or so one would think.

Now I haven’t seen the tally of who had the most time but as a viewer, it felt that Perry and Romney got about half of the total debate time allotted to them and their banter against each other. I asked several other people and they also felt that this was the Perry-Romney Supershow Variety Hour. Because of this, most of the debate was lame. However, let me sum the shit up for you.

The night of course started with Emperor Rick Perry bragging about his record and how awesome he is as Texas’ dictator. Most of what he said about himself was bullshit but nobody cares because nobody checks facts anymore (here is a link for you though). Note to self: if I ever run for president I have to tell everyone I used to be a T-Rex; they’ll never know and I’ll be a fucking shoe in! Anyway, Perry lies and Romney stares at him like he wants a lick of the Perry Tootsie Pop. There’s too much good hair on the screen at one time. Mitt’s hair looks better on this night though.

So immediately the debate swings over to Mitt Romney, as the golden boys have to get the jump on the competition. He says a bunch of unimportant unmemorable shit which causes Perry to snap back and diss Mittens. It’s a golden boy shit show right off the bat! Perry disses on Mitt for his bad public sector record compared to his “great” private sector record. Mitt throws a low blow.. ba-jing! Perry and Romney go into a zing war! Shit! It’s like watching the douches smack each other with their wangs! With the country falling apart, these guys are giving us a bad reality show style squabble instead of giving us mind-blowing solutions to our peril. Whatever, the public loves them and they’re so handsome!

After the fight between the two middle school girls, our attention is directed towards Rick Santorum. How is this shitcock maroon still in this goddamned race? I think he’s only on the stage because he got lost on his way to the racquetball courts. Santorum is synonymous for slapping around blue balls. I didn’t really hear what he had to say, I’m assuming it had something to do with Jesus, war and water sports.

Herman Cain then gets the spotlight and introduces us to his 999 Plan (read about it here). I like the overall idea of the plan and it is light-years ahead of what most of these douches on the stage are peddling. I’ll critique it in-depth at a later date. Cain, who is always ready to give us a solution, attacks taxes and outshines Santorum, Perry and Romney right out the gate.

The panelists then cut over to Jon Huntsman for the first time and he goes on to tell us that we need to fix the weak broken core. I’m not sure if he is referring to America or his campaign. He also states that Utah was the number one job creator, not Texas or Massachusetts. Huntsman makes it known that Perry and Romney are both high on their own fumes and not as effective as they and the media think they are. Then again, Huntsman is about as effective as a tampon in a gunshot wound. Well, at least Huntsman gave a big shout out to free markets, not that I believe he will fight for true capitalism, he’ll most likely take a massive dump on it. However, being the ambassador to China may have taught him how capitalism works because that country has got their shit together like Legos and Gorilla Glue.

Michele gets the mic and instead of spitting a dope freestyle, she just rambles off her Tea Party talking points about Obamacare eating children and killing jobs or something like that. I’m not sure why this Canadian lady is up there. She then proceeds to remind us, for the umpteenth time in only her third debate, that she has had more children in her home than all the primary schools in Saskatchewan. She came off as bat-shit crazy in her first debate, came off really well in her second debate where she battled it out with Tim Pawlenty, but in this debate she is already back to living up to that creepy image of her from that infamous Newsweek cover. I don’t want to be a dickhole and call her a dingbat but she makes it really fucking hard.

Ron Paul finally gets the attention of Brian Williams and his cronies on the panel. Unlike Huntsman, Dr. Paul drops some knowledge on free markets and truly means what he says. He defends his stance on deregulation and doesn’t falter when Brian Williams presses him on his stance regarding the privatization of everything. Ron Paul with elegance and prose educates the panelists and other presidential candidates but of course his expertise and insight fall on deaf ears.

The moderators then point out that Newt Gingrich wrote the introduction to Rick Perry’s book. Of course the MSNBC stooges are trying to start fires and stir the pot for some Republican Party infighting. Newt takes a shot at Perry but doesn’t jab too hard as he uses his time to point out Obama’s blatant use of class warfare.

They return to Golden Boy 2 and ask Romney a question. Luckily for us viewers, there are technical difficulties. The gist of this exchange is an attempt by the moderators on the panel to drag the Romneycare skeletons out of the closet. To dodge this bullet and divert the attention off of himself, Romney promises to offer waivers for any state that wants to opt out of Obamacare. Um.. dude.. why don’t you just murder that bill instead? Repeal the fuck out of it, that’s what you said you would do before. Is he flip-flopping or stumbling through his thoughts?

The health care debate rolls over towards Golden Boy 1 Rick Perry but he dodges bullets like the Ghost Twins from the second ‘Matrix’ movie. Question: Why are so many people in Texas without health care. A: I had to buy some suits and hair gel. Huntsman jumps in the mix, says some unimportant shit and is obviously wearing John Boehner’s skin as he is orange as fuck under those hot stage lights. Bachmann jumps in to pat herself on the back and surprisingly doesn’t mention one of her 1,274 kids.

The debate continues and continues and not a lot of important shit happens or is said. Overall, this is the least memorable of all the debates thus far, even with it being Perry’s debut. So what’s that say about Perry? Also, being in the den of liberals isn’t as exciting as it should be. Ah well, we’re only halfway here.

The most memorable part of the night besides Ron Paul being the only real people’s candidate up there was Newt Gingrich going off on the moderators for their attempts to divide the candidates and create drama. Everything else is really just filler and redundant rhetoric used to trigger cheap pops from the crowd.

Rick Perry did attack Ron Paul at a point and talked of how Paul was pro-Reagan and then anti-Republican back in the 1980′s. Ron Paul defending himself well and pointed out that he supported Reagan in ’76 and ’80 but by ’88 had grown tired of the “politics as usual” of the spend-crazy Reagan Administration and so he left the party to run for president under the banner of the Libertarian Party. This issue is about the only “dirt” anyone can dig up on Ron Paul and it isn’t even dirt. It certainly isn’t as fucking bad as Rick Perry working on Al Gore’s political campaign in ’88!

After Perry’s pot-stirring bullshit with Ron Paul, he was confronted with the fact that George W. Bush’s minions Karl Rove and Dick Cheney have been bashing him to the media. Perry just looks uncomfortable and can’t really formulate a real defense. Between the long pauses and lack of real answers on most issues, Perry looks incredibly weak in this debate. I severely dislike the guy but if he’s such a great candidate why can’t he present himself better? I was disappointed in his performance but at the same time grateful because he did horrible. Then again, after the debate, the media is still pimping him out!

One of the big subjects of the debate was Social Security. The best solution to the problem was brought up by Herman Cain who said that we should adopt the Chilean model. Essentially, that would involve privatizing it. Read more on the Chilean model here.

Rick Perry is finally confronted with the fact that he tried to force vaccinations on girls going into the sixth grade. Ron Paul throws some shit in Perry’s lap, which was refreshing. Attacking other candidates is not Ron Paul’s style but when Rick Perry is a dirty evil son of a bitch, Dr. Paul did the right thing. Bachmann also jumped on Perry and said that what he did was a violation of parental rights. Then she spun that into education reform and I got confused.

Back on topic, Rick Perry tried to defend his Hitler-esque program. His explanation was lame, pointless and did nothing to assure people that he wasn’t a douchebag.. well, except for the mainstream media who still sip his semen cider. One thing Perry forgot to mention however is that the drug company Merck was a huge contributor to his campaigns.

The next big topic to come up is Homeland Security and the TSA. Newt Gingrich informs us that people want to kill us and that we have to have DHS and the TSA. Ron Paul makes a case for privatizing the TSA, he also used his time to rightfully bash FEMA. Jon Huntsman wants a more efficient Department of Homeland Security.

Rick Perry is then challenged on his ability to manage education in this country, as his state has the worst graduation rates in the country. As with everything he is challenged with, Perry doesn’t have a good solid answer. I’m beginning to wonder if his long dramatic pauses are an attempt to collect his thoughts, an attempt to fashion a lie or a way to waste time in order to not really answer the questions. I bet it’s a combination of the three. Everyone else up there is pretty much in favor of school choice.

MSNBC then dusts off their latino reporter for the segment on immigration. Rick Perry, a guy whose record proves he couldn’t care less about border security, calls for more border agents. He also calls for Predator drones. Dude, their are already fucking Predator drones on YOUR state’s border! Are you that fucking dense? Or do you really not pay that much attention? Why did no one call him out on this blatant fucking oversight?!

Mitt Romney wants a super fence on the border and promises no amnesty whatsoever. Newt educates the audience and the moderators on why Reagan went with amnesty and immigration reform. Rick Santorum wants to lock the border down and after that he’d be willing to have discussions about immigration. So, no discussions until we close off those we would have the discussions with. Michele Bachmann believes this magic fence would save us from drug cartels. Is it tall enough to stop helicopters and catapults? All these people need to watch the immigration episode of ‘Penn & Teller’s Bullshit’. At least Herman Cain believes that immigration issues should be handled at the state level and that the federal government should have no control over state’s decisions to combat the problem.

Ron Paul is the only candidate to drop any real knowledge when he goes on to explain how the fence is stupid and that it could potentially be used to keep us in as opposed to keeping people out. He also breaks down the real problems which are the drug war and the welfare system. I wrote about these issues and how they relate to immigration in “Conservatives & Aliens“.

Hey, where’s the latino guy?! Oh, the immigration segment is over. Well played MSNBC.

Romney goes on to explain how he will prevent us from going into a recession. Apparently he is unaware that we are already in a recession. That’s understandable I guess, we’ve only been in it for 3 years. He then attacks Obama for his lack of leadership in an effort to run out time and avoid answering the Tea Party themed question. Mittens is no constitutional conservative.

When Rick Perry is asked if he thinks that Bush II was too quick to launch military intervention. He then dodges the Bush question to give Obama props on his military prowess! He also gives props to the Navy SEALs. Perry actually says “propes” instead of “props” because he is a backwoods fuck that is trying to be cool and fit in with the kids. Stop trying douche-sandwich! You’re whack as fuck and no one likes your DJ!

Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann claims that the U.S. military has been responsible for maintaining global order. WTF?! Is this dingbat rubbing angeldust on her gums again? She does not represent the Tea Party if she believes this and if the majority of the Tea Party also believes this, then the Tea Party is a bunch of frauds. Bachmann wants to reign in a global police state apparently. “Yay!” for military interventionism! She is against Libya but still cool with being the global police. It’s all interventionism and none of it is any of our business. Well, except what was made our business because of previous interventionism and military meddling.

Oh yeah, more Rick Santorum! Why is he still in this damn race? Once again, where the hell is Gary Johnson?! And why isn’t McCotter here as well?

These conservatives are now on the subject of science, something most of them don’t understand. They just look at it as another “religion” in competition with Christianity. Huntsman says we can’t run from science, we need to embrace it. Um.. no duh! He says we must do what must be done to win voters. Okay, so is he asking to abandon religion? Perry believes that the science on climate change isn’t “settled”. Bachmann points out that an agenda is being put out in front of real science, which is true but it is also not a reason to completely disregard it. It is still based more in facts and reality than any faith-based belief system.

Newt Gingrich then wins a few points from me when he says that if he were president he would immediately fire Ben Bernanke and audit the Federal Reserve. Man, Ron Paul is starting to rub off on some people. As I’ve stated many times over, I have never liked Newt Gingrich and still don’t support most of his policies but he is winning me over (especially over Perry, Romney, Bachmann, Hunstsman and Santorum). Paul and Cain are the only two I put ahead of him right now.. well, and Gary Johnson too but where the fuck is he again? Romney then jumps on the bandwagon and says he’d fire Bernanke too. Whatever dude, stop pandering.

The panel then basically gives the rest of the time to the two golden boys. Perry goes on a tangent about the evils of killing children and how the greatest crime against humanity is “heinous crimes against our citizens”. Yeah dude, what exactly were your attempts at forced inoculation? Are you absolved of the crime because you only had intent and didn’t do the crime? So the Texas legislators that prevented you from implementing your Nazi health program also washed your hands of any wrongdoing? What if they didn’t stop you, would you still be a stand up guy?

Ron Paul gets one more brief moment to speak and he uses his last minute or so to explain that there is nowhere in the Constitution that gives the federal government the power to force us all into a welfare state. He vows to fight it and end the tyranny of the welfare system. Let’s do this! The debate then officially ends at 9:49 PM EST, eleven minutes early.

Overall, this debate pretty much sucked. It was better than that horrible CNN one where John King assaulted us with his throat noises but it was a lot weaker than what I had hoped for. Perry just isn’t a good speaker and I can’t put a finger on why everyone loves him. Well, Hitler got into power somehow so I guess it isn’t too farfetched to believe that this needle stabbing Nazi doesn’t have a real chance. Romney did nothing but he out-shined Perry, Santorum and Huntsman were piss breaks and Bachmann was frantically whittling little race cars for her 2,549 kids between questions. Ron Paul is the only one that had me fist-pumping although Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich also had some very high points.

Without further ado, here’s my letter grade ranking system.

Grading Scale:
Grade A-: Ron Paul
Grade B+: Herman Cain
Grade B: Newt Gingrich
Grade C: Mitt Romney
Grade D: Michele Bachmann
Grade D-: John Hunstsman
Grade D-: Rick Perry
Grade F: Rick Santorum
Grade I: Gary Johnson
Grade I: Thaddeus McCotter

*Taken from ABC News. Video at link.

Hillary Clinton for president?

“So far she hasn’t said she would, but I think it’s not a bad idea,” former Vice President Dick Cheney told ABC’s Jonathan Karl in an interview on Wednesday to promote his new book “In My  Time.”

Cheney declined to say whether he thought the current Secretary of State would have been a better president than Barack Obama, but called her a “pretty formidable individual.”

CONTINUED..

*Taken from Haaretz.

New York Times quotes former U.S. vice president’s autobiography, due to be published next week; former U.S. president Bush, in own memoir, says he shied away from attack on Syria due to fears of false intelligence reports.

Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney urged the United States to bomb a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor in June 2007, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, quoting excerpts from Cheney’s autobiography due to be published next week.

According to Cheney, former U.S. President George W. Bush refused his demands and opted for a diplomatic approach after other advisers expressed apprehension. Foreign reports indicate that the Syria reactor was later bombed by Israel in September 2007.

CONTINUED..

When people think about Homeland Security, they immediately think about 9/11, Al-Qaeda, the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the terrorist attacks on American soil and George W. Bush. I think about tyranny, the police state and all the other bullshit people seem to adore more than freedom. The reality of the situation is that, although Bush and 9/11 were major factors in Homeland Security becoming a reality, this idea was not born from the Bush … Read More

via TheSwash.com

My Two Cents: Meghan McCain makes my ears bleed. Talk to someone who knows what they are talking about. Like oh my god, Dick Cheney, like, oh my god! End Two Cents.

*Taken from Fox Business. Written by John Stossel.

The anti-war movement was all over the news before President Obama was elected. But apparently they weren’t really anti-war … they were just anti-President Bush. Two college professors just released a study of national protests between 2007 and 2009. What did they find?

… After January 2007, the attendance at antiwar rallies [measured in] roughly the tens of thousands, or thousands, through the end of 2008.

… After the election of Barack Obama as president, the order of magnitude of antiwar protests dropped [...] Organizers were hard pressed to stage a rally with participation in the thousands, or even in the hundreds. For example, we counted exactly 107 participants at a Chicago rally on October 7, 2009.

Amazing. Especially because the war in Afghanistan ramped up after Obama was elected. American fatalities shot up in 2009 and 2010.

The protesters have remained silent over Libya.

And I’m struck by the hypocrisy of the supposedly “anti-war” politicians who voted against Iraq, like Nancy Pelosi. Since Obama was elected, she has voted to continue the war in Afghanistan … and supported the attack on Libya.

Only a handful of Congressmen have remained principled on foreign intervention. One of them is Ron Paul. On my FBN show this week, I’ll talk with him about why he opposes our “aggressive foreign policy.” Thursday at 10pm EST.

*Taken from Infowars. Written by Kurt Nimmo.

In response to the idiotic and pointless burning of the Koran by a Florida pastor and the deadly riots that followed in Afghanistan, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has proposed limiting the First Amendment.

“I wish we could find a way to hold people accountable. Free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war,” Graham told CBS’ Bob Schieffer on Sunday.

Graham mentioned government censorship of the First Amendment during the Second World War. FDR signed Executive Order 8985 in December of 1941 and established the Office of Censorship. The order gave a legion of bureaucrats “absolute discretion” over the exercise of the First Amendment and the free speech of all Americans.

In the years following FDR’s decree, the government attempted to squelch free speech a number of times for political reasons, most notably in regard to the Pentagon Papers. During Bush Senior’s invasion of Iraq in 1991, the Pentagon revisited wartime censorship and prevented journalists from independently reporting the news. Bush and Reagan tightly controlled the flow of information during the invasions of Panama and Grenada.

In 2004, then vice president Dick Cheney outlined what Americans should expect henceforth – a war against shadowy enemies that will last generations.

President Bush went so far as to tell NBC’s Matt Lauer it was possible the war could never be won, while Democrat John Kerry said terror would probably never be done away with, but that it might be reduced to a “nuisance.”

Graham reminded us that our rulers have in mind a forever war not unlike the one envisioned by Joe Haldeman in his Hugo-winning 1976 novel by the same name. It is said Haldeman wrote the science fiction novel in part as an antiwar response to Robert Heinlein’s fascistic Starship Troopers. Haldeman served in Vietnam.

It seems Graham and his neocon fellow travelers are in agreement with Heinlein’s premise in the novel that social responsibility requires being prepared to make individual sacrifice, especially when humanity is engaged in a never-ending “Bug War.” A character in the novel, Colonel Dubois, specifically criticizes the Declaration of Independence as naïve and unrealistic.

According to neocon globalist faction, our once proud heritage of liberty and its reflection in the Bill of Rights has “no contemporary relevance,” as Georgetown University law professor Randy Barnettnoted in 2007. “Sure it was fine that persons should be secure in their papers and effects back in the old days when there wasn’t a danger of terrorism and mass murder,” said the professor in regard to the Fourth Amendment. It is “archaic [and] we don’t need it anymore.” Strangely, Mr. Barnett is considered a libertarian.

Sen. Lindsey Graham’s cavalier attitude regrading the First Amendment and its imagined subservience to the dictates of an undeclared war against enemies largely manufactured by government is once in vogue now that a Democrat president has attacked yet another faction of officially designated Muslim enemies.

Installed puppet Hamid Karzai – a former advisor for the transnational Unocal – has demanded our representatives draft a resolution condemning the free speech of Florida pastor Terry Jones, who unwisely burned the Koran in order to make a political statement.

The First Amendment was drafted specifically to protect political speech. The cherished idea of true sovereigns free to speak their minds, however, soon withered under attack – beginning with the Alien and Sedition Acts passed in 1798 by the Federalists – and has continued on and off until this day.

“Ten to 20 people have been killed,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “We’ll take a look at this of course. As to whether we need hearings or not, I don’t know.”

It is wholly predictable that the government will spend its time and our money – or the money they borrow – to condemn an individual who has managed to offend the medieval religious sensibilities of people who kill Christians and burn churches. Seven UN workers in the Afghan town of Mazar-e Sharif died Friday during riots. Mr. Jones may have outraged millions of people, but he did not kill anybody.

Congress has yet to condemn Muslims in Afghanistan who have burned the U.S. flag and torched aneffigy of Obama. According to MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, who filled in for Chris Matthews the other day, burning the Koran is far worse than burning the U.S. flag.

Of course, Muslims have all the right in the world to burn the U.S. flag and burn Obama in effigy – so long as they own the flag and the materials they used to patch together Obama’s likeness.

Terry Jones, according to no shortage of Congress critters, does not have this right, even though his country has a Constitution its Congress has sworn to uphold and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

*Taken from Deadline.

EXCLUSIVE: HBO has optioned the book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency by Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Barton Gellman for a miniseries to be executive produced by Paula Weinstein.

The mini, which will be based on the bestselling book and the Frontline documentary The Dark Side, tells the story of Richard Bruce Cheney from his early days as Donald Rumsfeld’s protégé in the Nixon administration, to the nation’s youngest Chief of Staff under President Ford, to serving as Secretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush, through two controversial terms as Vice President under President George W. Bush. According to the producers, the project will center on Cheney’s “single-minded pursuit of enhanced  power for the Presidency (that) was unprecedented in the nation’s history.”

Rick Cleveland (Six Feet Under), who shared a writing Emmy with Aaron Sorkin for NBC’s White House dramaThe West Wing, is writing the mini, produced by Spring Creek Prods. and Fair Catch Prods. Spring Creek’s Paula Weinstein and Jeffrey Levine, Frontline’s David Fanning and Michael Kirk and Fair Catch Prods.’ David Kennedy are executive producing.

This is the second HBO longform project about prominent Republican party figures announced in the past few weeks. The pay cable network also has greenlitGame Change, a Jay Roach-directed movie, which follows John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign from his selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate to their ultimate defeat in the general election. Julianne Moore has been cast as the former Alaska governor.

Weinsetein has executive produced 2 Emmy-winning HBO mini about major political events/figures: the 2008 Recount, about the 2000 Florida recount, and the 1995 Truman. She is also exec producing HBO’s upcoming Too Big To Fail, about the 2008 financial meltdown.