Of course, that depends upon what the meaning of “crazy” is.
News has leaked out through an article in Esquire Magazine that Eric Massa, the disgraced Democratic rock star (was he the tickler, or the tickle-ee?), claims that Dick Cheney conspired with Gen. David Petraeus to stage a coup.
As summarized by Glenn Thrush:
Former Rep. Eric Massa told Esquire Magazine earlier this year that he believed Vice President Dick Cheney and Gen. David Petraeus had committed the highest offense against the nation by plotting an electoral “coup” against President Barack Obama.
Massa’s version of the story led Esquire’s journalists to conclude that Massa, who resigned in March amid allegations of sexually harassing male aides, was “a little bit crazy.”
Nonetheless, Esquire reports in its forthcoming edition, that Massa told the magazine “Gentlemen, what we have here is a constitutional crisis … If what I’ve been told is true — and I believe it is — General David Petraeus, a commander with soldiers deployed in two theaters of war, has had multiple meetings with Dick Cheney, the former vice-president of the United States, to discuss Petraeus’s candidacy for the Republican nomination for the presidency [in 2012]. And in fact, that’s more than a constitutional crisis. That’s treason.”
These allegations may be crazy, but they do put Massa in the mainstream of Democratic Bush/Cheney Derangement Syndrome:
- The Cheney Coup: “I promised myself I wouldn’t bring this up, it’s a hobbyhorse that I like to ride that has yet to excite anyone but me. But now that Dick Cheney is claiming his office is not an “entity within the executive branch” I can’t help myself. You see, I believe the vice president conducted a de facto coup on 9/11 when he ordered the “shootdown” of civilian planes.”
- Cheney’s coup: “Since the coup d’état of Executive Order 13292, however, the vice presidency has been transformed.”
- Cheney’s Plans for a Military Coup: “The Yoo memoranda set the stage for a military dictatorship, following exactly the sort of phased introduction that occurred in the cone of South America in the seventies and eighties.”
Crazy is a relative term. Just like “in” and “is“.
Update: After reading some of the comments, I realize I left out a critical part of Massa’s conspiracy theory. Massa asserted that Petraeus would deliberately not accomplish “the mission” in Iraq and Afghanistan so that Obama would be blamed:
Massa went on to say that “In order to succeed electorally, he must fail in his mission. Were he to run and win — and if he were to run, he would win in a landslide — we would be witness to an American coup d’état. It is the functional equivalent of the political overthrow of the commander in chief.”
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Related Posts:
Can We Get Back To Talking About Lying Politicians?
“I Did Not Serve In That Country, Vietnam”
Rewind: Massa A Dem Rock Star
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Comments
Hmm. Let's suppose that Cheney did meet with Petreaus to discuss a possible run for President by the general in 2012. So what? In 1947, when General Eisenhower, who had recently returned home from his Supreme Command of Allied Forces Europe to succeed George Marshall as Army Chief of Staff, numerous Democratic leaders, wary of Harry Truman's prospects for election in 1948, tried to persuade Ike to run for the White House as a Democrat so that their party would have a national hero and they could move to dump Truman. Aware of this "treason" is the ranks, Truman himself — remarkably, one has to say — told Eisenhower that he would defer to him, if Ike wanted to run. This may have been partly a tactic aimed at sucking up to Ike but it was also sincere on Truman's part in that he had never wanted to be President and (at the time) held Ike in high regard as one of the few Americans eminently fitted for the Presidency.
This "conspiracy" came to naught but it was surely no more than an exercise of political freedom by all concerned.
I've no doubt that many Republicans would like to enlist Petreaus as their 2012 candidate and more than one have discussed it with him. Petreaus would be completely within his rights to pursue the nomination himself as long as he does so after retiring from the Army.
If this was true that Cheney was meeting with Petraeus to discuss possible 2012 candidacy I fail to see how it would be an act of treason. Petraeus would still have to go through the primary process and the electoral process in the general election, so I fail to see how that could be considered a coup. It's not even like he'd be the first president who was also a general (need I mention Ike and Grant?). It's just the fact that Cheney is attached to it that makes it nefarious and underhanded (what if Massa had said Steele had talked to Petraeus?).
Besides, the way the Left's always talking about how bad Cheney is I think they'd have a collective orgasm if even one of their crackpot theories turned out to be true.
Where does one sign up for this alleged coup?
Can you donate to fund it at least?
Um, even if this true, this is treason, how? Frankly, I think it's pretty patriotic to want to save our nation from this progressive lunatic who is busily "fundamentally transforming" our country (that to me is more egregious an offense to this country). The only possible treasonous act mentioned is if General Petraeus "throws" the war, and I cannot imagine a man of honor and a patriot (and a four-star general, no less) doing such thing. In fact, if he does lose the war over there, intentionally or not, this would work against him in republican primaries, no? How would he tie that to BO, when BO gave him (belatedly, but still) what he asked for and Patraeus' winning over the hearts and minds thing and let's tell 'em we're coming strategy are what is being done? Hi, Sure, I lost the war, my approach failed (intentionally or not) . . . let me be your president! Woohoo!
I'm far more interested in whether or not the WH offered Sestak a position if he stepped out of the race. That's a clear (and impeachable) offense. The Cheney-Patraeus "conspiracy" sounds like a distraction to me. While we discuss and defend this absurdity from that weird little shower weasel, the administration is sighing with relief.
If Petraeus wanted to run and win in 2012, the only thing he could run on would be success in Iraq/Afghanistan. Why would he deliberately fail?
So Petraeus would lose in Iraq/Afghanistan but then would run as a war hero against the incompetent President who appointed him to lead the war effort? How much koolaid does one have to drink before such insanity becomes plausible?
Didn't Wesley Clark seek to run for President against George W. Bush? Was that conspiracy and treason, too?