A couple of weeks ago, Time Magazine’s cover story was “The Final days of Bush and Cheney.”
It was a fascinating, intimate look at what TIME’s Managing Editor Richard Stengel himself describes as “The tale of the rift between George W. Bush and Dick Cheney…an inside look at the complex relationship that shaped so much of this decade.”
The special report also tells us “why the struggle over their legacy is just beginning.”
While the story touches upon several of the Bush administration’s monumental mistakes, lies and scandals, at the center of the story is the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame; the trial of Cheney’s chief of staff I. Lewis Scooter Libby; and, most important, Cheney’s “pleading, cajoling, even pestering Bush” to pardon his former chief of staff—something that Bush steadfastly refused, to his credit.
The five-military-service-deferrals Dick Cheney, argued at one time, according to TIME: “We don’t want to leave anyone on the battlefield.”
I know that volumes have been written by the experts and the pundits since the article was published, but—as I have said before—it is oftentimes the regular American citizen, expressing himself in a Letter to the Editor, who really says it all, who really has the last word.
It is no different this time.
In this week’s TIME’s inbox, there it was:
I find it peculiar that Dick Cheney–who has never seen a battlefield in his life–would characterize Scooter Libby’s plight as leaving a soldier on the battlefield [Aug. 3]. During the G.W. Bush Administration, I was struck by the fervor for military action from an inner circle who had largely not served in the U.S. armed forces. The odd man out during the drumbeat for war was Colin Powell, whose long military career included serving in Vietnam and as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His voice of caution against entanglement in Iraq resulted in his getting pushed out by the “believers.” It’s too bad they didn’t listen to the one man who knew what he was talking about.
Lieut. Commander Eric L. Jewett, U.S. Navy (ret.) LOS GATOS, CALIF.
Well said, Lt. Cdr. Jewett, and thank you for your service
