After Colin Powell criticized Dick Cheney for “cheap shots” in his book, another former secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice has taken issue with his book as well.

Rice called Cheney’s assertion that Rice misled President Bush about negotiations between the White House and North Korea “attacks on my integrity.”

The New York Daily News reports:

“I kept the president fully and completely informed about every in and out of the negotiations with the North Koreans,” Rice told Reuters on Wednesday.

“You can talk about policy differences without suggesting that your colleague somehow misled the president. You know, I don’t appreciate the attack on my integrity that that implies.”

Read More At The New York Daily News

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It was the latest volley in a clash that stretches back to their first years in former President George W. Bush’s administration.

Powell said that if Cheney’s staff and others in Bush’s White House had been as forthcoming as the State Department in the case involving CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, the indictment and conviction of Cheney’s friend and former chief of staff wouldn’t have happened.

Powell made the remarks yesterday on CBS’s “Face the Nation’’ ahead of tomorrow’s release of Cheney’s book, “In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir.’’ Cheney said in an earlier NBC interview that the book would cause “heads to explode’’ in Washington, a description Powell said he expected from a supermarket tabloid and not a former vice president.

“From what I’ve read in the newspapers and seen on television, it’s essentially a rehash of events of seven or eight years ago.’’

Cheney and Powell had numerous disagreements in the administration, particularly over policy toward Iraq and the run-up to the 2003 invasion by US-led forces. Still, Powell called Cheney’s description of how Powell went outside with his criticism of administration policies “nonsense.’’

“Mr. Cheney has had a long and distinguished career, and I hope in his book that’s what he will focus on, not these cheap shots that he’s taking at me and other members of the administration who served to the best of our ability for President Bush,’’ Powell said.

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HBO has optioned the rights to the bestselling book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, for a miniseries adaptation which will be based on the political career of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

ALSO READ: Charlie Sheen, CBS In ‘Two And A Half Men’ Return Discussions

HuffingtonPost reports:

The series will follow Cheney, whose career in politics included roles in the Ford, Nixon and both Bush administrations, and will portray Cheney’s “single-minded pursuit of enhanced power for the presidency [that] was unprecedented in the nation’s history,” a producer told THR.

This is the second HBO project about a prominent Republican party figure announced in recent weeks.

RELATED:

Dick Cheney Charged By Nigeria In Halliburton Case

Protesters Call Dick Cheney “War Criminal” At CPAC Event

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Cheney surprised a gathering of conservatives on Thursday to present the former two-time defense secretary an award. The vice president joked that Rumsfeld twice served as defense secretary and added that “maybe if we give him a third term, he might get it right.”

Cheney also drew laughs when he wondered aloud if Rumsfeld may have more influence on Obama than his current advisers.

Obama campaigned against the Bush White House’s national security policies and yet has continued many of the tactics now that he is in power.

Protesters interrupted Cheney, calling him a “draft dodger” and “war criminal.”

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Halliburton Will Pay Nigeria $35 Million To Settle Dick Cheney Bribery Case

Is Dick Cheney’s Halliburton Responsible For BP Oil Spill?

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If Michael Vick should be executed and given the same treatment that he gave the dogs, shouldn’t Peyton Manning and his brother Eli be shot like the deers they shoot when they go deer hunting? What about Dick Cheney? Should he be executed by firing squads like the poor birds he was shooting at when he shot his friend in the face?

What about Tucker Carlson’s fellow Fox News host Mike Huckabee? His son was charged with torturing and murdering a stray dog. Should young Huckabee be tortured and murdered too? What does Tucker Carlson have to say about that.

What about his other fellow Fox News host, Karl Rove who hunts doves, the international symbol of peace for fun during his off time. Should he be shot for killing harmless animals?

I’m not going to defend Michael Vick’s dogfighting, but he did his time and has repented. In many urban areas, pitbulls are used as a form of protection against burglars and robbers. They are trained and bred to be fierce and at times deadly. Many people who train and fight pits have a close relationships with those animals not unlike trainers who train boxers or jockeys or animal trainers.

It is true that some dogs who were injured in battle were electrocuted but how is that different than horse trainers who kill horses after the horses are injured in races According to PETA thousands of Greyhound dogs are killed as puppies in the name of “selective breeding” but the Greyhound industry hasn’t faced close to the criticism that Vick has.

The fact that PETA and others choose to go after Michael Vick is another way Black people are used as scapegoats for national problems. America is built on the killing of animals, from the clothes we wear to the food we eat. Hunting is still legal in several states, not so people can feed their families, but so a small group of people can amuse themselves by killing animals. The beef, chicken, pork, leather and dairy industries are all based on the killing and abuse of animals.

How is taking animals bred to fight and fighting them worse than shooting innocent animals for fun? How come PETA never criticizes squeaky clean All-American Quarterback Peyton Manning for his execution of deers but vilifies Michael Vick at every opportunity, despite everything he has done to repent? If Tucker Carlson is going to call for Vick’s execution shouldn’t he call for the execution of the Manning Brothers, and Fox News favorites Cheney and Rove?

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Halliburton will pay Nigeria $35 Million to settle a bribery dispute with its former CEO, Dick Cheney, the ex-Vice President of The United States Of America. Talking Points Memo reports:

US oil services group Halliburton agreed to pay Nigeria 35 million dollars to settle a bribery dispute which led to charges being filed against former US vice president Dick Cheney, it said Tuesday.

Nigeria had on December 7 filed an indictment against nine people and entities, including Cheney, who was head of Halliburton before becoming vice president after 2000 elections.

Read The Whole Story

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Nigeria Will Charge Dick Cheney In Halliburton Bribery Case

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Nigeria — Dick Cheney will be charged by Nigerian authorities in a bribery case involving his former employer, Halliburton according to the Huffington Post:

An arrest warrant “will be issued and transmitted through Interpol,” said Godwin Obla, the prosecuting counsel at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Nigeria.

The charges center on an alleged $180 million bribery payment used to secure a $6 billion liquefied natural gas contract. Prosecutors are also looking into international companies Saipem and Technip. Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000, before becoming George W. Bush’s running mate. “As the CEO of Halliburton, he has the responsibility for acts that occurred during that period.

Read The Whole Story

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Dick Cheney To Obama: Stop “Dithering” On Afghanistan

Halliburton has been ripping off the U.S.A. for years during both the Afghan and Iraqi wars. No there is an article that speculates that Halliburton is responsible for the BP oil spill.

From NOLA.com

In the most recent revelation, Times-Picayune reporter David Hammer found that BP chose to forgo a crucial test of the cement linings in the Deepwater Horizon’s well. The contractor who was hired to perform the cement bond log test said BP officials sent the workers home without conducting it. The test, which checks the strength of cement protecting the well’s metal casing, could have revealed problems with the job, according to congressional testimony by a Halliburton executive.

In addition, schematics of the cementing design provided to Congress by contractor Halliburton are missing a key seal between two sections of metal casing. Experts said that would be a design flaw that would allow natural gas to blast into the well undetected and cause the rig’s explosion.

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From the NY Daily News:

Rep. Charles Rangel compared President Obama to former Vice President Dick Cheney Saturday for their shared commitment to the Iraq War, one the Harlem Democrat argues is based on the country’s hunger for oil.

“I challenge anyone to tell me we aren’t there because of the oil,” said Rangel, who kicks off his re-election campaign for a 21st congressional term in Washington Heights Sunday.

“The lack of an honest explanation [for the war] is consistent with Bush and Cheney,” he told the Daily News during an hour-long interview that touched on his ongoing ethics probe, relationship with the President and ability to get work done in Washington.

Text continues after gallery …

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A Korean War hero, Rangel criticized the Obama White House for staying in Bush-triggered wars, saying, “We are trying to buy our friends there … stuff like that makes Cheney look good.”

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Did you catch this week’s episode of Washington Watch on Sunday on TVOne? If not, we’ve got some highlights for you!

WATCH Roland’s panel go in on Dick Cheney. Is the now-famous conspiracy about Dick Cheney at Inauguration believable?

WATCH Luda tell Roland how Hip-Hop has changed since the election of Barack Obama:

Have a question or comment for Roland & the Washington Watch team? SUBMIT your videos here.

From MSNBC:

WASHINGTON – Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday night accused the White House of “dithering” over the strategy for the war in Afghanistan and urged President Barack Obama to “do what it takes to win.”

“Make no mistake. Signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries,” Cheney said while accepting an award from a conservative national security group, the Center for Security Policy.

Cheney disputed remarks by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel that the Bush administration had been adrift concerning the war in Afghanistan and that the Obama administration had to start from the beginning to develop a strategy for the 8-year-old war.

To the contrary, Cheney said, the Bush administration undertook its own review of the war before leaving office and presented its findings to Obama’s transition team.

“They asked us not to announce our findings publicly, and we agreed, giving them the benefit of our work and the benefit of the doubt,” Cheney said. The strategy Obama announced in March bore a “striking resemblance” to what the Bush administration review had found, the vice president said.

Click here to read more.

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Dick Cheney Disses Obama on Terror

Cheney Picks Limbaugh Over Powell

Dick Cheney had some choice words for Barack Obama’s terror policy after Obama gave a speech on the subject today.

Here are some of the things he had to say.

Good morning — or perhaps, good afternoon….It’s pretty clear the president served in the Senate and not in the House of Representatives because, of course, in the House, we have the five-minute [speaking] rule.

When they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, the terrorists see just what they were hoping for – our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.

He described Obama’s terror positions as “recklessness cloaked in righteousness” and “unwise in the extreme.”

In a wide-ranging dialogue hosted by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund at the National Press Club this afternoon, Gwen Ifill, the moderator and editor of PBS’s Washington Week, questioned Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. on a number of issues facing the Justice Department, including the Supreme Court, torture memos, and what he thinks of former Vice President Dick Cheney’s recent media blitz.

“I respect the man for his service to the country and the fact that he’s a patriot, but he’s dead wrong,” says Holder, referring to Cheney’s assertion that releasing previously classified torture memos put the country in danger.

Read the Whole Story

While Dick Cheney’s endorsement of Rush Limbaugh might carry the weight of any other supervillain’s endorsement, it is still significant. When Dick Cheney, still one of the most recognizable faces of the Republican Party, chose Rush Limbaugh over Colin Powell, he chose racism over service to your country, divisiveness over diplomacy, and anger over prudence.

Since the Republicans value military service, family values and patriotism so much, it is strange that Cheney would pick Limbaugh. Here’s a comparison of the two.

Education

Powell
Grew up poor in the South Bronx yet managed to graduate from City College.  Received M.B.A. from George Washington University, after his second tour in Vietnam in 1971.

Limbaugh
Grew up rich and flunked out of college after two semesters

Military Service

Powell
41 years of service from private to general

Limbaugh
Draft dodger

Family Values

Powell
Married for 46 years, with one child

Limbaugh
Thrice divorced, no children

Racism

Powell
None to speak of.

Limbaugh
Top 10 Racist Quotes

Sexism

Powell
None to Speak of

Limbaugh
He said:  “Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society,” and also, “We’re not sexists, we’re chauvinists — we’re male chauvinist pigs, and we’re happy to be because we think that’s what men were destined to be. We think that’s what women want.”

Patriotism

Powell
50 years of serving his country under both political parties

Limbaugh
Blind loyalty to his country when his party is in power. Wants his country to fail when it isn’t.

Legal Problems

Powell
None to speak of

Limbaugh
Was accused of laundering money to illegally buy prescription pills. Prosecutors agreed to drop the charge if Limbaugh paid $30,000 to defray the cost of the investigation and completed an 18-month therapy regimen with his physician.

Approval Rating

Powell
80%

Limbaugh
26%

Cheney says that Powell was a Democrat because of his endorsement of Barack Obama. He clearly didn’t listen to a word Powell said when he endorsed Obama. Powell wasn’t abandoning Republican values or principles but was decrying the racism and divisiveness the party was promoting. By choosing a racist, sexist, hate spewing entertainer over a respected, fair ex-general, Cheney is illustrating the new ugly face of the Republican party. A party with no ideas, a party that caters to racists and bigots and a party that wants America to fail.

Dick Cheney made clear Sunday he’d rather follow firebrand broadcaster Rush Limbaugh than former Joint Chiefs chairman Colin Powell into political battle over the future of the Republican Party.

Even as Cheney embraced efforts to expand the party by ex-Govs. Jeb Bush of Florida and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and the House’s No. 2 Republican, Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, the former vice president appeared to write his one-time colleague Powell out of the GOP.

Asked about recent verbal broadsides between Limbaugh and Powell, Cheney said, “If I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I’d go with Rush Limbaugh. My take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn’t know he was still a Republican.”

Powell, who was secretary of state under President George W. Bush and held the nation’s top military post under President George H.W. Bush, endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president last year. Nonetheless, since the election he has described himself as a Republican and a right-of-center conservative, though “not as right as others would like.”

Cheney, citing Powell’s backing of Obama over Republican nominee John McCain, said, “I assumed that that is some indication of his loyalty and his interests.”

Cheney’s remarks on CBS’ “Face the Nation” were the latest step in his slow-motion estrangement from Powell since the two worked closely together to manage the Persian Gulf war in 1991 — Powell as the Army general who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Cheney as defense secretary for the elder Bush.

Under the younger Bush, Powell initially backed action against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and delivered a famous U.N. speech laying out the U.S. case. But Powell and Cheney increasingly parted ways over the Bush administration’s policies on the war and terrorism, with Cheney usually prevailing. Powell left the administration after Bush’s first term.

Wading into the debate over the GOP’s future, Cheney called efforts by George W. Bush’s brother Jeb, along with Cantor and Romney, as “a good thing to do,” but set a limit on how far the party should go.

“The suggestion our Democratic friends always make is somehow if you Republicans were just more like Democrats, you’d win elections,” Cheney said. “Well, I don’t buy that. We win elections when we have good solid conservative principles to run upon.”

Powell has argued the Republican Party needs to move toward the center and reach out to growing black, Hispanic and Asian communities, but instead has been shrinking because it hasn’t changed as the country changed in the face of economic distress. “Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less,” Powell said last week.

For months, Powell has urged the party to turn away from the acid-tongued Limbaugh. “I think what Rush does as an entertainer diminishes the party and intrudes or inserts into our public life a kind of nastiness that we would be better to do without,” Powell said.

“Colin Powell is just another liberal,” Limbaugh retorted. “What Colin Powell needs to do is close the loop and become a Democrat.” Limbaugh said Powell is “just mad at me because I’m the one person in the country that had the guts to explain his endorsement of Obama. It was purely and solely based on race.” Both Powell and Obama are black.

Watch Cheney

On other topics on the CBS interview, Cheney:

_said transferring suspected terrorists from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the United States would be a bad idea that would enlarge their legal rights. Obama’s national security adviser, retired Marine Gen. James Jones, told ABC’s “This Week” the White House isn’t going to do that if it would make Americans less safe.

_reiterated his belief the U.S. has become more vulnerable to a potential terrorist attack since the Obama administration renounced harsh interrogation tactics such as waterboarding, which simulates drowning, that Cheney said provided good intelligence. Jones said he didn’t believe the nation was at greater risk and that even some in the Bush administration disagreed with Cheney on that score.

_renewed his call for the administration to release two CIA memos he said list successes derived from those interrogations, including “attack planning that was under way and how it was stopped.” The Obama administration is reviewing Cheney’s request. Obama has said the memos are not so clear-cut and do not address whether the information could have been obtained without such methods.

_said he has been speaking out about the Obama administration although George W. Bush remains silent, because if he didn’t, “then the critics have free run, and there isn’t anybody there on the other side to tell the truth.”

Dick Cheney was on the Sean Hannity show yesterday and used the opportunity to criticize President Barack Obama for his recent meeting with Hugo Chavez in which he shook his hands and the recent release of the CIA torture memos. He was also critical of Obama for apologizing for past U.S. behavior.

Watch the Video

At a “Great Conversations” event at the University of Minnesota last night, legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh may have made a little more news than he intended by talking about new alleged instances of domestic spying by the CIA, and about an ongoing covert military operation that he called an “executive assassination ring.”

Hersh also said

“Yuh. After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet. That does happen.

“Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command — JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. …

“Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths.

Read the Whole Report

I was surprised when Bush didn’t pardon Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, scooter Libby. Apparently Cheney was surprised too. Bush had previously joked about pardoning Libby and everyone assumed he would do it but while he pardoned rapper, John Forte, no pardon was given to Libby. Is there beef between the former President and Vice President?

Here’s The New York Daily News Report on the Bush/Cheney Rift

“It would be a tragedy if they threw over those policies simply because they had campaigned against them,” Cheney said in an interview with CBS Radio’s Mark Knoller. “I think they need to proceed very cautiously before they begin to change the policies that are in place. They need to know what they’re doing.”

Obama has criticized practices that he says amount to torturing detainees during interrogations and has promised to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“He was rather critical during the campaign of some of the policies we pursued, for example, in terms of terrorist surveillance or interrogation of terrorist prisoners,” Cheney said.

“If I had advice to give it would be, before you start to implement your campaign rhetoric you need to sit down and find out precisely what it is we did and how we did it, because it is going to be vital to keeping the nation safe and secure in the years ahead.”

The Terrorist Surveillance Program was secretly authorized by Bush shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and was disclosed in late 2005, sparking questions about its legality. The Bush administration vigorously defended the program as essential to national security, but brought it under the purview of the federal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires investigators to obtain a warrant from a secret court in Washington to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists inside the country.

In the wide-ranging, 20-minute interview in his West Wing office, Cheney also debunked his public persona as someone who worked behind the scenes controlling the levers of the Bush presidency.

“The notion that somehow I was pulling strings or making presidential-level decisions. I was not,” he said. “There was never any question about who was in charge. It was George Bush. And that’s the way we operated. This whole notion that somehow I exceeded my authority here, was usurping his authority, is simply not true. It’s an urban legend, never happened.

Cheney also said the financial rescue plan was essential to keeping the finance system functioning. He said that he viewed the automobile bailout as a “stopgap” and that the industry will have to find a way to become a viable industry again. And he said that while the Republican Party currently is in a “trough,” he was not worried about the future of the party.

Asked to identify the biggest misimpression people have about him, Cheney laughed and said, tongue-in-cheek: “That I’m actually a warm, lovable sort.”

Cheney said he wasn’t troubled by the fact that there were some people who felt hatred for him.

“It goes with the turf,” he said. “No, we got elected in one of the closest elections in American history in 2000. Some people never got over that. And then I’ve had to, in my capacity as vice president, be actively involved in some very tough decisions that some people find controversial.”

Cheney leaves office Jan. 20 as one of the most powerful, if unpopular, vice presidents in recent history. He played a key role in many of Bush’s major policy decisions and, in the interview, was unapologetic in his review of the past eight years.

He staunchly defended the Bush administration’s use of executive power in the fight against terrorism and disagreed with calls to limit presidential authority. “If you think about what Abraham Lincoln did during the Civil War, what FDR did during World War II. They went far beyond anything we’ve done in a global war on terror,” the vice president contended.

Cheney said he was unconcerned about polls showing him as unpopular, saying that people who spend too much time reading polls “shouldn’t serve in these jobs.”

He offered a somber assessment of the economic challenges facing the incoming Obama administration, saying there is a growing consensus that government action will be needed next year to help revive the economy. But he declined to judge the economic stimulus plan that Obama is considering because the program has yet to be announced.

Obama and his team are working to come up with details of a plan to pump up the economy with $850 billion or more in government spending over the next few years. Their goal is to create or save 3 million jobs in the next two years.

“I’d want to see what they’re going to spend it on,” Cheney said. “There usually are fairly significant differences between we Republicans and the Democrats on how you stimulate the economy.”

Cheney, also speaking about the future of the Republican Party, the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and the role for his successor, Joe Biden, said he:

_expects the Republican Party to rebound from this year’s election defeats, but is unsure whether Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will lead the comeback as the party’s nominee for president in 2012. “I don’t think she has any kind of lock on that,” Cheney said of this year’s vice presidential candidate. “She’ll have to go out and earn it just as anybody else would have to.”

_thinks bin Laden is alive but questioned whether he is still effectively running al-Qaida. “He’s been holed up in a way where he’s not even been communicating and there are questions about whether or not he’s even running the operation,” Cheney said.

“Capturing Osama bin Laden is something we clearly would love to do” before leaving office, Cheney said. But he said it has been more important to stop terrorist attacks against the United States.

_Biden has not asked for any advice about being vice president. Biden has called Cheney “the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history.” Cheney strongly disagreed with the assertion and said he doesn’t think Obama will give Biden as consequential a role as Cheney has had under Bush.

_disagreed with the firing of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in late 2006, though he praised Rumsfeld’s successor, Robert Gates, who will stay on as Obama’s defense secretary. “It wasn’t my decision to make,” Cheney said of firing Rumsfeld. “The president doesn’t always take my advice.”

_did not regret using an obscenity beginning with “f” in an exchange with Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., on the Senate floor in June 2004. “I thought he merited it at the time,” Cheney said with a chuckle in the interview. “And we’ve since, I think, patched over that wound and we’re civil to one another now.”

From Jonathan Karl at ABC News:

In an exclusive interview Monday with ABC News, Vice President Dick Cheney issued an unapologetic defense of the Bush administration’s anti-terror policies, including the use of waterboarding, and said the prison at Guantanamo Bay should remain open as long as there’s a war on terror.

In his first exit interview and first television interview since the November election, Cheney held fast to his views on coercing information out of alleged terrorists, saying waterboarding was an appropriate means of getting information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Cheney resisted those who say the Bush administration has overstepped its bounds on torture, saying national intelligence is an art, not a science.

Click here for full post and VIDEO.

If we have learned anything this year, it is that corrupt politicians come from all around the country, from both political parties and can be black, white, male or female. That said, here is our top 5 corrupt politicians of 2008

1. Rod Blagojevich: At a time when America was given a new faith in politics and politicians, Blagojevich did a lot to reverse that trend. Blagojevich reinforced the stereotype that all politicians were self interested  hypocrites. By publicly trying to trade Obama’s vacated Senate seat, for his own personal interest, Blagojevich reminded us of the old politicians of old who would jerk the public and lose their integrity for money and power.

Watch Coverage of The Blagojevich Scandal

2. Dick Cheney. He should really be number one but he managed to stay under the radar. Despite his role in the outing of Valerie Plame Scooter Libby fell on his sword for him. Cheney continued to rake in millions from Halliburton due to the war he started. Dick Cheney was indicted on  corruption charges this November for his involvement with a prison company, the GEO group. With the Vice President is profiting from incarcerated inmates, its no wonder there are so many black men in jail.

Watch Coverage of Dick Cheney’s Prison Scandal

3. Kwame Kilpatrick. Kwame Kilpatrick spent millions of dollars trying to hide his own affairs and indiscretions while his city went to the pits. Kwame Kilpatrick was stupid enough to have an affair with an aide on city issued cellphones and arrogant enough to lie about it. Kilpatrick also fired several of the police officers who were investigating him and became the target of an $150 million lawsuit for allegedly killing a stripper. Eventually Kwame had to step down from office and serve four months in jail.

Watch Nightline Cover Kwame Kilpatrick’s Numerous Scandals

4. Elliot Spitzer. While Elliot Spitzer may not be the first politician to take in the services of a hooker, he is probably the biggest hypocrite who did. Spitzer spent his career trying to clean up New York in the name of decency and the law. He then broke the law in a very indecent way.

Watch Elliot Spitzer Resign

5. Sarah Palin. From her original Troopergate scandal, to her billing Alaska for her personal needs and taking $150,000 from the RNC for her own wardrobe, Sarah Palin has improperly benefited from her own personal power and tried to cover it up the whole way.

Watch Coverage of Sarah Palin’s Troopergate Scandal

Honorable Mentions

Ted Stevens, Senator from Alaska

Sheila Dixon, Mayor of Baltimore

See more of NewsOne’s BEST OF EVERYTHING 2008!!

A Texas judge has set a Friday arraignment for Vice President Dick Cheney, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others named in indictments accusing them of responsibility for prisoner abuse in a federal detention center.

Cheney, Gonzales and the others will not be arrested, and do not need to appear in person at the arraignment, Presiding Judge Manuel Banales said.

In the latest bizarre development in the case, the lame-duck prosecutor who won the indictments was a no-show in court Wednesday. The judge ordered Texas Rangers to go to Willacy County District Attorney Juan Guerra’s house, check on his well-being and order him to court on Friday.

Half of the eight high-profile indictments returned Monday by a Willacy County grand jury are tied to privately run federal detention centers in the sparsely populated South Texas county. The other half target judges and special prosecutors who played a role in an earlier investigation of Guerra.

One indictment charges Cheney and Gonzales with engaging in organized criminal activity. It alleges that the men neglected federal prisoners and are responsible for assaults in the facilities.

The grand jury accused Cheney of a conflict of interest because of his influence over the county’s federal immigrant detention center and his substantial holdings in the Vanguard Group, which invests in private prison companies.

The indictment accuses Gonzales of stopping an investigation into abuses at the federal detention center.

An attorney for the private prison operator The GEO Group filed motions accusing Guerra of “prosecutorial vindictiveness.”
Story continues below

One motion said Guerra had hijacked “the grand jury process and disregarded the requirements of the Code of Criminal Procedure designed to protect defendants’ due process rights.”

Some attorneys argued that Banales may not have the authority to schedule an arraignment because the indictments were invalid. One lawyer said Guerra never should have been allowed to present the cases to the grand jury because at least four of the indictments deal with people who had some role in the investigation of his office last year.

“He is the witness, the victim and the prosecutor,” said the attorney for Mervyn Mosbacker Jr., a former U.S. attorney who was appointed special prosecutor to investigate Guerra.

District Clerk Gilbert Lozano, District judges Janet Leal and Migdalia Lopez, and special prosecutors Mosbacker and Gustavo Garza, a longtime political opponent of Guerra, were all indicted on charges of official abuse of official capacity and official oppression.

The grand jury tied all of their charges to an earlier investigation of Guerra’s office.

Banales dismissed an indictment against Guerra last month charging him with extorting money from a bail bond company and using his office for personal business. An appeals court had earlier ruled that a special prosecutor was improperly appointed to investigate Guerra.

After Guerra’s office was raided as part of the investigation early last year, he camped outside the courthouse in a borrowed camper with a horse, three goats and a rooster. He threatened to dismiss hundreds of cases because he believed local law enforcement had aided the investigation against him.

Guerra has been in office nearly 20 years, but was defeated in the March Democratic primary.