Jane Mayer, Author of ‘The Dark Side,’ on Terror Politics And War Crimes
A Former Condi Adviser Told Mayer That After 9/11 ‘Fear And Anxiety Were Exploited by Zealots And Fools’
In this interview with Steve Clemons, editor of The Washington Note, Jane Mayer discusses David Addington, Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, whom she profiled in the New Yorker last year and who plays a central role in her new book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, which Trish wrote about this week.
Any efforts to charge Bush officials with war crimes will become moot later this year when Bush issues blanket pardons to all his henchmen, probably on Christmas Eve, just as his father did in 1992.
The fact that hardly anyone has heard of David Addington is no accident. He shares his boss’s fetish for secrecy as well as his belief in the imperial presidency.
The excerpt in the following transcript comes about 11 minutes into the interview. The quote mentioned by Mayer and Clemens is the last line in Mayer’s book. It comes from Phillip Zelikow, a former counselor to Condoleeza Rice, who attempted to explain what went wrong within the administration after the attacks on September 11 this way: “Fear and anxiety were exploited by zealots and fools.”
