We saw a lot of photos over the weekend of President Obama and his wife, Michelle “Catwoman” Obama, handing out Halloween treats at the White House on Saturday night.

But we didn’t see one of the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, who had dressed up as Darth Vader to join in the festivities.

So check out the photo. He is without his glasses, so he probably couldn’t see a thing. We imagine it would be tempting for him to bring the light saber to his daily news briefing and zap offending questioners.

Politico.com has video of Robert “Darth Vader” Gibbs putting on the mask — scary!

Of course it wasn’t that long ago when another White House denizen had been called Darth Vader. “I’ve been asked if that nickname bothers me, and the answer is, no. After all, Darth Vader is one of the nicer things I’ve been called recently.”

Remember who said that? None other than Dick Cheney.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Gibbs and his son Ethan dressed as Star Wars characters for White House Halloween)

It’s Halloween this weekend. In Washington that can turn into political fright night.

So we thought we’d scare up some costume ideas to help those who are stumped.

One idea came from a comment on our Obama: “Skinny but tough” blog post from afuller who writes “Best new Halloween Idea: Socialist Mop!!!” We’re thinking red body outfit and crazy wild hair.

Another inspiration from a friend suggesting going as a teabagger (the protesters against all policies Obama). That should be fairly easy — cover yourself with tea bags — and it has the added benefit that if you get a bit parched and find some boiling water you’ve got all the makings of a thirst quencher.

The Daily Show on Comedy Central has come up with a clever costume for Cap’n Trade — think comic book hero like Captain America.

We’re still trying to figure out how to do the public option trigger.

Backstage, Inc., a costume store in the Capitol Hill area, says among the most popular political figures this Halloween are President Barack Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney. Asked whether Sarah Palin was in the mix, store employee Rip (as in R.I.P) Clossa says: “I haven’t had anyone ask about her.”

I may just resort to an old standby — an empty cereal box at the end of a scythe (figure that one out).

And of course we are seeking any and all suggestions from you for clever Washington political costumes…

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(OK if you haven’t figured it out the cereal box/scythe costume is a serial killer, get it??)

Photo credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson (reveler in Greenwich Village Halloween parade in New York 2008), Reuters/Phil McCarten (Joe the Plumber costume at West Hollywood Halloween Costume Carnival in California 2008)

Interrogators at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay liked to blast rock ‘n’ roll music at inmates to try to induce them to talk.

Now some of the folks that made that rock ‘n’ roll music are blasting back.

Trent Reznor, Tom Morello, Jackson Browne, T-Bone Burnett, Rosanne Cash, Bonnie Raitt, R.E.M., Pearl Jam and other musicians have joined the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo.

The newly formed campaign, led by retired Lieutenant General Robert Gard and retired Brigadier General John Johns among others, is increasing pressure on the Obama administration to move ahead with the president’s pledge to close the prison.

“Guantanamo is known around the world as one of the places where human beings have been tortured,” Morello said in a statement released by the campaign, charging that some inmates had been subjected to loud music for 72 hours in a row.

“Guantanamo may be Dick Cheney’s idea of America, but it’s not mine,” he added. “The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me — we need to end torture and close Guantanamo now.”

Thomas Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive, said his group has obtained at least 20 declassified documents that refer to blasting Guantanamo detainees in an effort to “create futility” and encourage them to talk.

Gard, a senior military fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said “the torture that went on there is disgraceful and puts our troops at risk every day.”

“Guantanamo will remain al Qaeda’s biggest recruitment tool unless it’s shut down,” he added. “I sympathize for the musicians whose music was used without their knowledge as part of the Bush administration’s misguided policies.”

The musicians joined the campaign just a day after former Vice President Dick Cheney gave a spirited defense of U.S. interrogation methods during a speech to the Center for Security Policy.

“To call enhanced interrogation a program of torture is not only to disregard the program’s legal underpinnings and safeguards,” Cheney said. “Such accusations are a libel against dedicated professionals who acted honorably and well.”

He said alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would not have begun giving U.S. interrogators useful intelligence against al Qaeda had he not been subjected to the harsh techniques.

“To completely rule out enhanced interrogation in the future, in favor of half-measures, is unwise in the extreme,” Cheney said. “In the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Deborah Gembara (Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay take part in morning prayers); Reuters/Joshua Roberts (Cheney speaks at American Enterprise Institute in May)

The White House is firing back at former Vice President Dick Cheney who accused President Barack Obama of “dithering” and being “afraid to make a decision” on whether to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

“I think it’s a curious comment,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters at his midday briefing.

“I think it’s pretty safe to say that the Vice President was for seven years not focused on Afghanistan,” Gibbs added.

“Even more curious, given the fact that (an) increase in troops sat on desks in this White House, including the vice president’s, for more than eight months, a resource request filled by President Obama in March,” he said.

Speaking to the Center for Security Policy, a Washington think-tank, Cheney said the White House needed to “stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger.”

“Having announced his Afghanistan strategy last March, President Obama now seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission,” Cheney said.

General Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has recommended a troop increase of 40,000. Obama has been holding a series of policy meetings with his top advisers to review the request and has said he wants to make a thorough review of the strategy before deciding whether to approve more troops.

“What Vice President Cheney calls ‘dithering,’ President Obama calls his solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform and to the American public,” Gibbs said. “I think we’ve all seen what happens when somebody doesn’t take that responsibility seriously.”

What do you think? Is Obama “dithering” as Cheney says, or acting in a thorough manner as the White House says?

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PHOTO CREDIT: REUTERS/Pool (Cheney in Kabul in March 2008), REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (Obama with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the White House in May)

Former Vice President Dick Cheney tonight joins a chorus of critics who say President Barack Obama is taking way too long to decide whether to send another 40,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

Cheney, no fan of any of the current administration’s foreign policy initiatives, prodded the White House to fulfill the president’s promise to give the U.S. armed  forces a clear mission in Afghanistan and to do it now.

“It’s time for President Obama to make good on his promise. The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger, ” Cheney said in remarks prepared for delivery at the Center for Security Policy, a Washington think-tank.

“Having announced his Afghanistan strategy last March, President Obama now seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission,” Cheney said.

Cheney also refuted what he said was a complaint by White House chief of staff  Rahm Emanuel that “the Obama administration had to start from scratch to put together a strategy.”

“The new strategy they embraced in March, with a focus on counterinsurgency and an increase in the numbers of troops, bears a striking resemblance to the strategy we passed to them,” Cheney said.

“Now they seem to be pulling back and blaming others for their failure to implement the strategy they embraced. It’s time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity,” he added.

Earlier in the day, Obama said he could reach a decision on a new strategy before the outcome of Afghanistan’s presidential run-off on Nov. 7 And he pushed back against  critics who accuse him of vacillating.

“We are going to take the time to get this right,” Obama told MSNBC.

“We’re not going to drag it out because there is a sense that the sooner we get a sound approach in place and personnel in place, the better off we’re going to be. But we also want to make sure that we don’t put resources ahead of strategy.”

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Photo credit:Reuters/Joshua Roberts (Cheney speaking on national security in May)

Alberto Gonzales was probably one of the most controversial U.S. attorneys general in history and left in a swirl of controversy about fired federal prosecutors and his role in authorizing harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects.

After keeping a relatively a low profile since resigning in the summer of 2007, he has now begun his stint as a visiting professor at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, where he will teach a course entitled “Contemporary Issues in the Executive Branch” that will encompass crafting legislation and shepherding a Supreme Court nominee through the Senate

He sat down with Texas Lawyer for one of the most wide-ranging interviews he has given since leaving office in which he offers insights into many of the controversies.

On the issue of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques authorized by the Bush Justice Department — which are in the spotlight now as the new Obama administration is examining whether they broke the law — Gonzales said it was natural that such guidance is revised over time.

“What the lawyers tried to do (during the Bush years) was to define, to give boundaries to what the statute allowed,” Gonzales said. “When I was in the administration I encouraged lawyers to continually look at our legal position and to get comfortable if we were in fact on solid ground. And if people wanted to continue to revise, I think that was the appropriate role for lawyers.”

As White House counsel, Gonzales made a controversial visit to the hospital bed of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to push for approval of a secret surveillance program. Gonzales said he would discuss the incident in greater detail in his forthcoming book but that he went at President George W. Bush’s behest.

“The reason we went to General Ashcroft is because he is the one who had been approving this program and these activities for a number of years. And he had been the Senate-confirmed attorney general, and as far as the president was concerned, that’s the person he wanted us to talk to,” Gonzales said.

However, at the time, the deputy attorney general, James Comey, was in charge (and he was also confirmed by the U.S. Senate) while Ashcroft recovered from surgery.

Gonzales in the interview also again strenuously defended his role in the firing of several federal prosecutors and said he had been cleared of wrongdoing by the inspector general.

One final interesting tidbit from the interview is a rather stark contrast between Gonzales and Vice President Dick Cheney over who is chief U.S. law enforcement officer.

In a Fox News interview on Sunday, while discussing the Obama administration’s decision to appoint a special prosecutor to examine whether there was any wrongdoing in the harsh interrogations, Cheney said the president is the chief law enforcement officer in the administration. But Gonzales said the attorney general holds that title and must fulfill that obligation.

The Justice Department’s website offers the historical support for Gonzales’ position, here.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

Well there he goes again. Former Vice President Dick Cheney has got ‘em all riled up again at the Obama White House over his Fox News Sunday interview.

Cheney feels strongly that the tough interrogation techniques employed against terrorism suspects by the Bush administration worked, in spite of the complaints about human rights.

He went on Fox to sharply criticize Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to launch an investigation into the alleged abuse of prisoners held by the CIA during the Bush administration.

Cheney cried foul at what he called an “intensely partisan, politicized look back at the prior administration.”

So it came up at Monday’s White House news briefing, and Obama’s press secretary Robert Gibbs was armed with a response.

“This is the same song and dance we’ve heard since literally the first day of our administration. So I don’t have … a lot to say. I think the vice president, if you watched some of his interview, was clearly — clearly had his facts on a number of things wrong,” Gibbs said.

Like what, for instance?

Gibbs said Cheney’s assertion that the White House would be making interrogation decisions for a high-value detainee interrogation group at the FBI was wrong.

“I would add this — I’m not entirely sure that Dick Cheney’s predictions on foreign policy have borne a whole lot of fruit over the last eight years in a way that have been either positive or, to the best of my recollection, very correct,” Gibbs said.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Joshua Roberts (Cheney speaking about national security at AEI in May), Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Gibbs making a point in February)

The Bush White House years may turn into the book wars, which one will you buy?

Former President George W. Bush is writing a book on the decisions he made while in office, working title “Decision Points,” scheduled for release next year.

Former first lady Laura Bush is writing a memoir about her life experiences, expected to be published next year.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney may provide some juicy tidbits in his memoir if it ends up criticizing (would that be book-stabbbing?) the president, it won’t be out until early 2011.

Here’s our guess on how the pages will turn.

George W. Bush’s book will be a straight-forward accounting of what went through his mind as the “Decider” in chief. Laura Bush’s book will not be as soft and fluffy as a stereotypical first lady memoir. And Cheney’s will offer the most surprises, only because he has been the determined silent type.

What’s your pick?

Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Coombs (people reading books on a British beach)

How would you spend the dog days of summer, if you were a former vice president? If you were Dick Cheney, you would be ensconced in your new office above the garage in McLean, Virginia (just down the road from the CIA!), writing your memoir of the administration of George W. Bush. But would you tell all?

The Washington Post indicates Cheney might. In a front-page story that was one of the paper’s most-viewed online, unnamed sources say the former veep was frustrated with Bush, especially in the second term.

When Cheney was asked at an informal meeting to discuss his memoirs if he had any regrets, one meeting participant told the Post: “(Cheney) said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took … The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney’s advice. He’d showed an independence that Cheney didn’t see coming. It was clear that Cheney’s doctrine was cast-iron at all times — never apologize, never explain — and Bush moved toward the conciliatory.”

If Cheney does open up about his problems with Bush and others in that administration, that would be unusual. Cheney himself has shown public disapproval of those who leave office and then write about what went on behind the scenes. As former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told the Post, “If he goes out and writes a memoir that spills beans about what took place behind closed doors, that would be out of character.”

Since he left office, Cheney has been one of Obama’s most vocal critics, taking aim especially at the current president’s opposition to harsh interrogation techniques at Guantanamo. He is also at the heart of a planned House of Representatives investigation into the concealment of a secret CIA program from Congress. One senator said the program was hidden on orders from Cheney; Republicans see a partisan attack.

Throughout his career, Cheney has remained largely silent on the inner workings of government and policy, but that could be at an end when his memoir comes out. According to the Post, Cheney has said “the statute of limitations has expired” on many of his secrets.

What do you think: should Cheney tell all, and let the chips fall where they may? Or would that be unseemly, impolitic and dangerous?

For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Larry Downing (Washington, November 6, 2008)

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has won rave reviews from conservatives and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has gotten grief from from the liberal wing of her party — but the two are in one heck of a race for the lowest approval rating among Americans.

A new Gallup poll shows that Pelosi, embroiled in a controversy about what the CIA did or did not tell her about enhanced interrogation techniques used on terrorism suspects, at the moment holds the crown for the lowest favorable rating – 34 percent.

Cheney, who has tried to find every opportunity to blast the Obama administration over its national security policies and efforts to repudiate the Bush White House on that and other issues, is marginally better off at 37 percent.

But the ex-VP does have a higher unfavorable rating – 54 percent versus 50 percent for the House Speaker.

The numbers are fairly grim for Pelosi. Just six months ago she had about equal favorable and unfavorable ratings, in the low 40s. As for Cheney, his numbers are an improvement from March, when 30 percent had a favorable view of him and 63 percent held an unfavorable view.

“Both Cheney and Pelosi are now positioned as highly polarizing figures on the political landscape; both are viewed favorably by the large majority of their own party members, and unfavorably by most members of the opposing party,” Gallup said in its analysis.

The survey questioned 1,015 adults May 29-31 and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

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- Photo credit: Joshua Roberts (Cheney and Pelosi during the electoral college process in 2008.)