Since 2003, many groups have claimed that Dick Cheney was the person at the forefront of leaking the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame to the media, thereby blowing her cover and forcing her to end a long and successful career with the CIA. Although Cheney denies this claim, a recently surfaced photo may help to explain Cheney’s inability to recall certain events leading up to the outing of Plame’s name.
The FBI interviewed Cheney in 2004 regarding his involvement in the matter. After filing a lawsuit to get the FBI interview summary released, the watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, has finally received a copy of the summary in which it is revealed that Cheney’s memory was sketchy, at best, on whether he discussed Valerie Plame with his Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, who ultimately was charged with leaking Plame’s name to political columnist, Robert Novak. Cheney could also not remember whether or not he discussed Plame or her husband, Joe Wilson, with Bush.
A recent photo of Cheney, Circa 2003, has surfaced showing Cheney wearing mismatched shoes. According to Dr. Leu Singha Grip, an expert in the study of dementia in senior citizens, this quite possibly could indicate that Cheney is suffering from early onset dementia which may be affecting his memory. Dr. Grip believes that Cheney may very well believe he was telling the truth when he said he did not recall if he told Libby about Wilson’s wife and her employment at the CIA.
Although, in reality, during Libby’s criminal trial, evidence was submitted that showed Cheney did tell Libby about Wilson’s wife in 2003; the fact that Cheney could say one thing one day and turn around and say something completely opposite another day is a pretty clear sign that some form of memory loss may exist.
Cheney’s wife, Lynn, confirmed the fact that Cheney’s memory has been slipping for the past decade. “Yes, it’s become a real problem in the Cheney household,” she said. “That mismatched shoe photo is just the tip of the iceberg. It started simply enough with him forgetting where he put the keys to the car, to not remembering to pick up eggs and butter from the grocery store on his way home from the Oval office. But it has gotten progressively worse.”
“Especially in the bedroom, while holding me at night” Lynn continued, “he sometimes calls me by another woman’s name. It’s getting to be so common that we just laugh when he calls me ‘Destiny’ or ‘Roxy’.
She said that it happens most though when Dick is reading the newspaper in the morning over coffee and starts a sentence and then just forgets what he was going to say. “We call them brain farts and these days, Dick is having lots of brain farts.” She said smiling. “It’s just a part of getting old, I guess.”
Dr. Grip agrees that Cheney’s brain farts could explain a lot.