Karl Rove warned President George W. Bush as far back as 1999 that picking Dick Cheney as his vice president would result in problems, according to a new book by a top GQ national correspondent.

The Washington Post reports today on just some of the revelations within “Dead Certain: The Presidency of George Bush,” in which journalist Robert Draper asserts that Bush was intent on picking Cheney as his running mate, despite strong warnings from Rove against it.

“Selecting Daddy’s top foreign-policy guru ran counter to message. It was worse than a safe pick — it was needy,” Draper quotes Rove as saying. Draper added that Bush “saw no harm in giving his VP unprecedented run of the place.”

Washington sources told blogger Wayne Madsen earlier this year about a strange recent rift between Bush and Cheney over U.S. Iran policy. Read more…

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We recently told you about investigative reporter Wayne Madsen’s displeasure with Radar Online’s characterization of him as a “lonely” blogger in light of his reporting on a possible Dick Cheney connection to “Washington Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Now reporter Dan Moldea, who helped Hustler editor Larry Flynt expose former GOP House Rep. Bob Livingston’s extramarital affair, is taking the publication for to task for naming him as a slueth in Flynt’s new efforts to uncover sex dirt in DC.

After Flynt appeared on Hardball earlier this week and named Moldea as one of his detectives on the ground in Washington, Radar said Moldea was “fibbing” because he had previously told editors there that he had no role in the current investigation.

Moldea is now angry by what he considers false reporting by Radar.

“[T]here is a lot of confusion surrounding these matters, which has been exacerbated by Radar Online’s flat-out erroneous headline and conclusion about me,” Moldea told Big Head DC on Wednesday.

The reporter continues to deny being involved in the current investigation, but says he has no further comment at this time.

An interesting side note to the story: Moldea was seen by BHDC sources lunching in downtown DC with one Deborah Jeane Palfrey in late May.

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As Big Head DC reported first, Wayne Madsen Report has officially gone pay-for-view.

Individuals can now subscribe to read the muckraker’s exclusives for $7.00 per month, or $30.00 a year.

The investigative reporter told us last month that it’s been “tough running the site on contributions while having the MSM grab stories off of it, most of the time without attribution or credit.”

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The tabloid that was first to bring you Selena’s autopsy photos and printed the transcripted tapes of Frank Gifford’s illicit affair is now covering the possible connection between Deborah Jeane Palfrey and VP Dick Cheney. You read it here first!

Wayne Madsen, you are not alone…

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Fresh off the presses from Wayne Madsen Report:

Vice President Dick Cheney’s counsel ordered, in writing, the Secret Service to destroy the official visitors logs containing the names of those who visited him at the official residence of the Vice President at the U.S. Naval Observatory in northwest Washington, DC. A federal judge ordered the records released pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), but the Bush-friendly U.S. Court of Appeals for DC later blocked the records release.

In a September 13, 2006 letter, Cheney’s counsel ordered the Secret Service to return the visitors logs and destroy any copies. Cheney is claiming executive privilege in refusing to disclose the logs. There are indications that the logs held by the Secret Service have already been tampered with. Although the controversy about Cheney’s visitors arose during the Jack Abramoff/Duke Cunningham scandals - investigators wanted to know the identity of lobbyists who visited Cheney - the logs have taken on new importance.

As WMR has previously reported, Cheney, before he was Vice President, was a client of the “Washington Madam’s” Pamela Martin & Associates escorts. Although there are no indications that Cheney engaged these services after becoming Vice President, a number of Cheney’s friends and advisers who possibly engaged the services of the escorts may be on the Vice President’s visitors logs. These include individuals who worked for Cheney when he was Secretary of Defense and President and CEO of Halliburton. What has the Vice President and his counsel worried is that by matching some of the names on the visitors logs with the phone records of Pamela Martin, a very interesting social networking chart could be produced. The September 13, 2006 order by Cheney’s counsel came a few weeks before the Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Postal Inspection Service seized “Washington Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey’s assets. In what may have been a huge blunder on the part of the government, the Federal agents failed to seize her 46 pounds of phone records.

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First, Radar called the DC investigative reporter a “weird and lonely” source for David Letterman’s recent crack about Dick Cheney’s possible involvement with the “DC Madam.” Madsen soon responded on Big Head DC, saying that Radar is “obviously linked to the right-wing and the neocons,” adding that we’re “started partly with seed money from Mort Zuckerman, one of Bush’s toadies in the MSM.”

Well, the Radar folks read that, and got pretty pissed. In a post titled “Blogger Gets Weirder and Lonelier,” they quote  BHDC’s interview, and say that “[t]his might be the first time our actual backers have been accused of being neocons.”

“Before you go charging, Wayne, you might want to learn how do some basic reporting,” the editors add. “Google’s a good start. We await your correction.”

But Madsen’s not stepping down. He’s now responded to the post on his site: “Let’s see: a left-wing site goes after David Letterman for his comment about Cheney and the DC Madam and insurgent Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel. I think we know what they are.”

Yes, the allegations are flying, kids. And we bet Deborah Jeane Palfrey definitely never knew her case would lead here.

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Well, lookie, lookie, Roll Call, Politico and Wonkette all served up items yesterday that mentioned the possibility that Dick Cheney used the services of Deborah Jeane Palfrey’s escort service in the 1990s. But little credit was given to Wayne Madsen, the investigative reporter who first blew the lid off the story (which we’ve followed in some, um, interesting dominatrix-inspired directions). We’ve already detailed how the mainstream media has often stolen his goods. Today, we catch up with him on his scoop.

Madsen tells Big Head DC that he first started hearing over two weeks ago that Dick Cheney might be involved. His first source had has strong ties to the Democratic party; he’s since had confirmation from individuals associated with the CIA and with the Pentagon. He says that all his sources are “trustworthy” and “inside the game.”

“If Dick Cheney thought there would never be ‘blow back’ from his attempt to discredit the CIA, he was very wrong.” according to the reporter. “He should have remembered that when he lived in Ballantrae in McLean in the 1990s, and was a neighbor of the CIA, some of his activities may have come to the attention of the agency and its employees, especially since he was a former Defense Secretary and President and CEO of a major oil services company.”

Madsen, you can bet, will continue to follow this developing story.

(Dick Cheney has not yet responded to requests for comment from BHDC.)

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Wayne Madsen, an investigative reporter who is embraced by many on the left, is soon to make a major change to his popular Web site, Wayne Madsen Report. Big Head DC has learned that he will begin charging visitors to read his full scoops, such as his recent revelations that Dick Cheney may have used the services of Deborah Jeane Palfrey.

“It’s been tough running the site on contributions while having the MSM grab stories off of it, most of the time without attribution or credit,” Madsen tells us. ”Although there are a few MSM outlets who do give credit — I should mention Richard Johnson’s column in the New York Post as one that has given credit, the radio shows of Stephanie Miller, Randi Rhodes, Alex Jones, and Mike Malloy, and there are others, many of them foreign outlets.”

However, the vast majority of news outlets that regularly steal Madsen’s news are giving him zero credit. 

Some outlets, including Radar Online in recent days, have even taken swipes at Madsen, calling him lonely and backwards. Madsen believes that Radar editors likely dislike his reporting because he believes Radar ”is obviously linked to the right-wing and the neo-cons.” He says that Radar ”started partly with seed money from Mort Zuckerman, one of Bush’s toadies in the MSM.”

As for Wayne Madsen Report, the free site concept as a business model is just not working, according to the longtime reporter. “The site will have to transition to a pay-for-view site with a nominal monthly or yearly fee,” Madsen tells BHDC. ”There will still be free content and, of course, the teasers for articles will be available at no charge.”
 
Concludes Madsen: “It is not really fair that those who contribute most generously to keep us up and running are essentially helping to subsidize the corporate media.”

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