The actual statement was:
Section V of Rebuilding America's Defenses, entitled "Creating Tomorrow's Dominant Force", includes the sentence: "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor"
http://www.webcitation.org/5e3est5lT
Cheney was NOT one of the participants that produced the report. A list may be seen on the last page.
I didn't hear him objecting when the opportunity was handed the neo-cons, either. Instead, they picked it up and ran with it -- just as they said they planned to do if it ever happened. Cheney had already signed on "in principle."
Cheney never made the statement attributed to him, nor wrote any of the report. Just another worn propaganda trick attempting guilt by association. McCarthy would be proud.
Laying off the Goebbels for a while? Now that was what was getting worn.
If Cheney didn't agree with such, and didn't want to be associated with it, why didn't he do the honorable thing and resign? Logical answer is that he did agree with it.
Guilt by association is called "accessory" -- a well-recognized principle in law.
I'll continue the Goebbels when you use his methods. Otherwise, your commitment to state collectivism and xenophobic beliefs are pretty much on track. As there was nothing of harm perpetrated, there's no guilt. Unless, one is a truther, -- a conspiracy belief that makes birthers look sane.
Goebbels wasn't the original, only an imitator of forms of propaganda. You use him merely because he conjures up images of evil in a way that Plato or Machiavelli don't.
There is nothing of harm perpetrated by being or having been a member of the Communist Party. That is legal in the United States, as is any political party, so long as you don't advocate the forcible overthrow of legally-constituted government.
So how can McCarthy attempt "guilt by association" if neither illegality or harm is present?
Yet much harm was perpetrated against untold numbers of innocents by McCarthy who had never come near the Communist Party.