If He Were As Smart...
... as he thinks he is (and lord knows, as badly as he's fucked up in life, he must think he's a genius), Cheney'd invent a laser bread slicer which would cause every loaf exposed to it to explode in flames. He'd invent a new pesticide that even Monsanto would think too deadly to market. Or a new navigational aid which caused aircraft to crash. If he were a movie producer, he'd want to make the first snuff film for kids. If he were a chemist, his crowning achievement would be Ice-nine. If he were an economist, we'd all be in sackcloth and ashes, picking through Warren Buffett's trash, looking for the stray PB&J leavings.
If he were a fast-food worker, everyone would get salmonella along with their egg mcmuffins™. If he drove a bus, he'd be the one to OD on drugs on duty and go crashing through parked cars and small buildings. If he were a surgeon, he'd be the one to saw off the wrong leg. If he were a hooker, he'd be the one giving every john HIV. If he were a chicken-plucker, you'd never want to even look at fried chicken again. If he were a plumber, you'd have sewage coming out of your kitchen sink and your toilet would sound like the garbage disposal every time you flushed.
But, because he's a politician, the press thinks he's a smart guy and has him on to chat every time he deigns to appear. What the hell's that about?
And then he lies to `em and sneers at 'em, as if he's daring them to disagree with him. (There is the theory out there that he's threatened them with sending Lynne to tear out their throats with her teeth if they don't play nice.)
And, while it's not new news, he's continuing to assert, in effect, that he's the fourth branch of government. Here's some ABC-type information, DickHead: the office of Vice-President is created by Article II of the Constitution. That, for Herr Addington's sake, is the part of the Constitution establishing the Executive Branch. That makes Toad-In-The-Hole part of the Executive Branch, being allowed to break ties in the Senate notwithstanding. As Richard Wolffe said on The Daily Show, "if that's [Cheney's assertion] Constitutional, I'm a banana."
As with virtually every issue in his time in government and business, Cheney's wrong on this one, too. Like so many ham-handed and ham-headed Repugs, Cheney's guiding principle in government is that saying something makes it true. As with the evidence for his war of choice, or his whining during the Iran-Contra hearings that politics were being criminalized, he's been just plain wrong. Wrong enough for even the wingnuts to have filed papers for the political divorce. If you averaged his approval rating with Bush's, you'd probably get a negative number.
If he manages to twist and manufacture enough evidence to convince his Presidential co-conspirator to bomb Iran, he'll be wrong about that one, too.
If someone puts up a statue of him somewhere in the wilds of Wyoming after these eight years, no one is going to ever bother cleaning off the birdshit from it. It won't be worth the effort.
If one looks at how badly things have turned out--in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in this country, in perceptions of the US around the world, in the details of the illegalities that have been undertaken by Bush and Cheney--Cheney's fingerprints are on all those things, and there're two reasons for that.
Cheney has never understood the difference between cleverness and wisdom, and he's got a totalitarian's attitude toward law and legal restraint, and disdain for any Constitution, let alone our own. It's not a perfect analogy, but Bush is the people's folksy fascist--coming to power, as Sinclair Lewis said, wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross, while Cheney is Bush's Lavrenty Beria.
But, the salient point is that the next time someone on the right brags about getting a tough-talkin', authoritarian CEO in the White House who's gonna straighten things out, just remember: Richard Bruce Cheney, fuck-up extraordinaire.
`Nuff said.
If he were a fast-food worker, everyone would get salmonella along with their egg mcmuffins™. If he drove a bus, he'd be the one to OD on drugs on duty and go crashing through parked cars and small buildings. If he were a surgeon, he'd be the one to saw off the wrong leg. If he were a hooker, he'd be the one giving every john HIV. If he were a chicken-plucker, you'd never want to even look at fried chicken again. If he were a plumber, you'd have sewage coming out of your kitchen sink and your toilet would sound like the garbage disposal every time you flushed.
But, because he's a politician, the press thinks he's a smart guy and has him on to chat every time he deigns to appear. What the hell's that about?
And then he lies to `em and sneers at 'em, as if he's daring them to disagree with him. (There is the theory out there that he's threatened them with sending Lynne to tear out their throats with her teeth if they don't play nice.)
And, while it's not new news, he's continuing to assert, in effect, that he's the fourth branch of government. Here's some ABC-type information, DickHead: the office of Vice-President is created by Article II of the Constitution. That, for Herr Addington's sake, is the part of the Constitution establishing the Executive Branch. That makes Toad-In-The-Hole part of the Executive Branch, being allowed to break ties in the Senate notwithstanding. As Richard Wolffe said on The Daily Show, "if that's [Cheney's assertion] Constitutional, I'm a banana."
As with virtually every issue in his time in government and business, Cheney's wrong on this one, too. Like so many ham-handed and ham-headed Repugs, Cheney's guiding principle in government is that saying something makes it true. As with the evidence for his war of choice, or his whining during the Iran-Contra hearings that politics were being criminalized, he's been just plain wrong. Wrong enough for even the wingnuts to have filed papers for the political divorce. If you averaged his approval rating with Bush's, you'd probably get a negative number.
If he manages to twist and manufacture enough evidence to convince his Presidential co-conspirator to bomb Iran, he'll be wrong about that one, too.
If someone puts up a statue of him somewhere in the wilds of Wyoming after these eight years, no one is going to ever bother cleaning off the birdshit from it. It won't be worth the effort.
If one looks at how badly things have turned out--in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in this country, in perceptions of the US around the world, in the details of the illegalities that have been undertaken by Bush and Cheney--Cheney's fingerprints are on all those things, and there're two reasons for that.
Cheney has never understood the difference between cleverness and wisdom, and he's got a totalitarian's attitude toward law and legal restraint, and disdain for any Constitution, let alone our own. It's not a perfect analogy, but Bush is the people's folksy fascist--coming to power, as Sinclair Lewis said, wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross, while Cheney is Bush's Lavrenty Beria.
But, the salient point is that the next time someone on the right brags about getting a tough-talkin', authoritarian CEO in the White House who's gonna straighten things out, just remember: Richard Bruce Cheney, fuck-up extraordinaire.
`Nuff said.
posted by Montag at
4:26 PM
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