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The VP
Why is Cheney so full of hate?
Milbank:
Vice President Cheney protested yesterday that he had been misunderstood when he said last week that critics of the White House over Iraq were "dishonest and reprehensible."
What he meant to say, he explained to his former colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute, was that those who question the White House’s use of prewar intelligence were not only "dishonest and reprehensible" but also "corrupt and shameless."
Maybe it is this: Bypass Surgery: Good for Your Heart, but Bad for Your Mind?
The exact number of people who suffer post-operative cognitive changes from [coronary artery bypass grafting] is unknown. Researchers use different testing methods to assess mental functioning. Studies indicate anywhere from 20%-80% of bypass patients suffer some mental impairment. Initially, doctors thought the deficits were temporary. But researchers at Duke University Medical Center measured declines in 42% of patients five years post-operatively.
It would fit with Brent Scowcroft’s words:
“I consider Cheney a good friend—I’ve known him for thirty years. But Dick Cheney I don’t know anymore.”
So how does the U.S. assess and get rid of an ill VP?
Those who remember Cheney remember a guy
who was a much more yahoo, spontaneous joy,
as his wife can attest. But with the post-
Nam recession, and his state college degrees,
the best he could pull was government work.
A lot of PhD’s end up in government, that’s
what earning your PhD is all about, getting
job security. It’s especially important for a
hick from Mountain States with no connections,
when he’s trying to dodge the war draft.
So he rose through the Fed ranks, schmoozed
his way into the Inner Circle, but he never
really belonged, and never had the slightest
regard for the career pol’s he worked with.
At least that’s what he said going in. Maybe
career service mesmerizes you, I don’t know.
Then he saw an opportunity, and parlayed his
head-of-defense position for a job at the
premier dream of a Western kid, Halliburton.
Take a look at his CEO bio-pic at HAL-KBR.
The sun shines out from that smiling face!
Well, you can take the kid out of DC, but
you can’t take DC out of the kid, and Cheney
wasn’t at the helm of Halliburton more than
a short time before he screwed the pooch and
bought Dresser in 1998, bringing huge asbestos
liabilities to his oil services patron.
I tell you what, the Oil Patch is a place
with no pity. They never forget, and they
*never* forgive. With that one fell stroke,
Cheney destroyed any chance he had in the
private sector. Only the miracle of Bush’s
search for a vice president saved Cheney,
and back to WA DC he went … for life.
I mean, think of it. You’re an average
state college student, hiding out from the
Nam war in WADC among people so ruthlessly
social-elitist he must have loathed every
day he spent there. Then his one hope of
escaping, and leading a normal life as a
private executive, and as a pillar of the
oil community, elbow rubbing with sheiks
and big-money good-old-boys, he screws up.
Big time.
Then his only way out, his only means to
save face, is to crawl back to WA DC as
a dan quayle VP for some druggy playboy
rich kid from Yale with the CiC limelight.
Chr–t, Cheney must loathe his existence.
I mean, really, think about it! Nice kid
from the Midwest, average intelligence,
stays in school to avoid the draft, gets
sucked into WADC like everyone else after
Nam to avoid the nation-wide recession,
does pretty good for a farm kid at DoD,
even among the den of jackals and hyenas,
sees his opportunity, cuts his deal with
the big boys, flies high as Icarus, and
then comes crashing down to serve under a
Village Idiot in the worst administration
in United States history, and the world.
Cheney’s self-loathing, given his MidWest
values, must be *astronomical*. He must be
nearly impotent with inner turmoil, holding
it all in, a sneer and a snarl, and a big
heart attack as a result, now he’s a gimp
with a pacemaker, and going to end up in
some small town with kids throwing dog shit
at his limo whenever he drives by.
How would *you* like that for your bio?
So give the guy a break. He’s a decent kid,
not that crawl-under-a-snake schmooze-Bush
son of privilege and egregious fraud.
If you want to appeal to Dick Cheney, approach
him the way you would approach Johnny Carson.
Just imagine him in Johnny’s shoes, dying to
tell that fatal joke that will bring Bush down.
The secret is to avoid the word, “Halliburton”,
appeal to Cheney’s Methodist religious values.
His deferred salary payments from HAL-KBR should
be over by now, (unless they’ve added on to it,
and I sure hope the IRS is watching). Once he’s no longer on the HAL payroll, and he’s in the home stretch with his Bush lick-spittle service, I’ll bet that he turns out to be a likeable guy,
whether his brain’s micro-embolied or not.
Good night, Johnny.
Posted by: Clarice Starling | Nov 23 2005 1:34 utc | 18
I used to work as a biological researcher, observing winged insects social behavior in this instance. During one of my autumn field trips
to a mountain lake, observing water striders, Gerris marginatus, after closely studying the golden dot patterns on their backs, then
sitting back and unfocusing, I observed a strange phenomenon.
Water striders seem to meander at random around a pond, but yet they seem to always be in social contact. Across the vast expanse
of pond, always searching for vibrations that mean a living prey, nevertheless, they’re always found packed in social clusters.
When they skate apart from the group, after three or four kicks, they’ll usually turn left. When they approach another individual,
directly, or from the side, they will both turn right. This pseudo-random pattern laid onto their random striding behavior
usually keeps them in the same vicinity of each other.
Sometimes, however, a strider will collide with another and hop over, losing the sequence of signals and turns. Or, they’ll skate
beyond where they can detect the vibrations of their clan, and in every case, they response by violently hopping on the surface,
which usually brings out a scout, and the pattern is restored.
I thought this was unusual, and retired at semi-dusk to my tent to write down the observations, when, while lying in a hammock
looking up into the forest canopy, I observed a social fly most woods walkers are familiar with, one that hovers above the
ground in the shade, seeming to move at random tangents.
Once again, as I watched, they moved in a precise order, even in stacked 2D, they will fly a certain distance, then turn, and in
approach to an oncoming neighbor, both will turn in the same direction, avoiding collision, and remaining together. I don’t
now how the outriders signal their loss, maybe a buzz that’s silent to humans, but invariably, after flying too far away from the
group, they will hover, and soon a scout comes to find them.
The reason I mention this social behavior, from something as insignificant to us as a mere insect, is wondering at the social
patterns inside the Beltway, specifically Representative Murtha and his attempt to address the war in Iraq in form of withdrawal.
Although many in his social group applauded him, there were others, including a junior congressman, who attacked him in
vociferous fashion, then launched a straw-man resolution to make it appear Murtha hadn’t but three friends in the world.
Even more interesting, the next day, Joe Biden attempted to steal Murtha’s thunder, making the war resolution his own.
Even more interesting, today, VP Dick Cheney stepped up White House attacks on critics of the Iraq war like Murtha
and Biden, declaring that senators who say Americans were sent into battle based on a lie are engaging in “revisionism
of the most corrupt and shameless variety.” Shameless! What ever happened to ‘circle the wagons’ and ‘leave no
Congressman behind’?
This is particularly odd, in comparison to the behavior of the water strider or the hovering forest fly. Rather than respond
to the signal from a “lost” fellow elect, one who had lost the meme of the moment and off on a wild horse on his own,
rather than send out scouts, instead, these carrion flies in Congress attacked him, and the dung beetles in the White
House heaped s–t over the lost ones, and all of their ilk.
This is strange, coming from bedfellows, and lascivious bedfellows at that. Members used to stroking their own,
and pulling reach-arounds on their fellows, members used to going down on each other for their own $-gain,
here, suddenly, in the face of a pullout from Iraq, these erstwhile lovers are suddenly all bickey and barnie.
That tells me more than anything Murtha could ponder just where all those missing billions of our tax money
went, those hundreds of bales of millions of $100’s, those ambassador pouches and “sudden trips to Iraq”.
This is one big f–king con game, and the only “terrible blow” to American security if we pull out now, will be an
end to a slime stream of baaksheesh leading to the WH, and every member of Congress, except perhaps Murtha.
Of course, being on Halliburton’s payroll, there’s absolutely no doubt where Cheney’s incentive comes, only the dull
amazement that with his grotesque conflict of interest, rather than recuse himself, he’s their chief attack dog.
Which goes towards Clarice’s observation that Cheney is a deeply conflicted individual, unlike George Bush who
is more detached sociopathically. Cheney, a man of means, reduced to licking spittle off the cowboy boots of a wack job,
in return for chump-change deferred gratuity from his bosses.
Chr–t, you can’t make this s–t up. Darwin had nothing on Capital (sic) Hill.
Posted by: tante aime | Nov 23 2005 5:35 utc | 20
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