We’ve finally found the limit. Leading the nation to war based on false claims about weapons of mass destruction, and an imaginary connection between Iraq and 9/11?
No problem. Devising our country’s energy policy in secret closed-door meetings with oil and coal executives? Sure, why not? Deciding it’s okay to leak the identity of a CIA operative you disagree with, then letting your chief of staff, “Scooter,” take the fall? Go right ahead, Mr. Vice President.
Shooting a 78-year-old lawyer in the face? That is just too far.
The press has been hounding Cheney all week about his little safari-turned-man-hunt. Satirists have already had ample time to expend every possible joke about the situation, making any quips I might attempt sound older and more tired than Cheney’s victim.
It would be hard to top the words of Al Franken, destined to become a bumper sticker: “Dick Cheney shot a man”just to watch him die.”
Frankly, I’m just glad we’re finally beginning to define some limits for Dick and the rest of this administration. For a minute there, I was starting to think they could do anything they wanted.
To date, Cheney still refuses to turn over 13,500 pages of energy plan documents to congressional investigators. Maybe this has something to do with the $1.8 million energy companies donated to the Bush/Cheney election campaign.
During his tenure as CEO of Halliburton, the volume of taxpayer-supported government contracts the corporation attained increased by 91 percent and, according to Cheney’s tax returns, he made $36 million from Halliburton in 2000.
But never fear. Dick is tough on terrorism.
Maybe that explains why he is virtually the only guy in the country who still thinks torture is a good idea. Libyan dictator and suspected terrorist supporter Moammar Gadhafi hired a subsidiary of Halliburton to perform millions of dollars worth of work in the 1990s, landing the company a $3.8 million dollar fine for violating sanctions.
I’m sure Dick had our national security interests at heart when he opted to continue sales to Libya throughout his tenure at Halliburton.
According to a writer for Project for the New American Century, of which Cheney is a leading member, “Toppling Saddam wiped out a decade’s worth of pan-Muslim hubris about America’s weakness.” And simultaneously wiped out half a century’s worth of American foreign policy precedents.
Cheney and his supporters are right in a sense. Through the occupation of Iraq, the worst fears of the Muslim world have come true: We let our recruits take naked pictures of them. If you don’t believe me just take a glance at the new photos from Abu Grab prison.
According to the White House biography of Cheney, he has “earned a reputation as a man of knowledge, character, and accessibility.” Accessibility?
Like when you accidentally shoot someone and then you aren’t “accessible” for police questioning until the next day?
I suppose I would want to sober up if I shot somebody too. Heart pills and beer can get somebody pretty lit.
Ultimately, the vice president is best characterized by his penchant – bordering on the pathological – for secrecy. That and his evil Mr. Burns-esque disposition. “Drilling for oil in ANWAR? Excellent.”
The way he handled the recent shooting of a 78-year-old man in the face is just another example in a long list of clandestine behavior.
Is it surprising that he supports warrantless NSA wiretapping and opposed the development of the FISA court?
Is it surprising that he supports the policy of rendition, in which the government out- sources torture to countries that aren’t so squeamish about attaching electrodes to suspected terrorists’ testicles?
Is it surprising that he shot a 78-year-old lawyer in the face because the man suggested he resign? But that’s just my theory.
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