Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. - Dylan Thomas
Dick Cheney is one of those people who would have to be invented if he didn't already exist.
During the Bush years it was always easy to make fun of George W. Bush, but the nature of the abuse he drew undercut the effect of the abuse itself. If you were going to deride the president as a semi-coherent imbecile lacking the basic mental faculties needed for the job, you couldn't then hold him to full blame for the poor job he did. How could he have done anything else, given his supposed handicaps?
But Cheney is different. Cheney's the one with the twisted snarl who lived in a cave and told the president what to think. Everyone who hates Cheney thinks he's a monster who knew exactly what he was up to as vice-president and did it anyway, and with enthusiasm. Cheney would understand all the dark implications of secret prisons and waterboarding sessions, and would still give them his full support. He wouldn't just approve of waterboarding, he'd encourage it -- maybe even suggest a few folks who could use a round or two. You can picture him chortling as some underling described the panic and desperation of some terrorist detainee as the water was poured down his nose. Bush would never laugh at anything like that, but Cheney would.
That's the impression he gave, anyway. And that's probably why there's been such enthusiastic reaction to reports that the former vice-president plans to get even with the weakling former president in his upcoming memoirs. The report, in the Washington Post, has set free all sorts of Cheney-bashing, especially from folks who haven't been able to bash the White House since the Democrats moved in it became an unquestioned force for good once again.
Cheney, according to the Post, feels Bush went all soft and mushy in his second term, when he started listening to public opinion rather than reaching conclusions Cheney would approve of, and then stuffing them down the gullet of the voting population. Though Cheney doesn't approve of tell-all books by former White House officials, he's apparently making an exception for himself -- and why wouldn't he? If you're above the law, presumably you're above the standards you set for others as well. Besides, the former VP feels the "statute of limitations has expired" on what he has to say. Far from going soft, according to a Cheney confidante the Post spoke to, "there was a sense that they hadn't gone far enough. If he'd been equipped with a group of people as ideologically rigorous as he was, they'd have been able to push further."
Further? Like what -- invade Iran as well? Waterboard Ahmadinejad? That's what's so great about Cheney: it's just possible that that's exactly what he means. Understandable, the pundits are having a great time.
Mark Morford in the San Francisco Chronicle gleefully describes Cheney's reaction at the news of Bill Clinton's rescue mission to North Korea.
"Did you feel that? That sickly sort of rolling wave, that disquieting, genital-shriveling temblor of seething grumpiness that swept through the land and made dogs spasm, trees shudder and giant SUVs spit oil and misfire ... The churning, teeth-grinding rumble of disquiet? It was coming, of course, from Dick Cheney," says Morford, who suggests the phrase "Dick Cheney" should embody not just the former vie-president himself, "but also the sour, clenched worldview he so perfectly encapsulated and still so lovingly represents."
Rod Dreher, in the Dallas Morning News, suggests nothing could be better for Bush's battered reputation than to be savaged by the likes of Dick Cheney. "Now, if only Karl Rove would do the same.
Never admitting a mistake. Never acknowledging that public opinion should have any influence whatsoever over what kind of policy a government pursues." Tomasky argues that Cheney's apparent need to get even is a sign of his megalomania and warns him to be cautious about his target: "Those Bushes didn't get where they are by being patsies. One of his loyalists ought to remind him what happened to John McCain in South Carolina in 2000, and hire him a good editor."
It's all a breath of fresh air for columnists who have been forced to spend eight months heaping praise on the Obama presidency and giving the Oval Office the benefit of the doubt. That was amusing enough for a while, but being polite and well-behaved wears thin quickly with pundits, whose natural instinct is to attack. And Cheney is a natural target.
Having unleashed the dogs on Cheney, however, the Post suffered an apparent spasm of guilt, and refused to carry a syndicated comic strip which depicts Cheney advising NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to handle theMichael Vick embarrassment by having him whacked.
Goodell: "Mr. former vice-president, I have to make a big move on Mike Vick" Cheney: "Kill him." Goodell: "Kill him?" Cheney: "Well, not you personally."
The Post said the strip was "inappropriate." Probably they meant it. But a few more months of obligatory praise for Mr. Obama and maybe they'll think again.
