That miserable bastard Cheney is at it again.
This essay is going to be dictated on the afternoon of August 27th. We await the arrival of Hurricane Irene. Awaiting the arrival of the hurricane is a far from happy test. My mood is not made any more benign as we wait for the first raindrops by the fact that the former Vice President of the United States, Richard Cheney, a miserable bastard, has written a book. Yesterday, he was interviewed by an NBC reporter named Jaimie Gangel. Miss Gangel was solicitous and quite polite. Cheney, who had sought the interview to promote his book, was impolite to a fault. His answers were short and conveyed the thought, “You must have known this anyway.”
In the event that you have forgotten, there was a period between the year 2000 and January of 2009 when we were burdened with the presidency of George W. Bush and the vice presidency of Richard Cheney. During his vice presidency, Richard Cheney exposed a woman named Mrs. Wilson as a secret operative of the CIA. He made elaborate plans to cover his tracks, but in the investigation by a Republican special counsel, it was discovered that there was a handwritten note in Cheney’s handwriting about the exposure of Mrs. Wilson. As a matter of fact, there is no doubt but that Cheney led the effort to expose Mrs. Wilson’s undercover activities. But he let Scooter Libby take the consequences. The consequences were a conviction, a federal trial of Scooter Libby; he was saved from going to jail for about two years with the intervention of George Bush. Bush contended that Scooter Libby had been punished enough. That is a preposterous conclusion.
At any rate, it is quite clear that the Republican special counsel should have indicted Cheney as well as Karl Rove, the executive assistant to the President. The special counsel interviewed Cheney and interviewed Rove on at least five occasions and it was widely predicted that they would be indicted. In the end, they were not indicted, largely because of their political connections.
But at any rate, in his interview with Jaimie Gangel, the former vice president contends that he has written a book about his experience in the White House in the vice presidency. Whether he wrote the book or not is largely beside the point because celebrities of the stature of Dick Cheney are able to hire people to write for them. But in the interview with Miss Gangel, we are treated to vintage Cheney. In his book, Cheney defends the invasion of Iraq. If there is anything in the world that was a bigger mistake than the invasion of Iraq, it would have to come to the attention of the American public. Down to the bitter end, Cheney defends the invasion of Iraq. Secondly, Cheney defends the use of torture. He terms it “enhanced interrogation.” Every other impartial observer, including myself, calls it torture, not enhanced anything.
Everyone should know that when we engage in torture, it exposes every American soldier to the same sort of treatment from our enemies. Clearly we were guilty of the torture of our prisoners in the Iraq war. There is absolutely no question on that score. And here we have some years after the war, the former vice president defending the use of torture. This is a bizarre circumstance for which Cheney must have his intelligence or his sanity questioned.
During the reign of Bush and Cheney, we were frequently treated to the ministrations of his wife and daughter. Nobody anointed Cheney’s wife or his daughter as experts. Seriously, his daughter is a lesbian and to his credit, he defends her. And remember, his defense is confined just to his daughter; he is not inclined to give the lesbians as a class any compassion. I guess this amounts to “lesbians are no good” except for Cheney’s daughter.
I have no intention whatsoever to read Cheney’s book. Between Cheney, George W. Bush, Cheney’s wife and daughter, I have had all of the Cheney family that any man can stomach. As the Iraq war now tends to become a thing of the past, we have Cheney writing a book in which he defends the invasion of Iraq, the torture, and all the rest of the American excesses.
In point of fact, when it was Cheney’s time to serve, he took five exemptions and managed not to serve in the Vietnam War. The fact of the matter is that when the country calls, the common answer is to go. And the further fact is that once in the army, one should be protected from torture. But that is not the case in the Cheney viewpoint.
As you can see, on this gloomy afternoon as we await the Hurricane Irene, my mood has not been improved in any degree by the thought of Dick Cheney’s book. I am not quite sure what this term means, but I believe that Cheney is what the English would call a “rotter.” According to the dictionary, the word “rotter,” coming from the originators in the language, is described as follows: “the word is chiefly Brit and means a worthless, unpleasant, or despicable person.”
I believe that the English appropriately named Dick Cheney. I am sorry that I did not think of that term earlier in the proceedings about his book. But as I indicated in the title, my reaction is, “Good Jesus! That miserable bastard who is also a rotter is back at it again.” I believe that this sentiment wraps up my view of the Cheney family and of his vice presidency of the United States. Perhaps the book could be turned into a movie that would give us some enjoyment as a farce. But aside from that, I leave my thoughts which are reflected in the title to this essay.
E. E. CARR
September 4, 2011
Essay 596
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Kevin’s commentary: hurricanes are still happening up on the East coast, Cheney is still an asshole, and Karl Rove’s defense of it has stuck in my mind for years as being uniquely upsetting. He’s proud of it, and it’s here: http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/karl-rove-proud-using-waterboarding-and
But the worst is Sean Hannity: you can watch Olbermann on it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzK5FNjBsrA
Extra note: It’s now 2:12am and I’ve been learning everything I can about waterboarding for an hour and change now. It has been an upsetting hour, and I do not recommend that any readers do the same.