If I were to eat a meal at a local restaurant and leave after the dessert course was served without paying, I am certain that the owners of the restaurant would be all over me before I reached the door.  If I were to say to the owners in that case, “I have been reliably informed that deficits don’t matter,” the owners would still insist on payment for the meal just consumed.  Nonetheless, for eight years this country was governed by a Vice President who insisted that deficits don’t matter.  I am here to remind the former Vice President of this country that deficits do matter.
During the Bush-Cheney era, the United States started two wars, one in Afghanistan and the second one in Iraq.  On top of that, the surplus that had been turned over when Bill Clinton left office was dispersed in a series of tax cuts.  The wars were put on the tab furnished by the Chinese and Japanese.  Now we are finding out from the Tea Party people, for example, that there is a movement towards a balanced budget.  The Tea Party people are aghast at the debt that we have run up.  I am sorry to inform the Tea Party people that the debt was incurred during the Presidency of George Bush and the estimable Richard Cheney, Vice President.
For some time, I have put a note on one of my dictating machines which I use to remind me of future essays.  For two or three years, one of my notes has said, “Deficits Don’t Matter.”  I have resisted writing that essay, waiting for a more appropriate time.  Right now seems to be the appropriate time.
This past summer, Richard Cheney produced a book which he claims to have written.  When a book is being produced, the author goes around the country to drum up sales.  In the interviews that I have heard with Mr. Cheney, I was repulsed as always by his defense of the Iraq war and his support of “enhanced interrogation.”  No matter how you cut it, this so-called “enhanced interrogation” is a form of torture.  Here is Cheney, probably the most reviled Vice President in our history, touting not only the war in Iraq but also the use of torture.  Unfortunately, the book by Cheney is listed as the third best seller at the end of Septmber by The New York Times.  Obviously I do not intend to read the book that Cheney has written.  I would recommend that it not be read by anyone else.
Here we are trying to muster up the finances to pay for our existence and at the same time we are reminded that Cheney used to tell us, “Deficits don’t matter.”  In my humble opinion, deficits do matter.  And if you wonder why we are in these financial straits, you must recall the start of two wars and the concomitant tax cuts.  This, my friends, is a recipe for disaster.  But Richard Cheney goes on his merry way, caring not at all for the wars that were conducted by his administration, and still proclaims that the Iraq war was justified and that torture is an appropriate interrogation technique when we have prisoners.  As is well known, Cheney took five deferments; he did not have to serve during the war in Vietnam.  If he had served, he would understand that torture is not a one-sided game.  It can be practiced by both sides.
But in the final analysis, I have been able to remove this from my dictating notepad.  I have managed to dictate this essay without boiling over.  If in this life or in any future life, I could be assured that I would never be troubled by the likes of Richard Cheney, I would accept that guarantee full-heartedly.  But the fact of the matter is that for eight years of the Bush-Cheney administration, we still have to listen to the former Vice President.  I can assure you that when he wants to justify the Iraq war or the Afghanistan war and torture, my blood pressure races toward the boiling point.  But now that the book has been written and the interviews conducted, I look forward to peace untroubled by interruptions from Richard Cheney, the most reviled of American Vice Presidents.
 
E. E. CARR
September 26, 2011
Essay 601
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Kevin’s commentary: Here on the edge of the dreaded Fiscal Cliff, this essay is as topical as ever. And it serves as a wonderful reminder of how positively terrific it feels to not have to deal with Cheney’s crap anymore.
Oh, and for the first time in a while, I’ve added a new category tag — Bush Administration. I suspect it will be getting plenty of mileage in the essays to come, as I work my way back in time.
I didn’t publish any essays over break, so today I’ll be putting up six, then using WordPress to make the site pretend that they were published earlier than they actually were.  It’s a marathon!