I'm using my channel-flicker to flick through the channels today, and I see this 100-year-old grouchy guy named "Dick Cheeny" giving a speech at the "American Enzyme Institute" (?), and it looks like his mouth is about to slide off the side of his face and expose his skull, so I stop and watch.
Lo and behold, the guy isn't speaking about enzymes at all. As far as I can tell, he's talking about torturing people -- namely, that President Obama, who is president, which means he is in charge, which means he decides American foreign policy, which means everyone else can shut up, isn't doing enough of it.
My initial thought was, "Who is this Dick Cheeny guy and why should I give a flying purple goddamn what he thinks?" Do people believe he's important? Because he sounds like someone who lives on the subway and wears origami sailor hats made out of Soldier of Fortune magazines.
As far as I could tell, his speech was actually some weird kind of mouth-yoga where you keep returning to "9/11" position every thirty seconds:
For me, one of the defining experiences was the morning of 9/11 itself. As you might recall, I was in my office in that first hour, when radar caught sight of an airliner heading toward the White House at 500 miles an hour.
Actually, no, Mr. Face-sliding-off, I don't recall that on 9/11 you were in your office (at the RadioShack where you work?). You could have been bussing tables at Applebee's, or stuffing envelopes from home, or drinking a protein shake made of your own bile. How would I know? I have no idea who you are. Why are you on my television?
But then Cheeny started talking about how "rounding up random Afghan teenagers and torturing them in Cuba's armpit has saved trillions of American lives," and "if we let a bunch of scraggledy-bearded douchebags into the American penal system, somehow they'll hypnotize the guards and convert the wardens and build a mustard-gas-Islam-fart-bomb," or whatever, and I started thinking, "Wait a minute, this guy looks familiar."
Then he started in about "dark days" and "gathering threats" and "nefarious enemies" and "the desert-people are scheming" and "even a piece of cheese can be a mighty weapon" and then I remembered:
This is the guy everyone in America deemed a total asshole and decided to ignore about five years ago.
THE END.
(All quotes from memory)