The Dick Cheney "Problem": A Modest Proposal

To my teenage son's chagrin, I'm kind of clueless about computers. In fact, I only half-jokingly refer to myself as a Luddite when it comes to technology.

Well, I'm up-grading from Luddite to full-blown Quaker, because after watching and listening to former Vice-President Dick Cheney's relentless attacks on President Obama's policies, I'm now in favor of bringing back public shunning. If anyone needs to be shunned, it's a guy who favors torture, unnecessary wars, and outing CIA agents.

Hell, maybe shunning isn't enough. Maybe we should take a leaf from the Bush administration's playbook and subject Cheney to the "enhanced interrogation technique" known as putting people in stocks. It could be that a couple days in an enforced sitting position, locked in wooden stocks in the public square, while outraged citizens and bemused schoolchildren point and laugh would prompt an attitude adjustment on Cheney's part. Though, admittedly, I doubt it.

What Cheney is doing with his incessant attacks on Obama is nothing less than attempting to undermine the presidency, which---paradoxically, given his so-called concerns---has the net effect of actually making us less safe. By emphasizing his lack of trust and belief in the current administration, Cheney makes strengthening our ties with allies a much more difficult task. It also makes Obama's goal of clarifying our commitment to national security while maintaining our core values as a nation all that much harder to attain.

After 9/11, former Vice President Al Gore admirably threw his support behind George W. Bush, and urged everyone, including his still-dispirited supporters, to do the same. Where is this sense of patriotism and putting-America-first from Dick Cheney? Usually only too happy to wrap himself in the flag, Cheney apparently has no compunction about trying to undermine this new administration, even before it's been in office six months.

So I say let's put on our colonial peaked hats, break out the wooden stocks, and make a statement of our own. Maybe then Dick Cheney will have the decency shown by his former boss and just slink back to some ranch somewhere, start clearing some pesky brush, and save his self-serving vitriol for his inevitable memoirs.

Comments

[mercedes1947]

I agree with Looktothel­eft...your posts are timely, humorous and stimulating and more is better.

I don't worry about Cheney. With the latest Gallup Poll putting the Republican Party at 89% white and 11% all others...i­t would be insane for the GOP to continue along the lines of the last eight years.

He and Rush and Bill O and Insanity Hannity will soon, say two or three years tops...be flung from the party mainstream the way the GOP has been flinging moderates out for the last 20 years.

Believe me, they won't care, all they need is something to rail against...­that is what they are all about and nothing more.

[PARRYISLE2]

I saw the movie "Patton" for the upteenth time this Memorial Day weekend. What impressed me again me his disdain, contempt and outright hated for those soldiers he called "cowards, yellow bellies" etc. I wonder how he would have commented on those like W. Bush, Cheney and their Neocon cabal of advisors most of whom avoided serving in uniform despite supporting wars provided others fight them? Steve, USN, World War 2.

[directfitz]

I lived in Utah in the 70's and Cheney was hated even then for his eco arrogance. He will not stop until someone stops him. Investigate, prosecute, incarcerate.

[dgales4]

What's great about your articles is that you make a bullseye shot with clarity and humor.
Keep them coming.

[Eris23Skidoo]

Dick Cheney is a con artist.

[DeadCivilian]

Please, no need to disparage con artists.

Cheney suffers from an advanced case of Antisocial Personality Disorder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_Personality_Disorder

Read it and weep, America.

[LooktotheLeft]

I know you're probably busy, but you need to post more dude. You have too many good things to say to remain so silent on issues. Further, seeing so many of the innane and innocuous comments made daily, many by me, it would be refreshing seeing more comments from someone as yourself worth reading.

[Carey Miller]

It is unfortunate that the United States has descended to this level.

During the Bush/Cheney years, several evil ideas became a part of the culture:

1. Publicly disagreeing with the presidency makes us less safe. In fact, many right wingers likened such discussion to sedition.
2. Not throating full fledged support of a war is equal to not supporting the soldiers.

There were more but most boiled down to the polarizing "If you ain't with us then you're agin us", reminiscent of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and the Sedition Act of 1918.

In this age of information, it takes a combination of government lies, media complicity and individual suspension of disbelief for lies to become truth. That is why there is a call for transparency in government and better quality in media. Such change will be gut-wrenching but it will be worthwhile.

To that end, it is vital that Dick Cheney be allowed and even encouraged to spew his propaganda. He has been a part of the worst the United States has to show for decades. It is also vital that the truth be made available to those who will speak against Cheney and his fellow travelers.

[thebigbike]

Nonetheless, public shunning, ridicule, hissing, and expressions of contempt addressed to him and at him face to face are entirely appropriate not that he ever brings his face out in the daylight among actual, you know PEOPLE

[trisha08]

I think it's disgusting that the media has let Cheney have so much air-time without holding his toes to the fire.

I truly believe that if a "watergate" scandal happened today, we would never hear about it. Journalists today are too chicken to rock the boat, or ask the tough questions. Additionally, they all keep their party lines and would never investigate another Republican.

This is bigger and much worse than Watergate---it's torture. Yet, it won't be journalist who break the story or ask Cheney tough questions. If anything, it will be bloggers who unlock the secrets of torture and the Bush administration.

[zest]

Does Dick Cheney believe that if allowed Bush/Cheney would have won a third term? Please MSM ask him that one question.

[Alanmarka]

Cheney is the ultimate arrogant politician. Yes, he's smart, and yes, he probably got us into this thinking he was going to make the world a better place, but as Iraq unraveled he couldn't fold a losing hand (he was playing with our money, and other's lives, so what did he have to lose?). And now he's just trying to salvage his reputation. Unfortunately the only question remaining: is he an evil person, or is he a person who has done great evil?

[cminca]

He got us into this thinking about how much he and his cronies could make from it.

[mamalisa38]

Good post Dennis.

[robin50]

And his wife's new hair cut. it's about as relevent as he is.

[caphillprof]

How can the word decency even share the same sentence with "Dick Cheney?"

[klawz]

In a sentence preceded by "an example of of an oxymoron"

[mommadona]

Sedition? Yes.

Scared old man who knows he's going to be put on trial for war crimes?

You betcha.

MSM Enablers? A mess of them.

Sedition? Yes.

[fairwitness]

Quit dancing around it and charge him. Enough is enough. Let's sort this out, in public and under penalty of perjury, now.

[blaqntelligence]

I like the way you think.
Short, sweet, and to the point.

[TexasDem0]

The former vice president who was seldom visible, in the former administration that could not accept or allow criticism of any kind, is now spewing lies in a attempt to exculpate himself. There are still too many Bush appointed judges and prosecutors, and the Justice Department is infested with GOP loyalists hired by Monica Goodling. Justice will come, but not overnight.