Dick Cheney insists on inserting himself into our political discourse in a very creepy, strange, and unaccountable way. Every time he appears he reminds us how terrible the last eight years were. With his unyielding assertions and tone of infallibility he seems to be one of the only prominent rightwingers left in America who has yet to figure out that the real world has made a shambles of his ideology. Cheney cannot accept that he is no longer in power, hence his ubiquity on the public airwaves. He had a golden opportunity to participate after serving two terms as Vice President. He could have run for president in 2008 as the natural standard bearer for George W. Bush. Or he could position himself for a run in the Republican primaries in 2012. He'll have no problem raising money and look at all the free exposure the corporate media give him. The way Cheney savors the idea of returning to power he reminds me of one of those "dead enders" in Iraq he talked so much about.
So why does Cheney spend his time cowardly throwing darts at President Barack Obama from a "non-disclosed location" no one cares about via friendly journalists instead of stepping up and challenging President Obama's re-election?
Maybe it's because he would face a drubbing. Americans have notoriously short attention spans -- but not THAT short. Bush and Cheney promised us a free market path to "prosperity" and "security." We got neither. Everything they touched turned to failure. Unless you were on the receiving end of the cash that changed hands (which means you were part of the problem) nothing the Bush Administration did over the course of eight long years -- NOTHING -- helped our nation become more prosperous or secure. And here's Dick Cheney on Face the Nation in all his vainglorious arrogance asserting that if he were still in power and the Republicans were even more extreme we'd be in much better shape today!
Wow!
Sometimes powerful people need to see the inside of a prison cell for a while to come to terms with the consequences of their actions and the suffering that resulted from their malfeasance and misrule. Richard Bruce Cheney is one of those people.
A few commentators have compared Cheney's rehabilitation project to Richard Nixon's revival but nothing could be further from the truth. We have all heard Nixon's criminal intent loud and clear on those White House tapes but he had real accomplishments to point to. The country applauded his opening of diplomatic relations with China and his signing the legislation that formed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
What accomplishments can Dick Cheney point to?
He "kept us safe?"
Remember September 11th, 2001?
More Americans died as a result of Cheney's negligence and misguided policies than died in any two-term presidential period since the Vietnam War era. Feel safer?
And "prosperity?"
Handing the federal machinery over to a collection of corporations, industry associations, free-market ideologues, lobbyists and profiteers and then plundering whatever you could through deregulation, privatization, no-bid contracts, and appointing corporate hacks to head key regulatory agencies and departments, like Elaine Chao at the Labor Department and Chris Cox at the Securities and Exchange Commission, did not bring the United States of America "prosperity." On the contrary, Cheney's recklessness brought this nation to its knees.
And that's why Republicans like Colin Powell and Arlen Specter have jumped ship. They do not want to be associated with these jackals when the history books are written. Bitter, twisted people who destroyed the Republican party and nearly took down the country with them.