A Few Good Spins: Dick Cheney's Code Red

Dick Cheney's press junket over the last few weeks seems to be coming up short on the list of important things to talk about, slated below GM going bankrupt, Sotomayor's "reverse racism" and Dr. Tiller's death. And if he weren't such a calculating, snake-like creature, one would wonder if he was becoming irrelevant, an old bag of hot air that should be sitting in a rocking chair counting his millions by now. Yet Cheney continues his "America doesn't know what's good for America" spin.

"We need Guantanamo," Cheney insisted Monday at the National Press Club. "If we didn't have it, we'd need to (invent) it... If you don't have a place to hold these people, the only other option is to kill them."

Guantanamo, the insistence of what "we" need and the lack of value toward another man's life -- a sobering summary our former Vice President. Coming from someone who is high-ranking and strongly suspicious, Cheney's remarks were eerily similar to the final scene from A Few Good Men, in which the high-ranking Col. Jessep, played by Jack Nicholson, is being questioned by Tom Cruise's character Kaffee about the physical abuse that led to the death of a less-than-stellar Marine named Santiago.

Col. Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I think I'm entitled.
Col. Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Col. Jessep: You can't handle the truth!
[pauses]
Col. Jessep: Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns...You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall.

Cheney's MO the last eight years, creeping around the halls of the White House and whispering in W's ear, worked. Now that he's out of office, suddenly he's mouthing off to the cameras, whispering in America's ear an angry, extremist rhetoric that falls just below the rest of the noise. It's subliminal messaging of the worst kind. We want him and his policies on that wall. We need him on that wall.

But it's not answers America needs or wants, it's the truth. The truth: that detainees who were being prosecuted were subject to torture and humiliation. The truth: that the Bush-Cheney torture program was scaled back in 2003 due to "nervous CIA officials." The truth: that lack of mental health experts for detainees and the policies put in place by the Bush-Cheney administration in Guantanamo were called by Judge Emmett Shelton, US District Court, the "antithesis of justice."

That sounds like the definition of "illegal." Not surprisingly, Cheney spins on, using the very same tactic that worked so well on the Guantanamo detainees on the people of America: fear. But we want the truth. America can handle it. And to quote Kaffee as Col. Jessep is dragged off in handcuffs, "Witness is excused."

Comments

[SlashPrower]

Comparing Dick Cheney to Jack Nicholson's character in A Few Good Men is weirdly appropriate.