Somewhere in Transylvania there is a dark, forbidding castle. For national security reasons, it does not appear on Google Maps. The local villagers give it a wide berth; it is said to be accursed. It is the ancestral home of Count Cheney--Dick the Impaler to his friends. (If he had any friends. He once shot one of his closest associates in the face for laughs.)
Let us peer into the Stygian gloom of the castle. A shadowy figure sits upon a web-enshrouded throne. A mechanical heart beats within his withered chest, all that keeps him unnaturally alive--although it's said he feasts upon cheap Halliburton oil.
His sanguine lips move. He speaks!: "I was right about the war. Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. We were greeted as liberators by the freedom loving Iraqi people. The war lasted six weeks--eight weeks, max. It's just a few dead enders who are causing all the trouble. The war will more than pay for itself with cheap oil exports. Iraq will stand as a shining beacon of democracy for the rest of the Middle East, and a bulwark against the ambitions of Iran. " Despite his enfeebled frame, he had a vibrant voice that was hypnotic in its certainty.
"Yes, master," Rumsfeld, his human familiar said. "We don't know what we don't know, but we do know your foreign policy decisions are infallible." He was a poor, pathetic creature who lived on spiders and flies, and slavishly echoed whatever Count Cheney said. "You were right about the war. Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. We were greeted as liberators by the freedom loving Iraqi people. Etc., etc., etc."
"Good boy," Count Cheney said, and fed Rumsfeld a fly.
"Thank you, master."
"But some foolish mortal dares to challenge our narrative," Count Cheney continued. "He says we invaded Iraq under false pretenses. He says Saddam Hussein never posed a serious threat to the United States, let alone was the mastermind behind 9/11. He says we squandered the United States' blood and treasure for naught. He says we neglected the war in Afghanistan, so the Taliban was able to regroup, and emboldened Iran. We cannot let this revisionist gain a foothold, lest our standing in history be damaged. The strength of the vampire is that everyone believes him!"
"Who be this foolish mortal?" Liz, his older daughter, said. "I will tear him limb from limb." Count Cheney felt his mechanical heart swell with pride, in a cruel parody of human emotion. Liz was his favorite daughter; like Rumsfeld, she was a loyal sycophant, and echoed everything her father said.
"Dr. Van Bama!" Count Cheney said, pounding the arm of his throne. His mechanical heart beat dangerously fast, and Rumsfeld rushed foreword to servilely lubricate his mechanism. "He is cleverer than most, and not easily taken in by our lies and deceptions. We must do all we can to undermine his administration."
"We will take to the airwaves," Liz said, "like the dingbats we are! We will say that Van Bama hates America, that he isn't even American, that he either accidentally or deliberately fumbled the ball in Iraq. Everything was going peachy keen until he took over!"
"All the vile creatures of the night are yours to command, master!" Rumsfeld said. "Wolves, rats, Fox News correspondents! We can say the Van Bama has lowered the United State's guard, that he conveys weakness not strength abroad, and has emboldened our enemies. It is only a matter of time before foreign terrorists attack again on U.S. soil. Perhaps we could even say 9/11 occurred on Van Bama's watch!"
"No, you go too far, loyal Rumsfeld," Count Cheney said indulgently. "There are too many damn fact checkers with their damn calendars for that. But there must be something else....I know! I will go on cable TV! I will trick a naive film maker into making a documentary about me, where I expound upon my world view. This will be bigger even than Dennis Rodman in North Korea!"
He lurched to his atrophied feet, and lumbered to the crypt door. He was encumbered by his testicles, which were of an enormous size and circumference.
"No, master, wait!" Rumsfeld cried.
But it was too late. In his enthusiasm, Count Cheney had forgotten the one rule of all political vampires: he must never be exposed to the sunlight of truth. He was immediately reduced to the dry, empty husk of pseudo-humanity he always was, and blew away. All that was left of him, on a patch of scorched earth, was a gleaming pacemaker, still macabrely ticking away.
But evil such as Count Cheney can never be completely destroyed. Rumsfeld retrieved the pacemaker and returned it to Liz. She clutched it to her bosom like a sacred relic, then secreted it somewhere on her person--I dare not say where.
"Come, Rumsfeld," Liz said. "Father is gone, but his legacy lives on. There is much we must do. I will start by stabbing our old family friend Mike Enzi in the back, and running for his Senate seat."
"Life father like daughter," Rumsfeld said admiringly, and followed her out into the new political dawn.