Dick Cheney is not heartless. He just has less of a heart. The New York Times says Cheney's heart will never beat at full strength again. His new mechanical pump leaves patients without a pulse because it does not mimic the heart's own beat.
So Dick Cheney has no pulse. Yet he walks among us. This is the Twilight Zone, verily.
He looks gaunt and frail, sitting down, holding a cane. What is scary is he looks almost human, an old man. It's as if Darth Vader took off his cloak and it turned out to be the Tin Woodman looking for his heart.
The irony boggles the mind.
But there's more. Within a few years he is going to probably need a full heart transplant.
Now we have the potential for the Great American Story. Imagine, said a colleague, that he gets the heart of an American soldier, brain-dead from being blown up in Iraq.
Then the war he unleashed based on fabricated intelligence would tick inside of him everyday. Would it drive him crazy? Or would it cause the heart to implode knowing it was trapped inside Dick Cheney?
For the last decade Dick Cheney has been the poster boy of evil, the grand vizier of an imperial presidency, sinister in his avuncularity. He was the one the anti-war people, the anti-neo cons, the anti-corporate types could all rally around. He was the one America loved to hate. He gave Bush cover. In 2007, Cheney came close to matching Dan Quayle for the least popular Veep ever with a 59% disapproval rating. At one point only 13 percent of Americans had a favorable rating of him. Though his ratings did improve after he left office, in 2009 55% of Americans still disapproved of him.
Looking at his photograph now, you almost feel sorry for the man. You can hardly recognize the menacing Veep, our own Dr. Strangelove.
He is suddenly like any other aging war criminal, the Pinochets, unrepentant but frail, Goliaths turned David. I imagine the sympathy factor will rise.
And the bloodlust of the Impeach Cheney crowd will never be satisfied.
More importantly America will have to find another prototype for implacable evil, because its current model is falling apart.
But I cannot get over the image of Dick Cheney looking for a new heart. It could be our century's version of Pilgrim's Progress, traveling the world with his hunting rifle, weighed down by the burden of sin, seeking deliverance. What role will Harry Whittington play in that parable, shot in the face by Cheney, but big hearted enough to take the blame?
More likely it will be the Goldilocks story -- looking for the perfect heart, not too soft, not too hard (remember he does accept his gay daughter) but just right for Dick Cheney. Now that would need to be some Brave Heart.
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Please, my fellow citizens, be aware of what the word "impeach" means. It does not mean "remove from office." It does not mean "convict of high crimes." It means "to bring before the House of Representatives on charges of crimes of grave misconduct, treason, or high crimes against the United States." Cheney has left office, therefore impeachment is moot, and was never likely as it would have lead to a political show trial falling on party lines and subject to congressional protocol. The only hope is that Cheney would be tried by the Hague for war crimes in absentia, and even that is extremely dubious.
The best way to defeat Cheney and pay him back is to be a decent, honest person who puts the good of the community and the future generations before the interests of corporations. His behavior has threatened the safety and well-being of people of all parties left and right, especially soldiers in the field who must now face combatants emboldened by our own hypocrisies and torture record. Vote people into office who care about the little guy, no matter what party. That will put Cheney and people like him out of work.
(even after "the great equalizer" has called his number several times)
Paid for by American taxpayers.. .
Many of whom cannot afford it for themselves and their families.
1) October, 2004. Cheney states "elections will be suspended if any 'terrorist acts' are suspected to occur on Election Day" this one gets walked-back within hours by both Democrats and Republicans.
2) "bird flu outbreak"; remember that one? Cheney says martial law will be declared, and affected cities will be quarantined.
a man can have his dreams, can't he? :)
Cheney (after long pause) replies, 'So?'
So much for the compassionate open minded liberal.
The more I read these types of articles and comments from the peanut gallery made about this man, I am convinced that there is no real difference between how you portray what he has done and what you are now doing.
I will say here publicly I do not care a whit for the outcome of this man's life, any more than he does mine, nor the hundreds of thousands of lives he and GWB cost the good people of Iraq and Afghanistan.
I will write more when he is gone, and that moment is not in our hands.
Tell him to worry about his soul, ... I'll worry about mine, ... and you can find a new hobby, eh?