Dick Cheney: We Done Him Wrong

How to explain the utterly cracked behavior of our former VP (and avoid kicking ourselves every waking moment for having somehow allowed this man to run the country for as long as he did)?

It turns out that Dick Cheney, the legendarily infallible, mythically redoubtable Dick Cheney has actually been the victim of a nagging yet little known malady which has made his life a living hell and inadvertently caused an entire rational world to look upon him with loathing and disgust. But due to the security provided him by the unflinchingly loyal Right Wing media, his Achilles' Heel has been unknown to anyone outside the impregnable corporate/fascisto/quasi-Republican/neo-conservative fortress.

Until now.

Dick Cheney is a sufferer of Malapropus Myasthenia.

For, as it has recently been revealed, while he talks of "water boarding" with the self-assured relish and zealous commitment of Ernst Blofeld, the former Vice President has in fact been actually talking about:

Smørgasbording.

The poor misunderstood bastard.

Apparently, those enemy combatants imprisoned at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib and various CIA black sites were not subjected to the internationally outlawed and abhorred technique involving inducing a feeling of drowning and subsequent, heart-stopping panic but rather to a buffet offering a wide variety of hot and cold meats, salads, hors d'oeuvres and those cute little squares of pumpernickel bread until they cried "uncle" or the terrorist equivalent ("Stop it, I'm full!").

How else to explain this man's consistently outré utterances? The way he's been going on lately one would have to think he, rather than the widespread assumption of his having been the puppet master who animated George "Mortimer Snerd" Bush, is himself being manipulated by an unseen hand. Is it God's. No. He wouldn't touch him with a ten foot Pole.

It's the disease. Clearly, Dick's been a victim rather than a victimizer. He was just too proud, too much of a patriot to seek help.

A malaprop (according to my trusty keyboard-worn Apple Dictionary Version 2.0.2) is a noun. But more than that even, it is "...the mistaken use of a word in place of a similar-sounding one, often used with an unintentionally amusing effect". One would have to assume that in Vice President Cheney's case that meant an enemy combatant crapping his pants and sobbing a lot without offering up any information of value to his interrogators. And as anybody with an Eastern European heritage knows, too much herring can bring anyone to that point.

While this revelation goes some distance to explain our XVP's kooky konduct, we must be vigilant, as his protectors will attempt to co-opt this revelation to perpetuate a host of other nefarious deeds.

For example, when he or anyone else ever mentions "Walling", implying that they might in fact be referring to the relatively benign interrogation technique "Walking" (which, with the advent of this recent disclosure, they would prefer us to believe) they are in fact actually referring to the practice of smashing a prisoner against a wall until said prisoner, you know, cooperates. And/or fills the holes in the wall with their dislodged skin and muscle tissue, which were extant from previous "Wallings" (a practice known to interrogators as "Spackling").

So let's cut the old bastard some slack. Or at least a tiny slice of gherkin.

Comments

[kcjccc]

VP Cheney is an American hero

[thedirtman]

I just finished watching one of those cable television specials that explains cult followings. It seems the one thing that all of these have in common was they allowed a single authority control over most every major decision based on a need to follow faith. Fascinating, the number of parallels - people doing things they would never permit in most situations. Extraordinary.

[wesinohio]

My 88-year old mother just returned from upper state New York where she was attending my neice's graduation. My sister is 57 and divorced from a Chicago-school Ph.D. economist who was a member of YAF (Young Americans for Freedom) and a Libertarian in high school during the Vietnam War. He was one of the ones that used to insist that if we left Vietnam, all the lives lost up to that time would have been wasted. He and my sister still believe the Chicago School economics and Republican foreign policy drivel.
Anyway, my sister is fully loaded with talking points which burst out of her mouth effortlessly when her Nixon-Reag­an-Bush-Ch­eney convictions are threatened. When my mother, a life-long Republican who voted for Obama, mentioned Cheney in a disparaging way, my sister said, "you mean the person who kept us safe for the last 8 years?" OMG. My mother didn't discuss it and everything stayed happy. I don't discuss politics with my sister anymore either. I just hope she'll learn someday how wrong-headed her politics and economics are (that is: support for more war in Iraq, support for supply side economics, support for "free trade" in spite of market imperfections that don't make it free at all, and in a time frame that brings a lifetime of hardship, not benefits, and a committment to laissez-faire economics even when it becomes destructive in the real world, and other things).

[RoseMerry]

Poor Dick. He needs a theme song. Jagger and Richard wrote one for him, a long time ago. It starts off with, "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste."

[jan4insight]

Did anybody catch that Daily Show bit a while back, where Darth Vader complains to Jon Stewert about being compared to Dick C? It seems even the ol' mask-wearer himself can't stand to be in the same sentence with our (thankfully) FORMER vice-pres !

[pogo]

He found out that we actually DO have extradition treaties with Dubai and Paraguay.

[rabiddog6708]

Cheney is a man who craves power and he had total power for the past 8 years and now he has virtually no power at all. I don't think Cheney cares what the public and media thinks of him, as long as they are thinking of him. He does not want to be an exiled politico like Nixon. He wants to be in the thick of things and going on TV to run his mouth is the only way he can. We are seeing more of Cheney now than his entire 8 years as VP. He needs the attention. He needs to feel important.

[levibatgirl]

When cheeny shamelessly talks about tor ture in his proud and authoritarian tone, he reminds me of that psych o serial ki ler BTK when he would smugly and proudly describe his cr imes.

Simply disgusting.

[crazydat]

You hit the nail on the HEAD!!!!! That analogy is exactly what I've been thinking for some time now. Good going! You have earned a brownie button from me. LOL

[neoprimordial]

If Ian Fleming were writing his novels now, Dick Tricky would have been an inspiration for Ernst Blofeld (one of the all-time great villain names--I love the way it rolls off the tongue).

"The impregnable corporate / fascisto / quasi-Republican / neo-conservative fortress"; brilliant! "The XVP"; what an apropos term--I wished I'd come up with it. That would make Dubya the "XP"--that one's mine!

It's kind of a funny thing, picking favorites on Huffpost. So far, every blogger I've picked as a favorite has remained so. Posters (people who post to a blog), on the other hand, I've maybe thought twice about. As for Mr. Weber here, if there were a higher class of favorites, he'd be in mine (along with Jane Smiley, Alec Baldwin, and Jon Robin Baitz, among a few others). I'm glad comments are still be accepted for it. It's the best I've read from him so far.

[johannesrolf]

it's even better as Ernst Stavros Blofeld. the great Donald Pleasance took a turn playing this comic book villain. it is Pleasance that Mike Myers took as his model for Dr, Evil.

[NoFactsJustTruth]

You don't think talk of slicing gherkins to man with his name is a bit over the top?

And here I was trying to be nice by NOT suggesting he needs repeated ...'spanki­ngs'.

[exhale09]

We have long had indications of DICK'S "poor judgment issues" and self absorbed irresponsible behaviors.­..BIG ONES and LITTLE ONES.

I mean the man drank alcohol, and then made the irresponsible decision to pick up a LOADED GUN and go hunting with OTHERS, which resulted in his accidentally shooting one of them in the face!...an­d if that wasn't bad enough, he then made the decision to HIDE from the authorities, until enough time went by that the alcohol was out of his system before speaking with them, and to neglect calling the President to personally explain what happened..­.ALL OF THAT BAD JUDGMENT from the VICE PRESIDENT of the United States.

Authorities take away anyone drivers license... and may even jail people who irresponsibly DRINK and DRIVE an automobile, and injure others in an "accident" as a result.

Dick drinks and then proceeds to irresponsibly use a LOADED GUN under the influence, and shoots someone in the face, and NOTHING happens to him! Does DICK still have his HUNTING LICENSE?

[dmarcwrite]

Let's see: A washed up GOP VP, at the nadir of his personal popularity, steps into a leadership vacuum in the Republican Party after it suffers a devastating defeat, and starts traveling around the country making speeches that play to the base. Where have I heard this before? Am I the only one who thinks that Cheney is following in Richard Nixon's footsteps in a campaign for the White House, circa 2012? And we thought we wouldn't have Dick Cheney to kick around any more... Limbaugh would make a great running mate; he'd bring in the half dozen of his listeners who might not otherwise vote for Cheney. Republicans wouldn't have to worry about President Cheney designing in disgrace; they can be confident that he would cancel the 2016 elections before doing a fool thing like that. In fact, we could all be confidant that he'd cancel the 2016 elections.

[neoprimordial]

When Cheney climbs Mt. Everest, then I'll entertain the thought of him running for president. I think Everest is much more a likelihood for him.

[lifesucks]

I think Cheney is suffering from the post traumatic stress syndrome of 9/11. Couple that event with intelligence briefings and being privy to information that most people would probably have a difficult time handling, and you get a man on a media blitz who believes that the sky is falling.

The fact that Cheney is a former V.P. , he garners enough credibility to be invited to speak on various media outlets; however, why wouldn't a prominent national figure not share his concerns in private with members of his own party who do have the President's ear?

Take Cheney out of context and imagine that he's just a guy walking around with a blow horn - would you still think he was acting in a lucid manner?

[Passenger57]

Cheney's the guy who, on 9/11, told an unnamed staffer that "the order still stands" as Flight 77 approached the Pentagon. After the WTC was attacked and destroyed by two hijacked planes, what order would anyone have to ask about?
One would think that after witnessing the destruction of the WTC, the orders would be to shoot down any plane that was off course,did not respond to an ATC, and was on a collision course with a building like the Pentagon.
Only an extraordinary order would let the plane get only ten miles away from the Pentagon and have someone have to ask if it still stood.

[jan4insight]

I never thought he was acting in a lucid manner.

[follow the money]

I got one for you folks..

Richard Dick Cheney's lies...
here you go..

http://www.tvnewslies.org/html/cheney_s_secrets.html

[whitehawk]

It certainly does give you reasons for his clandestine secrecy and the smirks he always wear's seems almost evil, as if, he knows where he's going with all of this and we don't. Really sick stuff from a leader....­.President Cheney, vice- president Bush role reversal, of which I always felt was the operative team in the WH. Interesting indeed.

[Diana]

One of your most profound and hysterical pieces yet, Stephen. Smørgasbording indeed!

[littlepeople]

Just to prove the point.....­Cheney is spilling his guts and hasn't been waterboarded once yet.