Sometimes I buy things just to punish myself. And this is what I did when I bought a new book about Dick Cheney called Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency by Barton Gellman. Because naming the book Dickhead would have been too controversial. I’m only on page 73, but I can already claim unequivocally that it’s always bad when people named Dick are in the White House. He has held the strings of power, along with his cronies Rumsfeld and David Addington, during what many – like me! – consider to be the worst President in our history. As I write this Republicans are dropping in the polls all across the nation. This bailout and nationalization of banks combined with skyrocketing unemployment, Republicans are battling for their political lives. At this rate, Republicans will lose a ton of seats in three weeks. (One day George Bush’s gut will go on display in the Smithsonian and an aging population will line up just to look at it in awe; for surely there has never been a more destructive gut in history.)
The man who rose through the ranks as the black sheep son of a somewhat timid one term President named George Herbert Walker Bush has managed take the helm and steer the country into one rocky cliff after another. Torture. Debt. Socialism. Hyperpartisanship. War. Lies. Secrecy. Plunder. He’s done it all: a one-man greatest hits of failure. The man who worked tirelessly to assure that he could do so was Dick Cheney. After helping to steal the election, nominating himself for vice-president, chairing the Presidential transition team, he immediately let everyone know that the administration had no plans to follow through on any of the campaign’s promises of working in a bipartisan way. Despite the narrowest of victories – if you consider losing victory – and a divided congress, Dick Cheney, at the first post administration mixer, immediately took a crap in the punch bowl. It was in the beginning, just as it has continued to be to this day, his way or the highway. They got their way on every horrible and irresponsible decision they made. Unilateral war. Trillion dollar tax cuts. Outing any who got in his way…why did I buy this book! The guy is a complete crook! He should be pilloried in the Washington Monument mall so we can all toss tomatoes at him!
