America's Cardinal Richilieu - Dick Cheney

Ornithologists teach us that the goose who appears at the lead of a flock in flight at the point of its classic "V", is in fact taking its guiding instruction from the goose just off the peak to one side or another. That is more or less a matter of aerodynamic and ergonomic necssity, for staying in the lead position for a Canada Goose, and being the navigator at the same time is not a position that could be sustained, and indeed other geese rotate into that position when the lead is exhausted. Would that our Republic were so lucky to have succession occur at the very moment when our leaders fatally falter!
Mankind fashions itself apart from all Nature, ... certainly better than birds, and yet it seems we repeat those patterns our feathered friends use to survive. The punishing pressures of the Presidency are such that, even had there never been a 22nd Amendment, physical and psychic limitations would have generally interceded to avoid a third term for almost every president. That would, however, never discourage the hangers on, and the controlling sorts who aspire to guide our leaders.
In the shadows of our history and that of other nations there has always been a distinct breed of political operatives who, rather than fly at the point, prefer the draft, and whisper the way to the lead. Some have done so in lieu of opportunity. Some to avoid the risk and cost of publicity. And some due to the sheer reality that they are so dark and unlikeable that they could never have been raised to a significant level of leadership of any historical interest.
For Cardinal Richilieu, the coattails of King Louis XIII were enough to satisfy his appetite for office by proxy, power by proximity. In a political parallel to that engagement by the French cleric in 16th century France, Dick Cheney and all who were encouraging the radical extremes we have seen in America over the last six years, achieved a very similar aim by having Cheney nominate himself as Vice Presidential candidate to run with George W. Bush, the Republican candidate for President. While there are flaws in the manner of our primary elections, they pale in comparison to the abuse in this instance. George W. Bush certainly received the required votes from primaries across the nation to submit the electors to achieve the nomination as Republican candidate for the presidency in the year 2000.
Dick Cheney was, on the other hand, never a contender for the Presidency. He could never be, for his extreme views, radical Republican past, and history as CEO of Haliburton during a period of highly questionable Corporate ethics, would have made him unpalatable to any rational voter. Camouflaged behind the Good Ole Boy candidate, Dubya, ... he could, and did, anoint himself, candidate for VP in the run-up to the election of 2000, without ever having received a single vote from the people to whom he would be called to swear his oath of office, except on the coattails of George W Bush. While I can and do quibble with the nature and means of Bush’s appointment to the Presidency by the Supreme Court in that election, ... I accept that in the face of unresolveable issues, a rational excuse for the course of events since had to be made to place a candidate into the office.
What can not be denied, and should never be forgotten by any legitimate political party in our nation, now nor ever, is that the annunciation of Richard B. Cheney to be the candidate for Vice President, was a ringer job. Bush was never, and could never be, the competent and compassionate candidate he set himself forth to be. He had not the political credentials, the intellectual capacity, nor the ethical integrity to be that. But someone had to be the "Lead Goose" in the formation the Republicans set forth for the election in 2000. And some other goose had to be at his right ear all along the way, ... To steer right, ... And then right again, ... Yes, ... More right. Lord knows the lead goose had no clue which way to fly on his own.
Now we find ourselves flying in circles in America. We say to our friends that we do not know why that is, ... But we are, or seem, unwilling to dump the guiding bird just off the right wing of the lead goose. Yep, ... Dick! You!
Analogies and metaphors go only so far in seeking a true understanding of difficult subjects. Much as I’d like to say this is a weighty subject only the cogniscenti should be able to comprehend, ... It is a simple matter. It is "Time to shoot the Goose"! No, ... Not the lead one, but the one just to the right of him. By that I mean and intend that we need to draw up and introduce Impeachment Proceedings against the second goose, Dick Cheney. (Disclaimer: I am not referring to a literal ‘shooting’, but rather a metaphorical presentation of impeachment proceedings to remove Vice President Cheney from his current office).
George Bush is a clueless, seemingly brain-damaged individual, who finds himself flying at the lead long after his strength is gone, and trust in his guidance among the electorate has disappeared. Cheney is, on the contrary, a demonically purposeful individual, with an inveterate and pathological belief in the need that the Presidency be restored to the level of monarchy, with the commensurate belief that any US monarch should be led by a phantom cardinal, perhaps as VP, ... Who knows what the Republic needs and must have, ... Even better than do We the People.
Oh Dick, I pray that God, ... The one I love and pray to, finds mercy on your soul for the demonic predispositions you think should be enacted by Executive Order. You seem to me to be a maniac, whom your children love despite your flaws, and whom we, your enemies, must watch forever until you breathe your last natural breath. I thought Richard Nixon personified my fears, until I met you. Rumsfeld at least had the decency to disapear until we will indict him for war crimes. You, on the other hand, pop onto my news links and TV screen incessantly!
Cardinal Cheney, I pray you will resign. You are poisoning the presidency of your underling lead goose, George the Second. You are destroying the purpose of America around the globe. You are, thereby, destroying America!

A Lack of Feith

I mouth off every so often, ... you know, venture along a line of thought where my brain has never really lived, and then, ... offer an unfounded opinion of the way the World should be, from my specious point of view. I awaken feeling stupid in the morning, as should we all when we take those steps into the unknown and try to play God. There are those things I know a lot, and a little, and not at all.

Let's you and I, for sake of argument here, assume that the most secret intelligence information is not even accessible to either of us. You know, ... the number of nukes held by Israel, the sites of our black hole CIA prisons overseas, The silverware count for the kitchen at the White House, or even who cleans it, ... and things like that. There are folks who know those things, but I don't. They are paid to know and learn those things, and I am paid for other things.

Follow me here then as I take you to a time and place, in late 2001, or perhaps early 2002, when there was a focused assessment of what we knew about Saddam's Iraq. We needed to and wanted to know what they had and wanted to have, what they did and wanted to do. We cruised freely in the Northern and Southern No-Fly zones, ... closer and closer to the margins of them, seeking to light up their radar stations, ... looking for excuses to take out site after site. There never seemed to be a shortage of them.

Even these events were not enough, never enough, to justify positioning the last Super-Power against a restrained has-been dictator, stitched tightly into geographic boundaries of our making in 1991, and then declaring war, ... No, I mis-spoke, for there was no declaration of war whatsoever, just the empowerment of a President to prosecute what would in any other age been known as "War". So much the easier to allow Congress the luxury of avoiding guilt in the end, I suppose. What a tragedy that a body so large, yet so unrepresentative and irresponsible, could or would dispense so hastily with their duty to discuss and debate the reasons for taking our Nation and our Forces to war.

Into this time, when our Nation and our People sought redress for attacks on our soil and against our people, it was easy for men to second guess the reasoning of others. Why had the FAA and the Armed Forces done what they had (or not done what they should) on 9-1-1? In the times of such events in our history, we learn after the fact that there is a flood of intelligence, difficult to gather and worse to understand, which flows among and toward our leaders. Why had the government not investigated the debris, to determine the true causes of the catastrophic failure of these huge buildings to a cause they were designed to withstand? And when the war was begun, ... why were there still doubts that Iraq had any part in these provocative attacks two years before?

And that, sadly, is the consequence of the Pentagon IG's Report this week. In the DOD, there existed a department specifically created, it seems, to set policy before understanding, to question the findings and wisdom, and the very foundation of our intelligence against our worst enemies around the world. They contend, at this late date, in their positions as "professors" (of what, I ask?), that they only "questioned and challenged" the intelligence. Those of us in the lower ranks of American governance, the voters, believe they filtered every bit of intelligence which reached the top of our Government. Without additional information, ... and one has to ask where they would receive that information in the best restaurants in Georgetown, how could they be convinced the CIA had it wrong. And in that instance, how can they still defend George Tenet's information to our President. Was he not the Director of CIA? Were his Analysts not the best we could obtain, and were they not given the best information available to discern the intentions of our enemies? If not, why not? Can we award the Director and disdain his reports?

No, ... For in the schism between George Tenet's falling on the sword of disinformation, and Rummy's resigned corpse at the ass end of the skewer, like some Schizophrenic Schiskobab, there lie the impaled careers of our most capable intelligence officers,... some of whom we know, and most of whom we do not. As with every Schiskobab, we must look to the inside to find the best morsels. Even these devoted and invisible servants have abandoned the cause of our People in the aftermath of the War on Terror.

I believe "Disinformation" is, nonetheless information. If you are responsible for filtering, amplifying, inventing, or distorting intelligence which rises to a level in our government where it influences, or is likely to influence, the decisions made by any branch, be it the Executive, the Judicial, or the Legislative, then you should, by virtue of the authority of the role assigned and ascribed to that subordinate by the branch which appoints them, be responsible for the content of the information you report for action by your respective branch.

Just my take on it, of course. But it seems to me that Rummy, and Feith, and Wolfowitz, and Perle, should all step up and answer for their reasoning in the lead up to the War in Iraq. And to distinguish one war from the other, ... Afghanistan was, and still is, considered a legitimate war by the World, and most Americans. I feel we had no choice but to take it to the Taliban, and Osama, and those regions in Afghanistan and Pakistan that harbor terrorists of whatever stripe. We abandoned that war at the worst possible time, for reasons which remain to be explored.

The question, in the end, is whether ignorance leads wisdom down a path of perdition based on its blindness, predelection, and perfidy.

If that be the case, ... then hang the bastards, as long and high as is required to end their influence on our Nation.

So, I wake up every morning, ... not at the first ring of my clock, nor the second. I kind of drag it out a bit. I worry that if I jump out of bed, and turn on my radio, or, God forbid, my television, ... I will discover that George has pulled the trigger on Iran after all.

He will appear on "Prime Time Television" (What the hell is that in this day of TIVO andDVR's?) to explain why he could not postpone a pre-emptive bunker-buster strike with weapons ("Nukular"?) that were required to take out Iran's imminent nukular somethings, ... that are now vaporized and wafting across the deserts of the Middle East. He intends to seek the support of Congress as soon as he gets around to it, ... almost any day now. But his dyslexia allows him the unique and unitary executive luxury of claiming that he misunderstood the spelling of "I-R-A-Q" in the authorization for aggression four years ago. The tape is clear, ... "Go North from Kuwait, ... then turn left, ... , no Right! , ... no Left, and then attack Iran, ... no "Iraq". ("Dick, ... did I get that right?, ... Oh good, I was afraid I really screwed that up big-time! Thanks for your vote of support all along the way! If it weren't for you and Rummy, and Condi, .. this job would just be like taking my leg off with a chain-saw, ... I swear! Wait, ... I gave up swearing when God told me to attack Iran, ... I mean IRAQ, ... Hope I don't screw that up during the SOTUS! Love that kinda talk, ... Makes me feel so 'Predsidential'(sic)! "

So, as a result of a disability overlooked by both parents and teachers alike, we suffer now from the wrong war! We will correct that pretty soon here, ... given the clearly understandable similarity between the spelling and pronunciation of Iraq and Iran. Who wouldn't excuse our Commander in Chief of what any reasonable person (legal term) would understand to be a simple mistake in speaking his commands to the troops as they cascaded across the desert?

For starts, ... I would not, ... excuse Bush, that is. I love disabilities. They are Human and they are understandable, ... but in the Commander in Chief, this is particularly inexcusable. But what I find even more inexcusable, is Dick Cheney, ... with his vasopathic tendencies, ... egging on his "dumb and dumber" friend, the President, to take on the lightest weight dictator first, ... as if he thought Iraq was a great training ground for a bigger war with Iran!

I do not know what remedy the Constitution provides for a President who takes this Nation into an unauthorized war. I suspect that impeachment is the only remedy, as slow and tedious as it might be. ... And who enforces the outcome of impeachment, ... and extricates us from the hypothetical war I suggest might come to pass? Who knows, until such disasters are created for us by our leaders?

You know, ... I have smoke alarms, Carbon Monoxide alarms, security alarms, and safeguards against almost everything but the stupidity of my President and his Vice. Wait, ... wasn't that why I voted in November?

Hope so!

SG51