Cheney Spills His Guts

[Channelwood]

Ah, someone beat me to it.

When I saw the thread title, I thought it was about Cheney committing seppuku -- an image that while mildly disturbing is also surprisingly satisfying.

 

[jason_els]

Ah, someone beat me to it.

When I saw the thread title, I thought it was about Cheney committing seppuku -- an image that while mildly disturbing is also surprisingly satisfying.

That was the intent. Cheney is going to go down screaming and kicking, taking everyone he can with him. In politics, that's a cardinal sin and will spell his epitaph in history.

 

[TurkeyWithaSunburn]

Cheney's guts spilled is a thing I wouldn't mind seeing.

As for his memoirs... I think I just threw up a bit in my mouth.

I saw the thread title and thought something similar. :redface: That Grey's Anatomy episode with the bear attack, "Intestines in my hands, intestines in my hands!" I wondered if someone got back at him for shooting someone else in the face :redface:

I'm a bit morbid today

The excerpts will probably be enough to tell a lot about how much he was actually IN control.:frown1:

 

[deleted213967]

I wouldn't chill the organic Champagne just yet. From what I've read so far, it seems that in the end he found Bush not to be Bushy enough for his taste. I am not certain the liberal crowd wants to rush into a rapprochement with Mr. Cheney.

 

[Calboner]

He will be seen as a much more tragic figure than Dubya, who should never have become president.

Well, he was too much of a true believer and it greatly narrowed his peripheral vision.

He couldn't see that his subversion of American values to protect America did the work of the nation's opponents with an efficiency they could never hope to equal.

Was he a shit? Perhaps.

But I think what he mostly was, was a demonstration of the self-deluding effects of over-coagulated belief.

He thought he, nearly alone, really saw where the national interest lay.

So you take a man of considerable gifts, with a mission (in his eyes) of impeccable virtue, add an inadequate and manipulable president, a fair amount of bad luck, some blinding arrogance, and you get ... in my opinion, on any reasonable scale, a tragedy.

Yes, you get "a tragedy" -- America's tragedy. You don't get a tragic figure or a tragic hero. A tragic hero has to be a good human being to begin with, not just somebody who believes himself to be pursuing a noble task. Cheney was a bad man with grandiose ambitions.

The only tragic character in that administration was Colin Powell, who considered himself bound by his position to remain loyal to Bush by promoting the cause of war against Iraq, and then was the only one in the administration to fall from power when the war became a débâcle and the case for it turned out to have been completely mistaken.

 

[vince]

I'm sure.
But you're not saying he was, say, a Hitler, I hope.
And I think many of those people are tragic anyway.

In another time and another place, I could see him donning himself in black, putting aside his morals and the law for "the greater good".

All the ocean will not wash the blood clean from his hand.

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

Yes, you get "a tragedy" -- America's tragedy.

Certainly.

You don't get a tragic figure ...

I'm not so sure, but it would be foolish to argue.

...or a tragic hero.

I have not called him a tragic hero.

A tragic hero has to be a good human being to begin with, not just somebody who believes himself to be pursuing a noble task. Cheney was a bad man with grandiose ambitions.

Was he a bad man? That's not so obvious to me.
(Of course, he may have been ...)
He had narrow sympathies, obviously.
Was he a bad man when he was Ford's chief of staff?
When did he become a bad man?
Is he a bad man even now?
I don't know.
I don't doubt that the advice he gave Bush was often bad ... but that's not our subject.
(He was certainly not a wise man.)

The only tragic character in that administration was Colin Powell, who considered himself bound by his position to remain loyal to Bush by promoting the cause of war against Iraq, and then was the only one in the administration to fall from power when the war became a débâcle and the case for it turned out to have been completely mistaken.

And yet I get the feeling that Powell is in relatively good odour in many quarters.
By now, it seems to me, his story is only glancingly a tragedy, if at all.
His ending has been too good for tragedy.

The thing that I always find troubling about American political discourse is that no one ever seems to be allowed to wear a gray hat.

And yet it always seems to me that yanking the gray hats out would leave most crowds hatless.

The true white hats and the true black hats ... they hardly exist, outside the imagination.

Unless I'm naive and very very wrong ...

 

[unique_exposure]

A fitting photograph showing Cheney's guile-filled, manipulative gaze and Bush's usual, overly-defensive "dumbass" media posture

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

I'm sure.
But you're not saying he was, say, a Hitler, I hope.
And I think many of those people are tragic anyway.

In another time and another place, I could see him donning himself in black, putting aside his morals and the law for "the greater good".

All the ocean will not wash the blood clean from his hand.

Vince, would you compare him with Hitler?

 

[jason_els]

The thing that I always find troubling about American political discourse is that no one ever seems to be allowed to wear a gray hat.

And yet it always seems to me that yanking the gray hats out would leave most crowds hatless.

The true white hats and the true black hats ... they don't really exist, outside the imagination.

Unless I'm naive and very very wrong ...

Cheney rode over the very document he took an oath to uphold and defend. He used his office for immense personal gain, and, I think, basically designed Iraq to be what the oil companies wanted. 9/11 gave him a bait-and-switch opportunity he played well and clearly he felt sacrificing American lives was a suitable price to pay for it. Hitler didn't just kill Jews, he killed millions of his gentile countrymen and millions of allied people. He did all that in the name of Germany and for its glory. Whether Cheney's greed and fear mongering was truly for the safety of the country or not we may never know, but his lack of scruples for anything resembling human life and law are just as depraved as anything Hitler did. Did he cause as much death and damage as Hitler did? No. I am not, however, satisfied that he would not have gone to similar lengths if given the opportunity and the means because the same ends-justify-the-means, win-at-all-costs -- essentially monomaniacal-- personality was there to begin with. In his book, might makes right no matter the costs and I could see him bitterly cursing Bush and Congress and anyone else who stood in his way down in some bunker under the White House as the country collapses around him. Go back to PNAC, go back to his early days and you'll see the making of a crusader who was so enamored with the halls of power in the most powerful country in the world that he lost all touch with what the real foundation of a secure United States is.

 

[vince]

Vince, would you compare him with Hitler?

Not directly. But as I said, at another time and another place..
I think that IF he had been alive in 1930's Germany, he could have been a good nazi. At the time, better men than him did things they wouldn't normally do. I doubt he would have been fighting for the French partisans.

I think Cheney is man driven by the desire for power, control and wealth. Those aren't necessarily fatal flaws, but combined with his apparent belief that the ends justify the means, patiotism, and postition of influence, you can have a dangerous mix.

I see him as a plain nasty megalomaniac.

 

[B_VinylBoy]

Nobody has to compare Cheney to Hitler. His track record speaks loud and clear on its own.

 

[B_Nick8]

I'm sure.
But you're not saying he was, say, a Hitler, I hope.
And I think many of those people are tragic anyway.

Nobody has to compare Cheney to Hitler. His track record speaks loud and clear on its own.

Look, let me go on record as saying I never compared Cheney to Hitler.

I will, however, compare him to Regan in that they both sat up in bed, heads turning around 360 degrees, and, as Jason's title suggests, projectile-vomited pea soup.

Thanks, Dick. Yum.

 

[B_VinylBoy]

Nick8: I was just responding to senor rubirosa's question. Didn't mean to imply that you were making the comparison. Sorry if my post wasn't clear.

 

[B_Nick8]

Nick8: I was just responding to senor rubirosa's question. Didn't mean to imply that you were making the comparison. Sorry if my post wasn't clear.

Oh, Vinyl, I quoted you for a reason that isn't clear to me now.
I think it's just because I just like to quote you. :tongue:
Oh, I know, I think I meant to take out the second sentence to punch up my own statement or something..."never mind"...

 

[midlifebear]

The sad thing is that Cheney isn't really going to wrench out his guts with sharpened blade, thus literally spilling his intestines. Now, THAT'S good theatre!

 

[B_VinylBoy]

Oh, Vinyl, I quoted you for a reason that isn't clear to me now.
I think it's just because I just like to quote you. :tongue:
Oh, I know, I think I meant to take out the second sentence to punch up my own statement or something..."never mind"...

You can "quote" me anytime, sweetie... :redface: :biggrin1: