The Voice in Bush’s Ear

Vice President Dick Cheney usually is seen as having a better hold on reality than President George Bush. Cheney may be a warmongering son of a bitch neocon, who has committed illegal acts, war crimes and has lined his pockets with war profits, but he never came across as being certifiably nutty. Not until yesterday, that is. Cheney appeared on Wolf Blitzer’s Situation Room on CNN last night where he and Blitzer engaged in a heated exchange about what Iraq and the world might be like if the US hadn’t invaded Iraq. All of which was tiresome. But when they finally started to deal with the actual situation in Iraq, Cheney showed his true and crazy-as-a-loon self. Cheney said, referring to Saddam Hussein, “If he were still there today, we'd have a terrible situation. Today, instead...” BLITZER: But there is a terrible situation. CHENEY: No, there is not. There is not. There's problems, ongoing problems, but we have, in fact, accomplished our objectives of getting rid of the old regime, and there is a new regime in place that's been there for less than a year, far too soon for you guys to write them off. They have got a democratically written constitution, first ever in that part of the world. They've had three national elections. So there's been a lot of success.” According to Vice President Richard Cheney the situation in Iraq is not terrible, there is no civil war, there is not even sectarian violence, and we’ve had a lot of success. I can’t believe I’m starting to feel compassion for Crazy George. But with Dick Cheney whispering nonsense in his ear, our over-medicated, intelligence-challenged, delusional, self-absorbed Narcissist-in-Chief can hardly be expected to act rational. That’s why I was so surprised yesterday when Bush had a moment of stunning clarity. The Prez was touring the DuPont Experimental Station in Wilmington, DE on the first stop of a whirlwind tour to promote his energy strategy. He said of one of the DuPont scientists, “He’s got the brains...and I’m President.” Uproarious laughter followed, after which Bush said, “Well, sometimes it happens like that.” So now Cheney is sounding like the White House Insane Asylum’s star L0onyTune and Bush has gone sane. Here's another snippet of the Blitzer/Cheney dialogue: BLITZER: How worried are you, Mr. Vice President... CHENEY: We still have more work to do to get a handle on the security situation... BLITZER: How worried... CHENEY: But the president has put a plan in place to do that. BLITZER: How worried are you of this nightmare scenario -- that the U.S. is building up this Shiite-dominated Iraqi government with an enormous amount of military equipment, sophisticated training, and then, in the end, they're going to turn against the United States? CHENEY: Wolf, that's not going to happen. Well, that's surely a relief. Everything is going to be peachy in Lalaland. Crazy Dick says so.