Oh No! Another Cheney on the Way!

Of course, Vice President Dick Cheney became a grandfather again last July when his elder daughter Elizabeth (deputy assistant secretary of state) and her husband Phillip Perry (General Counsel of the United States Department of Homeland Security) had their fifth child. The Perrys have three daughters and two sons. But one had hoped the younger Cheney daughter Mary and her life partner Heather would see the wisdom of not creating more Cheney’s. But no! They are reported “ecstatic” about Mary’s baby due in late spring. CNN says VP Dick Cheney hasn’t made a formal announcement but his spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said Tuesday night that "the vice president and Mrs. Cheney are looking forward with eager anticipation to the arrival of their sixth grandchild." The sperm donor’s name is, of course, a state secret. Will any of the Cheneys serve in the military? Probably not. Elizabeth herself was a “deferment baby” for her warmongering father. As Timothy Noah reported in Slate on March 18, 2004, the timing of Elizabeth Cheney’s birth was exquisite. “Aug. 29, 1964: Dick and Lynne Cheney marry. May 19, 1965: The Selective Service classifies Dick Cheney 1-A, ‘available immediately for military service.’ July 28, 1965: President Lyndon Johnson says draft calls will be doubled. Oct. 26, 1965: The Selective Service declares that married men without children, who were previously exempted from the draft, will now be called up. Married men with children remain exempt. Jan. 19, 1966: The Selective Service reclassifies Dick Cheney 3-A, ‘deferred from military service because service would cause hardship upon his family,’ because his wife is pregnant with their first child. July 28, 1966: Elizabeth Cheney is born.” Noah reported that in 1989 Dick Cheney told George C. Wilson of the Washington Post, "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service." And today Cheney has other priorities than to keep US soldiers from dying in the Bush administration’s unnecessary and failed war in Iraq. Cheney’s first priority is to keep the war in Iraq going as long as possible. Cheney’s second priority is to count the millions he makes by keeping the war in Iraq going as long as possible. Cheney was president of Halliburton, the world’s largest corporation providing technical products and services for oil and gas exploration and production. Halliburton’s subsidiary KBR is a major construction company of refineries, oil fields, pipelines, and chemical plants. Cheney saw to it that Halliburton was awarded $8 billiion in contracts to “rebuild Iraq”. Although Cheney retired from Halliburton to run for VP in the 2000 election, he has received deferred compensation from Halliburton while serving as Vice President and he has unexercised Halliburton stock options valued at $8 million. How sweet that the Cheney genes will long live after him and he will have five grandchildren to sweeten his Christmas this year and another is on the way. How lovely. And how lucky for those Cheney grandchildren that only one of them will carry the Cheney name. It’s enough that they will know what their grandfather did. It’s enough that they will know the senseless deaths of US soldiers in Iraq were caused by their grandfather who liked playing soldier and loved the profits. It’s enough that they will know their grandfather was a draft dodger. It’s enough that they will know the millions of dollars in the Cheney coffers is blood money.