Where in the world is Dick Cheney?

Hey, that reminds me – what the heck ever became of Dick Cheney? You remember him, don’cha? Sure ya do! A couple of months ago he was storming all over this once-great nation – the same nation he helped to destroy – in a nitroglycerin-addled frenzy, warning his brain-dead, clueless constituency what a danger the Obama administration posed for this troubled country. Three months ago you couldn’t shut the hideous, gnarled old freak up. His silence since the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last April is quite deafening. What happened to him?

I’ll tell you what happened to him: At this very moment, our esteemed, former vice-president is in some “undisclosed location”, meeting with a team of the cleverest lawyers stolen tax dollars can buy. The gazillion dollar shit hammer is within months of crashing down on the spiteful old bugger with a vengeance he doesn’t dare contemplate (bad heart, you know). Very soon the executives of BP will be standing before a court of justice. When that day arrives – OH, BROTHER! – they’re gonna spill their miserable guts as to what REALLY went down in those secret meetings between the Bush Cabal and the oil industry honchos in the early months of that disgusting administration. It ain’t gonna be pretty, boys and girls. Not pretty at all. This is gonna get really ugly; count on it.

Dick Cheney’s days as a “beloved elder statesman are” seriously numbered. Very soon it will become apparent to damned near everybody (Tea Partiers excluded of course) what a hideous, dreadful mistake it was to send these people to Washington ten years ago. Take that to the bank.

I have a confession to make: I miss Dick Cheney. I miss he and his disgusting daughter Liz pounding the talk show circuit, waxing idiotic on the subject of the evil socialist in the White House. Be honest; they were kind of fun to watch, weren’t they? They always reminded me of two circus wagons on a main highway that had crashed in to each other. You just couldn’t take your eyes off them. Then came the BP disaster. Liz lowered her profiled and Sickie Dick all-but-disappeared! I’m sure that’s all a big coincidence, though.

We know, beyond any doubt, that the mechanism – the so-called “Blow Out Detector – might very well have prevented this disaster. (Come to think about it, “disaster” is too mild a term. This is a man-made catastrophe beyond any in all recorded human history). The above-mentioned device was deemed too expensive (five-hundred-thousand “big ones”) and BP was allowed to proceed without installing it. When Bill Clinton was in the White House, the Blow Out detector was mandatory. When Cheney became president (No, that wasn’t a typo) it became optional. Wasn’t deregulation a neat idea?

Very soon, probably within two years, we will have in our hands the minutes of the meetings Cheney conducted in secret with the captains of the oil industry – if they haven’t been destroyed. At the very least we will have the testimony of the British Petroleum executives who were present at those meetings. I don’t mean to emulate Joe Barton, but I will offer a defense of British Petroleum (however mild): As far as I can tell, they broke no law. Don’t forget the uncomfortable fact that they were only taking advantage of the rules – or lack thereof.

It must be an awful thing to be Dick Cheney these days. To tell you the truth, I’m beginning to feel a bit sorry for the despicable old bastard. This is his Katrina. One cannot eveb blame Georgie Boy for this mess. The kindest thing I can say about George W. Bush is the fact that the guy was so jaw-dropingly stupid, he was probably unaware of ninety percent of what was going on beneath him. Bush was a figurehead. It was only in the waning days of his term that he began to show a little presidential moxie – like when he refused Cheney’s request that Scooter Libby be granted a pardon. But by then it was too little, too late. Bush will regret – to his dying day, his decision to have Richard Bruce Cheney nominated as his running mate. I am as sure of that as I am my own name. Do you remember how Cheney wormed his way onto the ticket?

In the Spring of 2000, when it appeared certain that Junior had the nomination locked up, George The Elder knew that his half-witted kid could not possibly win based on any intellectual merit, so he picked the Dickster to head a committee to find a suitable person to run with him. After only a few days, Cheney came back with the name of the perfect man for the job – DICK CHENEY! On March 10, 2007 – on this very site – I conjured-up for posterity’s sake the dialogue that must have taken place:

CHENEY: George! I have found your ideal running mate!

BUSH: Great! Who is it, Dick?

CHENEY: You’re not gonna believe it – IT’S ME!!!

BUSH: Whooa! What’re the odds??

This morning I was looking at some video footage of Joe Biden on the morning news. Say what you might about the guy, he’s such a breath of fresh air – good humored, amiable and thoroughly likable – such a welcome change from Dastardly Dick. You can’t help but love Biden. At the moment there is talk in the Washington cocktail circuit about the possibility of dumping him from the ticket in 2012. That would be a grave blunder. He may shoot from the him every once in a while – but he’s no Dick Cheney! 

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TOM DEGAN is a fifty-one year old video artist who in 2006 became so thoroughly disgusted at the state of America’s national political dialogue, he decided to take time off to become a freaking civics teacher. When you’re not reading him here, check out his awesome blog “The Rant”