Dicks Will Be Dicks

OK, so he shot somebody. He didn't kill the rich old geezer, but he did wing (in presumably the right one) him. A little birdshot in the face is probably not the worst thing that's happened to Daddy Warbucksington, it was just his misfortune to have been winged by the Vice President of the world's only remaining superpower. Lot's of TV coverage, plenty of conjecture, and a fair amount of embarrassment in that it seems both men were partially at fault for the mishap. True, if we had been the shootee instead of the shooter, we wouldn't have apologized, but then we're finicky about getting shot in the face, Vice President or not.

Clearly, the Czar of Wyoming has suffered all sorts of slings and arrows over the affair. Leno, Letterman, Stewart, et al served him up like a fresh-barbecued quail in mustard sauce, but that's an occupational hazard for public figures like Dick. However, we do have to give him some points for not going out and burning a mosque over the affair.

It's equally true that press coverage of the incident was over the top. Not since OJ has then been such wall-to-wall coverage of an event. TV reporters questioned everything about the incident like junior Woodward and Bernsteins "following the money". Blogs bristled with every sort of second gunman theory imaginable - we personally liked the idea what Whittington was a representative of an alien planet and Dick plugged him when the old fart asked to be taken to Cheney's leader - a direct insult to Cheney if ever there was one. We think everyone could agree that the media flogged this horse long after it was tits up at the glue factory, but it was damn funny dead horse wasn't it? The Great Stone Face himself was getting his comeuppance in a dazzling display of public razzing and that was a singularly satisfying spectacle, even for some of his "friends".

So if the wounding of Mr. Willingtodonatington was an accident - and a pretty harmless one at that - then why did Cheney become such an object of scorn? Was it as simple as the sheer cultural joy of seeing Dick publicly filleted, grilled, and eaten alive with some fava beans and a nice chanti? Did the press viscously consume the Veep like an orca on the trail of a tasty seal? Was it all some sort of sinister Lee Harvey Oswald cum Jack Ruby cautionary tale? Just why did the Vice President of the United States of America have his ass handed to him over an event of such small import?

There is only one answer.

Dick Cheney is, well, Dick Cheney.

Dick believes in an imperial presidency. Many people think that's how his name wound up at the top of the short list of Veep candidates he authored. He believes in a President with ultimate power, answerable to as small a number of people as possible, who takes a "my way or the highway" stance with the other two supposedly co-equal branches of government, and the hell with what anybody thinks because he's right and you must obey dammit.

So, he set up a pretty sweet gig for himself.

As Vice President understudying to an absolute moron, he could easily control the levers of power - or the strings of the dummy if you prefer - without all the hassle of press conferences, negotiations, and trips to that damn, God-awfully boring compound in Bumfuck, TX. Hell, even we'd go for a gig like that.

As Vice President he had the lay of the land. He could tell Congressional committees - or the members themselves - to go fuck themselves. He could ignore Freedom of Information Act requests with impunity. He could tell the moron exactly what he wanted to have done without the need of sullying his legendary curmudgeonly rep because, after all, he was Dick Cheney and Dick Cheney plays by his own rules.

But the problem with the world is that karma is alive and well whether you choose to subscribe to spiritual explanations for it or not. When you piss on enough people, over a long enough time, in sufficient enough quantities that it ruins their Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes, you can bet they'll be gunning for you (pun definitely intended).

So the fact of the matter is that Dick got exactly what Dick had coming to him because he has become, quite possibly, the world's biggest dick (that pun definitely intended as well).

Truth Told by Omnipotent Poobah, Wednesday, March 01, 2006