The Autumn of the
Patriarchy
By MAUREEN DOWD,
Op-Ed Columnist, NYTimes on the Web, November 30, 2005
In the vice president's new, more
fortified bunker, inside his old undisclosed secure location within the larger
bunker that used to be called the West Wing of the White House, Dick Cheney was
muttering and sputtering.
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Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Maureen Dowd |
He wasn't talking to the pictures on
the wall, as Nixon did when he finally cracked. Vice doesn't trust those
portraits anyway. The walls have ears. He was talking to the only
reliable man in a city of dimwits, cowards, traitors and fools: himself.
He hurled a sheaf of news reports with such force it knocked over the picture of
Ahmad Chalabi that he keeps next to the picture of Churchill. Winston
Chalabi, he likes to call him.
Vice is fed up with all the whining and carping -- and that's just inside the
White House. The only negativity in Washington is supposed to be his own.
He's the only one allowed to scowl and grumble and conspire.
The impertinent Tom DeFrank reported in New York's Daily News that embattled
White House aides felt "President Bush must take the reins personally" to save
his presidency.
Let him try, Cheney said with a sneer. Things are nowhere near dire enough
for that. Even if Junior somehow managed to grab the reins to his
presidency, Vice holds Junior's reins. So he just needs to get all these
sniveling, poll-driven wimps and losers back on board with the master plan.
Things had been going so smoothly. The global torture franchise was up and
running. Halliburton contracts were flowing. Tax cuts were sailing
through. Oil companies were raking it in. Alaska drilling was
thrillingly close. The courts were defending his executive privilege on
energy policy, and people were still buying all that smoke about Saddam's being
responsible for 9/11, and that drivel about how we're fighting them there so we
don't have to fight them here. Everything was groovy.
But not anymore. Cheney could not believe that Karl had made him go out
and call that loudmouth Jack Murtha a patriot. He was sure the Pentagon
generals had put the congressman up to calling for a withdrawal from Iraq.
Is the military brass getting in touch with its pacifist side? In Wyoming,
Vice shoots doves.
How dare Murtha suggest that Cheney dodged and dodged and dodged and dodged and
dodged the draft? Murtha thinks he knows about war just because he served
in one and was a marine for 37 years? Vice started his own war. Now
that's a credential!
It always goes this way with the cut-and-run crowd. First they start
nitpicking the war, complaining about little things like the lack of armor for
the troops. Then they complain that there aren't enough troops.
Well, that would just require more armor that we don't have. Then they
kvetch about using incendiary weapons in a city like Falluja. Vice likes
the smell of white phosphorus in the morning.
What really enrages him is all the Republicans in the Senate making noises about
timetables. Before you know it, it's going to be helicopters on the
rooftop at the Baghdad embassy.
Just because Junior's approval ratings are in the 30's, people around here are
going all wobbly. Vice was 10 points lower and he wasn't worried.
Numbers are for sissies.
Why do Harry Reid and his Democratic turncoats think they can call the White
House on the carpet? Do they think Vice would fear to lie about lying
about the rationale for going to war? A real liar never stops lying.
He didn't want to have to tell the rest of the senators to go do to themselves
what he had told Patrick Leahy to go do to himself.
Now all these idiots are getting caught, even Scooter. DeLay's on the
ropes and the Dukester is a total embarrassment, spending bribes on antique
commodes and a Rolls-Royce. Vice should never have let an amateur get
involved with defense contracts.
Republican moderates are running scared in the House, worried about re-election.
Even senators seem to have forgotten which side their bread is oiled on.
Ted Stevens let oil company executives get caught lying about the energy task
force meeting, while Vice can't even get a little thing like torture chambers
through the Senate. What's so wrong with a little torture?
And now John Warner wants Junior to use fireside chats to explain his plan for
Iraq. When did everybody get the un-American idea that the president is
answerable to America?
Vice is fed up with the whining of squirrelly surrogates like Brent Scowcroft
and Lawrence Wilkerson on behalf of peaceniks like George Senior and Colin
Powell. If Poppy's upset about his kid's mentor, he should be man enough
to come slug it out.
Poppy isn't getting Junior back, Vice vowed, muttering: "He's my son.
It's my war. It's my country."
(And the bad news is: this man is our vice president.)
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