Dick Cheney speaking to the Heritage Foundation
I feel so grateful to have the benefit of the Vice President’s sage counsel in explaining to me why we’re doing so well in Iraq and why those traitor Demos are blowing smoke up our a@#$%^. Dick Cheney explains it all to you in the Times story, Cheney Lashes Out at Critics of Policy on Iraq.
I’m especially proud to hear him bash those whining liberal naysayers and set the record straight:
Some claim we should not have acted because the threat from Saddam Hussein was not imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? Had we followed the counsel of inaction, the Iraqi regime would still be a menace to its neighbors and a destabilizing force in the Middle East. Today, because we acted, Iraq stands to be a force for good in the Middle East.
Let’s look at that last phrase: “…because we acted, Iraq stands to be a force for good in the Middle East.” Notice he doesn’t say that Iraq IS a force for good. He uses the vague future locution “stands to be.” Sometime in the future Iraq will be a force for good. Yeah, right. But let’s talk about now. To my mind, Iraq presently is a force for chaos. It is a font of terrorism and lawlessness and a swamp of hatred both against Americans and between the rival religious and ethnic groups. So I want to know how you get from here to become a force for good. Typically, Cheney and Bush tell us what the future should look like but don’t tell us how or when we’re going to get there. Which of course means to me that we’ll never get there. They’re selling us smoke and mirrors; and they believe they can transform Iraq from what it is to what they want it to be based on a wing and a prayer. I got news for them: “It won’t work fellas.”
One final thought: have you noticed that almost every Bush-Cheney speech is held at one of the following venues: a military base, a weapons contractor’s plant, the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, a military academy or an aircraft carrier? Makes you wonder why they can’t ever speak to a group of normal, everyday Americans of every political and economic stripe. I guess they’re afraid of crowds they can’t control and people whose views might stray even a yard from their own.
I read recently that George Bush doesn’t read any newspaper. Instead he relies on a daily news digest prepared for him by his staff. What does that say about our President and how in touch he is with the entire nation he leads? Perhaps he and/or his staff are afraid he might read a story that would run counter to his own prefabricated views of the world?
I think that this tells you why Bush and Cheney are big on statements of purported fact (remember that purported Sadaam/Al Qaeda connection that Cheney again brought up in this speech–and which almost no one else in government believes?) that almost no one else agrees are facts (including their own spymasters at the CIA). They’re just plain out of touch with everything and everyone in the world around them.
