One my favorite but little seen bits from the first two original seasons of Saturday Night Live, was The Thing That Wouldn't Leave bit. John Belushi playing the fat, sloppy obnoxious neighbor who stays too long at a buddy's house. He eats and drinks too much and is simply a loudmouth bore. No matter how many hints are given, none are taken and he becomes the thing that wouldn't leave. Today's version of this thing: the worst Vice President in United States history, Dick Cheney.
This weekend somewhere in Wyoming, Cheney gave another one of his Mr know-it-all speeches which always turn out to be either totally wrong or full of made-up garbage which Cheney truly believes. Remember his Meet The Press appearance right before we invaded Iraq when Cheney stated we would be "welcomed as liberators". We know how that ill-conceived misadventure went. George W. Bush made matters worse with his "mission accomplished" showcase on an American battleship.Right-wing talk radio host and Bush groupie, the nasal-voice geek Laura Ingram, gushed as Bush got off the Navy jet to tell the American people that initial combat operations were over in Iraq. What he didn't know or even think might happen was then it was time for an insurgency and a civil war. Oh, and our troops would be caught in the middle of this chaos.
This is a sampling of the world we were given by the Bush/Cheney administration. Cheney's remarks at this weekend's speech included the claim that President Obama's choices for his national security team were "second rate". This coming from a man who is second rate, and has proved it. Bush/Cheney left America in the worst financial shape since the Great Depression, and with two unfinished wars. The only reason you don't see George W. Bush touring with a positive message on his two terms in office is because it didn't exist: his eight years were an abject failure of historic proportions. Bush has at least the class to keep his mouth shut. Cheney is basically the only major member of the ill-fated Bush administration who keeps plugging away at the current President who got Osama bin laden when Cheney and Bush couldn't, and also is finally winding down the wars Cheney and Bush began. Afghanistan was one thing, but Iraq was an ill-planned disaster with Cheney's buddy "Rummy" Rumsfeld, making sure that every wrong decision was made and carried out. The end result was an over-stressed military which is now committing suicide at historic rates. The blunder in Iraq also strengthened the hand of Iran, our real enemy in that region.
The only reason Cheney hasn't screwed up as bad as this before was because when he served under Gerald Ford and the first President Bush, those two Presidents had the presence of mind to keep him reined in. Once Cheney and Rumsfeld got powerful positions in the George W. Bush administration, all the reins of restraint were gone and their incompetence unleashed in a horrific chamber of blunders which we'll be paying for in the years and possibly decades ahead.
Go ahead and put down President Obama's choices on national security. You had the ability to make positive changes and blew it-big time. Now we're all paying for it. People like Dick Cheney never keep their mouths shut especially when they look bad in history. All that this old blowhard can spew out won't change history. Even when he's dead and gone, surrogates like his dimwitted daughter can make the rounds of talk shows building up her father's tattered reputation and the only people who will buy that phony revisionist history will be the rightwing choir of kooks who still think he and Bush did a good job.
I still have the tape from my old talk radio show broadcast right after Bush/Cheney won reelection in 2004. On that show I told my audience to hold on to your wallets because by the time these guys were finished with their second term, our economy would be finished. I even made a reference to the Great Depression: I didn't realize how spot-on I was until I listened to that show last year. It wasn't that profound of a prophecy because I never believed in the trickle-down con, and the way those guys were spending money, it ultimately had to blow up at some point. I expect Cheney to keep shooting off his mouth, but at least when he shoots that off, he can't harm anymore friends of his with real buckshot. We will still have Dick Cheney to kick around for some time to come, after all, he is the thing that wouldn't leave.
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