Dick Cheney's "Stomach for War"


Nothing like getting lectured about guts from a guy whose idea of hunting is to go to a private club and shoot cage-raised birds. And yet that’s what we got Sunday, when Dick Cheney was brought above ground, re-animated and rolled into Fox News, to tell America we need to have the “stomach to finish the task in Iraq.”

It was especially interesting to compare and contrast Darth Cheney’s gut check with the president’s comments later on 60 Minutes, when he said he didn’t watch the entire Saddam hanging video. Didn’t stay for the icky part—you know, the part when the guy he spent billions of dollars to have killed actually was killed. “They could have handled it a lot better,” Mr. Bush said.

Odds are the warrior in chief won’t be watching the video of Monday’s hangings, either, especially the part where Saddam’s half brother was accidentally decapitated by the ineptitude of the local hangman. (Or at least, the Iraqi officials said it was an accident.)

Let’s see…what exactly are we supposed to have “the stomach” for?
Three thousand dead Americans, 22 thousand injured Americans, hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, and as part of an “important milestone” for the new Iraqi nation, three truly horrific, brutal execution that cannot help but bring shame by association to the people of the United States.

The question is not whether America has the stomach to keep fighting, but whether our leaders have the stomach to stop fighting. The Democrats, as usual, cannot agree on an anti-war strategy, perhaps because the Mainstream Media’s conventional wisdom still maintains that it is politically risky to vote to cut off funding for the escalation. But why? How is it that it requires courage to do what two thirds of the people want you to do? If you believe that, you are conceding that it’s impossible to beat Karl Rove, or his stand-ins, in 2008, when they try to paint anti-war candidates as “abandoning the troops.” Why are so many Democrats afraid that the American people, who have led the anti-war movement all along, will suddenly turn on them?

John Edwards had it right at the Riverside Church Sunday.

“Silence is betrayal, and I believe it is a betrayal not to speak out against the escalation of the war in Iraq.” Your move, Democrats.

On the other hand, maybe I’m making too much of this whole Iraq nightmare. After all, Cheney did tell us just this Sunday that “we have, in fact, made enormous progress.”

Which reminds me, when Cheney testifies in the Scooter Libby trial, will they even bother to swear him in? Will anybody on a jury believe that he’s capable of telling the truth?

CONDI'S DIARY: "NOTHING YOU CAN SAY CAN'T MAKE ME TURN AWAY FROM MY GUYS"



Dear Diary,

What drama! First there was the awkward overshare when I was caught on an open mike saying “my Fox guys, I love every single one of them.” (It was almost as bad as the time I slipped and referred to the president as “my husb—“ at a cocktail party. Remember that one, Diary? Ugh!) Then there was the whole dust up with Barbara Boxer over my Family of One…me.

At first blush, the “Fox guys” gush made me sound a little trampy, I suppose, especially that “I love every single one of them” part, but let’s face it, Brit, and Gibby, and Billy O, and of course, my honey Hanny, they’re all so dreamy. And more than that, they are dependable and reliable—they are there for me whenever I need them. Unlike so many, many men I know. (Robert Novak, I’m looking at you).

Like Thursday, when we needed a good distraction from the steaming heap of warmed over crap we call the New Way Forward, or, whatever. There I was, getting hammered from both sides at a Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing. I had nothing—they just totally crushed me. But then, my Fox Guys rescued me. It was beautiful, the way they stirred up a feminist fracas over Senator Boxer’s remark that I wouldn’t have to personally pay the price for all of our war mistakes because I have no immediate family involved.

Just between you and me, Diary, I know that Boxer, who is the original Mean Girl on campus (remember how she called me a liar?) never did say that it was because I’m single and have no children, not even a Snowflake baby, to groom for the Perpetual War Machine. When she went on about who pays the price for our Glorious War, I thought it was annoying, but I didn’t take it personally. Not like when Laura Bush told People Magazine I wouldn’t run for president because I’m single.

Thank God the Fox guys and the ever-vigilant patriots of the blogosphere were there to leap into battle. They drummed up a fake war even faster than Karen Hughes and the White House Iraq Group did. And all for me, me, me.


Honestly, diary, it was exactly like the time cute but communist John Edwards mentioned that Mary Cheney is a lesbian during the VP debates, and Dick didn’t bat a lizardy eye about it until Karl and Lynne C. made it the PC crime of the century.

And to think that Rush Limbaugh would suddenly make a case for feminists! Tee hee! (Didn’t he coin the term “femi-nazis” to describe Hillary Clinton and others?) I might even be offended that he made it a thing about race if it weren’t so funny, coming from him. How many times has he made racist comments on his radio show?

Between you and me, Diary, I don’t need any of those hunky Fox blowhards to defend me. I’m smarter, better educated, and more powerful than all of them put together.

But we did need a distraction from what I was actually talking about (“It’s not an escalation, it’s an augmentation”—ouch.) And these guys gave me enough cover to get the hell out of town and over to the Middle East, where everybody hates us but at least they have good reason to.

Note to self, Diary: when we send soldiers into Iran, point out to Rosie O’Donnell that Donald Trump thought it was a good idea. That’ll give us cover for weeks.

G'nite Diary.
xoxo
Condi