[Mb-civic] Maureen Dowd

[Mike Blaxill]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/113005O.shtml

The Autumn of the Patriarchy 
    By Maureen Dowd 
    The New York Times 

    Wednesday 30 November 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. 

    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."