DOING WELL

DICK CHENEY


I've been sitting on this topic for a couple of days (Think Progress had it I think on Monday). Cheney was on Limbaugh (as is his wont since he will not be interviewed by anyone who is not Limbaugh or Fox News) where he said the following:

CHENEY: Well, I think there’s some natural level of concern out there because in fact, you know, it wasn’t over instantaneously. It’s been a little over three years now since we went into Iraq, so I don’t think it’s surprising that people are concerned.

On the other hand, this government has only been in office about five months, five or six months now. They’re off to a good start. It is difficult, no question about it, but we’ve now got over 300,000 Iraqis trained and equipped as part of their security forces. They’ve had three national elections with higher turnout than we have here in the United States. If you look at the general overall situation, they’re doing remarkably well.

First off, I think that if anyone should receive some level of blame for there being unrest about the conflict not being over "instantaneously", perhaps we should all remember when all the prognosticators were out in force saying how the war would be over in short order. Don Rumsfeld claimed, "It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." Cheney himself said, "I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. ... I think it will go relatively quickly, ... (in) weeks rather than months."

So please, DICK, pardon us if the American people are a little uneasy that the war has lasted a teensy bit longer than you and Rummy predicted.

Next, Cheney claims that the current Iraqi government has only been in place for less than a year; a democratically elected government, mind you; yet there are now stories floating around that Bush is considering replacing the current government, so just how much faith does this adminstration have in their friends in Baghdad?

And finally, DICK claims that overall situation is going remarkable well. Does this even need a comment, especially considering how American troops are dropping like flies, dozens (on a slow day) of Iraqis are found dead with signs of torture present and the electrical grid is so broken that the average citizen has about two hours of electricity a day?

With someone like Bush, there's a strong possibility that he's just completely disconnected from reality, but DICK doesn't get that benefit of the doubt. You just know that he's ... I hate to use the word "evil" so what about conniving and calculating? When he speaks to Rush or Fox News, you just know that he's not deluded; he knows exactly what he's saying and he knows that he's full of crap. He says whatever he wants regardless of the facts because he knows that the bobbleheads would never ever call him on it.