I Never Metaphor I Didn’t Like
June 26, 2007 at 8:44 am
Check out what must be the biggest metaphor ever uttered, from today’s Washington Post story on Dick Cheney:
On the home front, the vice president is well known for leading a secretive task force on energy policy. But in a town where politicians routinely scurry for credit, Cheney more often kept his role concealed, even from top Bush advisers.
“A lot of it was a black box, and I think designedly so,” said former Bush speechwriter David Frum. “It was like — you know that experiment where you pass a magnet under the table and you see the iron filings on the top of the table move? You know there’s a magnet there because of what you see happening, but you never see the magnet.”
Hoo-ey! Thank goodness the Post doesn’t pay its interviewees by the word. Wouldn’t it have been simpler to just call Cheney a babe magnet?
Reter Poff said,
June 26, 2007 @ 9:07 am
Are they trying to advance a book deal or what?
Can anyone explain to me why a vice president not running for president — in the final 18 months of a two-term presidency — warrents this much coverage and attention. It is just bizarre - and in mind-numbing detail. The folks at the Washington Post really need to get a life.
Craw Craigford said,
June 26, 2007 @ 9:20 am
Well, Reter Proff, if that IS your real name: just review today’s Washington Compost and you will find not one, not two, but three pieces about Chick Deney.
1) The aforementioned “series”
2) Mana Dilbank:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/25/AR2007062501565_pf.html
3) Eugene “I’ve Made A Livlihood Out Of Trashing The Bush Administration” Robinson:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/25/AR2007062501467_pf.html
The reason for all this ink & cyberspace on Cheney: Like Nixon might have said, after 18 months, you won’t “Have Dick to kick around anymore”.
BTW: Did y’all catch me on “Countdown” with Teeth Overbite last night?
http://www.newsfromme.com/images4/elmobust.jpg
boesman said,
June 26, 2007 @ 2:33 pm
Maybe *this* aspect of Cheney explains things…
http://davesweb.cnchost.com/dicksbulge.jpg
karl rove said,
June 26, 2007 @ 2:50 pm
Must. Destroy. BushCo. Nothing else matters. Not Illegal Immigrants, not a broken Social Security system , not barbarians cutting off peoples heads for religious purposes or trying to kill innocent people at all costs. Pathetic.
Nathan said,
June 26, 2007 @ 2:55 pm
Cheney is an unpopular Republican. Unpopular Republicans must be paraded about in the press at every opportunity in order to sully conservatism, regardless of whether or not they are newsworthy.
matt a said,
June 26, 2007 @ 3:05 pm
Can’t be because the VP just declared himself outside the executive branch of the govt? Yeah, that can’t be news worthy…
Vadept said,
June 26, 2007 @ 3:43 pm
“Can’t be because the VP just declared himself outside the executive branch of the govt? Yeah, that can’t be news worthy… ”
You do know that the VP presides over the senate, right? And that the senate is part of the legislative branch of the government? And beyond this role and his “successor” role, VPs don’t mean jack, right?
K. Just checking.
hullabaloo doctor said,
June 26, 2007 @ 4:07 pm
The subject of Cheney’s task force is secret because of executive privilege though, right? Seems laudably consistent to me!
It's Pat said,
June 26, 2007 @ 4:15 pm
I like Dick. Is that so wrong?
chris lawton said,
June 26, 2007 @ 4:29 pm
GO RON PAUL! GO RON PAUL! GOD BLESS RON PAUL! RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT 2008!
Ron Paul in CNN debate on June 5, 2007!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwJKGfAWQUo
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the galleys, heard in the very hall of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor—he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and wears their face and their garment, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation—he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city—he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared.
— Cicero: orator, statesman, political theorist, lawyer and philosopher of Ancient Rome.
“In the time of universal deceit, telling the truth
is a revolutionary act” GEORGE ORWELL
David said,
June 26, 2007 @ 4:31 pm
Vadept: Nice try, but not buying.
Do you really mean to suggest (as your reference to the VP’s role in presiding over the Senate would suggest) that the Vice President is subject to the rules governing members of Congress, including congressional ethics rules? I thought not.
What about the Judicial Branch then, since he, and he alone, apparently gets to decide what the law and our Constitution mean.
Incidentally, I hope you are right about the successor role being just a formality, because I don’t believe our contitutional system could survive a fortnight with Mr. Cheney as Chief Executive.
moptop said,
June 26, 2007 @ 5:09 pm
How does George know that Laura is having her period?
Cheney’s dick tastes funny…
Outdoorsman said,
June 26, 2007 @ 6:55 pm
Does he fly around in a black helicopter to these secret meetings?
richarda said,
June 26, 2007 @ 10:28 pm
Today’s part of the series is really an (unintentional, I’m sure) encomium to the VP on the domestic policy front as the Administration’s able leading defender of conservative values.
Draft Cheney!
maiana said,
June 30, 2007 @ 6:53 pm
These posts are sophomoric. You should all thank G*d there are people in the Admin capable of serious analysis and decisive action.
Can you imagine the state of security and the economy if they had used the Lib/Dem/Academe model of “consensus?” By the time all the academics and politicians had their say, dithering, and coming up with a “compromised consensus,” the economy and the country would have been buried. mariana 6/30/07
maiana said,
June 30, 2007 @ 7:10 pm
Ricarda: I agree with you totally. Most of the people posting are more interested in “gotcha” than reason.
So far, I’ve only gotten through the first three [and all of the footnotes]. If one took the snotty attitude out of the piece, it appears to be a “how to” on crisis management.
I found the “O’Niel” reference interesting. The only time that man ever said anything that I felt had economic, moral, ethical and functional planning sense, was in a talk he gave referencing American Economic Aid to Africa and other primitive, backward, failed regions.
He quite sensibly pointed out that the most critical need [ergo, the item which should receive the lion’s share of aid] , was access to clean, potable water; that most of their diseases and so many of their problems descended from lack of it. mariana