Cheney, speaking from experience

Cheney, speaking from experience

When shells fall close and smoke is thick.

Real tough guys never run.

They stick.

Or so says Five Deferments Dick.

No wavering- no he’s a brick.

To cut and run would make him sick.

Or so says Five Deferments Dick.

Appeasers cannot take a lick,

But tough guys bite and gouge and kick.

Or so says Five Deferments Dick.

Calvin Trillin, December 12th issue of The Nation

More on Cheney:

• “If it’s not torture, then it’s OK to use it on Cheney“:
  
  According to the sources, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in.

  They said al-Qaida’s toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess. … [then the author imagines what we could get out of Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Tom Delay, and on and on].

• “Dick Cheney’s Illogic,” via The Daou Report
  

  
  

  Dick Cheney can’t resist linking 9/11 and Iraq, no matter how nonsensical the claim: Some have suggested that by liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein, we simply stirred up a hornet’s nest. They overlook a fundamental fact: We were not in Iraq on September 11th, 2001, and the terrorists hit us anyway. Here’s Holly Martins at Wonkette trying to understand the reasoning behind this statement: Withdrawal from Iraq is appeasing the terrorist enemy–but 9/11 demonstrates the mindset of that enemy is irrelevant. Richard Cohen puts it even more simply: Yes, and the crowing of the rooster makes the sun come up. Cause and effect is being mocked here.

• “BAD ATTITUDES: An Immodest Proposal,” via The Daou Report
  

  
  

  
  Kirk Caraway of the Nevada Appeal has an appealing idea. Bush and Cheney claim that we don’t torture. On the other hand, everyone agrees that we do water-board. Caraway suggests that, given the speed with which confessions are extracted, and the fact that this isn’t torture, we could use the method to question Karl Rove about the Plame leak. And to ask Cheney whether he lied to get the war started.

(Special thanks to Carol — Other Lisa’s mom! — for sending the Trillin poem.)