This is a bit of a silly exercise, but our former vice-president has the worst human rights record of any elected American official since…I don’t know…Andrew Jackson? And he likes to flaunt it.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney doesn’t seem all that ruffled by his villainous public persona.
During a recent trip to a high school rodeo in Casper, Wyo., Mr. Cheney responded to a question about his unpopularity by flashing his signature uneven grin.
“Remind me to show you the back of my truck,” he said.
Outside the rodeo arena, he took a moment to show off the latest feature on his Ford F-350 Super Duty truck, a Darth Vader trailer-hitch cover, a nod to his alter-ego from the Bush days.
“Darth Vader,” he said, smiling. “I’m rather proud of that.”
The Wall Street Journal
Maybe you’ve never much gotten into the finer points of Star Wars. I know that I am no expert. But I do know that Darth Vader’s real name is Anakin Skywalker. And I know that Anakin goes over to the Dark Side in a vain effort to save the life of his wife who nonetheless dies shortly after giving birth to Luke and Leia. The main reason that she dies is that her disappointment in Anakin is so great that she loses the will to live.
So, how does Dick Cheney fit in?
I suppose you can choose your analogies, but we must start at the beginning. On the Sunday after the September 11, 2001 hijacking attacks, Cheney appeared on Meet the Press and told host Tim Russert that “We have to work the dark side, if you will. We’re going to spend time in the shadows.”
It was a warning that we were not going to be proud of what Cheney did in our name.
In other words, he might have thought that he was trying to save us, but in the end we would be so disgusted by his behavior that we would rather die than be the mother of his children.
Or something.
The point is that Cheney made a decision not to confront evil but to embrace it. He chose fear.
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” –Yoda, Jedi Grand Master
Darth Vader isn’t a badass. He’s a coward.
If you’re proud of being compared to Darth Vader, you’re a total dumbass.
But there’s probably something serious in all this.
There’s definitely something seriously wrong with Dick Cheney.
No dah! He’d probably enjoy being compared to Satan, except his religious nutjob followers would probably take it as blasphemy.
Did you miss the memo?
It’s now okay to be Satan if you are a Republican.
Glad I wasn’t sipping my coffee when I read that!
IOKTBSIYAR
Hah! And a new acronym is born!
He’s Darth Sidious, not Darth Vader. Big difference.
But seriously, he’s a war criminal.
Yes. This.
But the whole plot of Anakin Skywalker is one of a tragic flaw.
I’m not sure that Cheney had anything that could be flawed. He seems devoid of any empathy whatever. A monster.
Yes, perhaps The Terminator would be a better analogy. A soulless killing machine.
A uniform and a monocle would turn him into the SS officer from post-WWII central casting. He’s got soullessness completely down.
Even Darth Vader redeemed himself in the end.
Cheney is a hollow man, and it can’t be a coincidence that he’s had trouble with his heart all these years.
That someone who is so calculatingly cruel, so manipulative, so dishonest continues to live out his life celebrating his cruelty really is some sort of sad joke. The fact that Beau Biden died young while this scabby old fuck continues to draw breath seems like a world gone mad.
I don’t believe in heaven or hell, so when Cheney kicks, he’ll end up in a box or a jar, but I hope his rotten spirit goes up in a puff of black smoke, never to be seen again.
Unfortunately his black spirit lives in every CIA officer and soldier who unquestioningly followed his orders of torture and still hasn’t come forward to expose the rot.
That sort of rot also still infects a Republican caucus in Congress who prefers secrecy to coming clesn. And not a few Democrats as well.
As long as his role goes unexposed and widely condemned by the public, we will not be able to move our foreign policy.
You write:
Sadly, the real facts concerning this matter are that until the entire corporate-owned, shadow PermaGov mechanism is exposed…starting with the establishment of the CIA under the Dulles brothers and soon thereafter the slow coup years beginning and ending with the the JFK and RFK assassinations…nothing whatsoever is going to change unless the entire structure crumbles from its own inner rot.
Let us pray it’s the former rather than the latter.
Let us pray.
AG
Well, AG, there is that.
But reviewing the last decade and a half would be a start.
Or a random, unnoticed phrase in some legislation that would undo the Truman administration mistake in the same hidden fashion that Gramm-Leach-Bliley forbid Wall Street derivatives regulation. Oops, sorry, it’s law.
In terms of fictional characters, I would probably connect Cheney to Montresor, or Ser Ciappelletto.
Dick is making noise for Liz. She would be the prefect VP for the new and improved Bush.
And she wouldn’t need Air Force 2. She could just fly around on her broom.
Dick is a GOP Dick nothing more or less. He is what the real GOP is personified.
said it better and, especially, far more succinctly:
Compare and contrast to:
For my money, Herbert communicated everything Yoda did in 1/4 the words/space.