Dick, we hardly knew ye

Shorter Stephen F. Hayes: We haven't gotten attacked again because of Dick, and if we get attacked again, AND WE WILL, Dick will prevent the next one. And if we get attacked a third time, Dick will prevent the subsequent one. And if we.....*

Even shorter Stephen F. Hayes: Coincidence DOES imply causality!

The shortest Stephen F. Hayes: 9/11!


"The policies he has advocated have been controversial. But they have also been effective."

They certainly have! Really!

"With intelligence officials in Washington increasingly alarmed about the prospect of another major attack on the U.S. homeland, and public support for the Bush administration's anti-terror efforts reclaiming lost ground, we need more Dick Cheney."

The hook just isn't as catchy the 753rd time you hear the song. I need a bit more convincing.

"A little more than a year before the 9/11 attacks, while Bill Clinton [The Clenis!] was still president, Mr. Hayden dramatized the NSA's dilemma in congressional testimony. 'If, as we are speaking here this afternoon, Osama bin Laden, is walking...from Niagara Falls, Ontario, to Niagara Falls, New York, as he gets to the New York side, he is an 'American person.' And my agency must respect his rights against unreasonable search and seizure as provided by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.'"

I guess we couldn't, within the rule of law that we all love so dearly, detain a guy on the FBI's Most Wanted list if he was strolling across the border. For that, we would need double secret probation, I mean, rules. I, and everyone else I'm sure, is very glad you and Mr. Cheney have realized that. We're sorry for being such rubes.

Hayes also brings up The Great Blowtorch Plot of 2003 as evidence of success for the NSA's Terrorist Surveillance Program. Well played, Stephen! And look at this brilliant, humanizing passage that skilfully rises above the stagnant, populist swamp of irrational hatred unfairly directed at our Vice President day after day in spite of all he's done for us: "Mr. Cheney can be a very effective communicator. That doesn't mean he never makes mistakes. He does. (His prediction in 2005 that the insurgency in Iraq was in its "last throes" comes to mind.)"

Please, put down your morning coffee. I know it's hard to come to grips with the fact that Cheney could be wrong about anything, but humans do indeed make mistakes. At least he was right about our energy policy, about Saddam having WMDs, about the ties between the Iraqi dictator and Osama bin Laden, about the necessity for an expanded surveillance program without any real oversight by an independent body, about the immediate and dire threat posed by Iran. Wouldn't you agree that we're lucky to have him on our side?

But the burning question, the one that torments me without cease, that leaves me in tortured anguish at the injustice of it all, is why is the Vice President so unpopular? Luckily for us, Mr. Hayes answers with aplomb: "If Mr. Cheney's approval ratings are so abysmal, why increase his visibility? The answer is simple: because his low poll numbers are the result of his low profile."

Je comprends ! Because of his tireless efforts on behalf of American citizens throughout the world and the righteous cause of freedom that's a gift from The Almighty Himself, he stays behind the scenes where he is most effective. Yet this curses him with poor numbers. Why? We don't know him. Oh, he wants to be known, to be loved, but he will never give in to selfish human desires at the expense of the greater good. Oh, Mad, Mad, Mad World, what a cruel beast you are! Godspeed, Mr. Vice President!


*All quotes from the print version.