Pulling His Cheney

Next on the docket from today's news is an opinion from former pres... er, vice-president... Dick Cheney – who is pictured smiling, for the first time in 8 years. Do you suppose it was only biliousness after all? In any case – and obviously, anyone who asks for the Dickster's opinion on anything, ever again, is making A Big Mistake – but whatever, he thinks that Rush Limbaugh makes a better role model for the Republicans than does Colin Powell – which I guess is a way of saying that having a position, and having firm opinions, still counts for something in this world. And in this, I agree with him – even though his own opinions and positions over the past 8 years have invariably been wrong. But Rush's track record is a bit better; at least he has always had the liberals' number, even if he has a chronic blind spot when it comes to foreign policy. The only problem with nominating Rush as the Republican standard-bearer is that his on-air days are numbered. If you think the Democrats have forgotten all about the “Fairness Doctrine” in their hurry to salvage the economy and the whole world, think again. Their positions are ever vulnerable to rational analysis, realism, and logic -- not to mention plain old memory, AKA "history" -- and they are ever paranoid and thin-skinned, and downright phobic about dissent and opposing points of view. So once Obama saves the day, they'll get back to the business at hand, which is pushing dissent and opposition underground (or, actually, more underground than it already is).

Cheney – who is certainly no dummy – also seems to have no problem with Limbaugh's alleged (by the liberal establishment and the MSM) racism, sexism, homophobia, and heresy when it comes to treasured liberal ideas like global warming. Gosh, who knows, the Dickster could become a leader again himself, if he would only repent of his follies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and disown the Evangelicals, the Neocons, and AIPAC. And what, after all, would he have to lose at this late date? Well, maybe that's asking too much. But he is right on one count, at least – Republican me-too-ism is not a survival skill; it's a form of suicide. Limbaugh is strong medicine (but not the strongest – for that you have to go see Dr. Ron Paul) but at least he represents something that can never be confused with liberalism... and after a period of exile, who knows, that might just come in handy sometime down the road.