Dowd: The Autumn of the Patriarchy

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Fri, 02 Dec 2005 12:21:22 -0800

[Zepps_News] Dowd: The Autumn of the Patriarchy

 

 

 

 

November 30, 2005 Op-Ed Columnist The Autumn of the Patriarchy

By MAUREEN DOWD

 

In the vice president's new, more fortified bunker, inside his old

undisclosed secure location within the larger bunker that used to be

called the West Wing of the White House, Dick Cheney was muttering and

sputtering.

 

He wasn't talking to the pictures on the wall, as Nixon did when he

finally cracked. Vice doesn't trust those portraits anyway. The walls

have ears. He was talking to the only reliable man in a city of dimwits,

cowards, traitors and fools: himself.

 

He hurled a sheaf of news reports with such force it knocked over the

picture of Ahmad Chalabi that he keeps next to the picture of Churchill.

Winston Chalabi, he likes to call him.

 

Vice is fed up with all the whining and carping - and that's just inside

the White House. The only negativity in Washington is supposed to be his

own. He's the only one allowed to scowl and grumble and conspire.

 

The impertinent Tom DeFrank reported in New York's Daily News that

embattled White House aides felt " President Bush must take the reins

personally " to save his presidency.

 

Let him try, Cheney said with a sneer. Things are nowhere near dire

enough for that. Even if Junior somehow managed to grab the reins to his

presidency, Vice holds Junior's reins. So he just needs to get all these

sniveling, poll-driven wimps and losers back on board with the master

plan.

 

Things had been going so smoothly. The global torture franchise was up

and running. Halliburton contracts were flowing. Tax cuts were sailing

through. Oil companies were raking it in. Alaska drilling was

thrillingly close. The courts were defending his executive privilege on

energy policy, and people were still buying all that smoke about

Saddam's being responsible for 9/11, and that drivel about how we're

fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here. Everything was

groovy.

 

But not anymore. Cheney could not believe that Karl had made him go out

and call that loudmouth Jack Murtha a patriot. He was sure the Pentagon

generals had put the congressman up to calling for a withdrawal from

Iraq. Is the military brass getting in touch with its pacifist side? In

Wyoming, Vice shoots doves.

 

How dare Murtha suggest that Cheney dodged and dodged and dodged and

dodged and dodged the draft? Murtha thinks he knows about war just

because he served in one and was a marine for 37 years? Vice started his

own war. Now that's a credential!

 

It always goes this way with the cut-and-run crowd. First they start

nitpicking the war, complaining about little things like the lack of

armor for the troops. Then they complain that there aren't enough

troops. Well, that would just require more armor that we don't have.

Then they kvetch about using incendiary weapons in a city like Falluja.

Vice likes the smell of white phosphorus in the morning.

 

What really enrages him is all the Republicans in the Senate making

noises about timetables. Before you know it, it's going to be

helicopters on the rooftop at the Baghdad embassy.

 

Just because Junior's approval ratings are in the 30's, people around

here are going all wobbly. Vice was 10 points lower and he wasn't

worried. Numbers are for sissies.

 

Why do Harry Reid and his Democratic turncoats think they can call the

White House on the carpet? Do they think Vice would fear to lie about

lying about the rationale for going to war? A real liar never stops lying.

 

He didn't want to have to tell the rest of the senators to go do to

themselves what he had told Patrick Leahy to go do to himself.

 

Now all these idiots are getting caught, even Scooter. DeLay's on the

ropes and the Dukester is a total embarrassment, spending bribes on

antique commodes and a Rolls-Royce. Vice should never have let an

amateur get involved with defense contracts.

 

Republican moderates are running scared in the House, worried about

re-election. Even senators seem to have forgotten which side their bread

is oiled on. Ted Stevens let oil company executives get caught lying

about the energy task force meeting, while Vice can't even get a little

thing like torture chambers through the Senate. What's so wrong with a

little torture?

 

And now John Warner wants Junior to use fireside chats to explain his

plan for Iraq. When did everybody get the un-American idea that the

president is answerable to America?

 

Vice is fed up with the whining of squirrelly surrogates like Brent

Scowcroft and Lawrence Wilkerson on behalf of peaceniks like George

Senior and Colin Powell. If Poppy's upset about his kid's mentor, he

should be man enough to come slug it out.

 

Poppy isn't getting Junior back, Vice vowed, muttering: " He's my son.

It's my war. It's my country. "

 

(And the bad news is: this man is our vice president.)

 

 

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