Friday, April 06, 2007

GET OUT THE FIRE HOSE -- MAD DOG CHENEY'S AT IT AGAIN



DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman
You have to give credit to our chicken-hawk veep for his unyielding though insufferable persistence. When he gets hold of a lie, you can train a fire hose on him and he still won't let go. Yesterday the unrepentant loon repeated his assertions of al-Qaida links to Saddam Hussein.
This flat declaration, made with the cruel impatience that only a severely impaired maniac can muster, conflicted with brand-new evidence on top of all the old evidence that no such link existed. The new evidence came in the form of the simultaneous release of a Defense Department report confirming that Saddam’s regime never cooperated with al-Qaida. Heads are gonna have to roll at the Pentagon.
As he is wont to do, Dick Cheney, a guy who appointed himself, made his goofy assertion before an audience of imbeciles -- this time listeners to the archbishop of all things hypocritical -- hard-core doper and gay-baiting gay Rush Limbaugh.
Terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Cheney said, “took up residence (in Iraq) before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the al-Qaida operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June."
Only teeny parts of that statement are true, of course, but look carefully at Cheney’s language and how cleverly he integrates what's real with what's invented. Cheney’s a careful user of words. I particularly enjoyed his branding of Iraq as the “central front in the war against terror.” He’s very good at saying stuff that doesn’t say what you think it said.

Notice this time our tenacious Tyrant Number Two didn’t say Zarqawi received any sort of cooperation from Saddam, only that Zarqawi operated in pre-war Iraq. By these standards we should launch immediate invasions of both Spain and the United Kingdom, where al-Qaida functionaries operated and launched large-scale terror attacks. Oregon and New York should also be on the lookout for U.S. helicopter assaults, because al-Qaida wannabes were captured there as well.

Over the years I’ve come to admire the use of this administration’s rhetoric. After the invasion blew up in his face and timid reporters got around to asking Bush whether . . . well, maybe this invasion wasn’t such a good idea . . . Bush would kill his near-perpetual smirk, put on his Top Gun face and reply, “Everyone agreed Saddam was a threat.” And by God, it was true.
But no reporters followed up with something like Hey, numbnuts, the Soviet Union was a threat, but none of your predecessors was stupid enough to invade it. You don’t invade every country that dislikes you, do you, dickhead? Bush got away with this over and over, figuring, heck, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Speaking of questions that are actual questions reminds me -- where’s that credentials application for the next Rose Garden edition of the White House’s kook-encrusted explanation of the world? Oh, I remember. They turned me down in favor of a gay prostitute. (Long story)

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