Weekly Shredder 8:
Dick Cheney's RNC speech
by James Norton

Many Americans have picked up on the idea that Dick Cheney is more powerful than your average vice president. In fact, he acts as a prime minister, making most of the day-to-day executive decisions of government, and letting the head of state weigh in on long-term questions — when it's convenient. Lucky thing, they think, that Cheney is such a strong, decent and competent leader.

Many other Americans have picked up on the idea that Cheney is tainted beyond belief. Between the incredible pile of bloodstained lucre pouring into the coffers of Halliburton thanks to the Iraq war, secret meetings with industry lobbyists to set national energy policy and his flip-flopping on gay rights — at the expense of his lesbian daughter, Mary, and her peers — Cheney is a man with a record that's rank like rotting limburger. Lucky thing, they think, that Cheney is just the vice president, and not the commander in chief.

And then there are those of us — mostly a ragged pack of independents and dyed-in-the-wool Democrats — who have combined both ideas like the political equivalent of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Hey! You got evil in my secret ultimate power! Hey! You got secret ultimate power in my evil! Wait a second... these two attributes, when combined, are totally awesome!

For archives, audio, and background about the column, click here.

In the same way that plagues of giant atomic locusts are totally awesome.

Thus, one would expect Cheney's address at the Republican National Convention to pack megatons of political dynamite.

But much of the speech, as it turned out, seemed like damage control. The GOP leadership — which is to say Cheney — knows that Cheney has become a totem of evil to the left, and a leering liability to many pragmatists on the right. Thus, what's needed is a low-key speech with a few stock attacks on Kerry, a bit of humanizing, and a whole lotta "I'm not the main event, folks! Hummina hummina hummina! I'm outta here! Zing!"

As usual, Ol' Reliable delivered. He started out with a corny joke that he's been pounding into the ground on the campaign trail.

And I may say a word or two about his opponent. I am also mindful that I have an opponent of my own. People tell me that Senator Edwards got picked for his good looks, his sex appeal, and his great hair. I say to them — how do you think I got the job?

Heh, heh, sir. You're an ugly bald man... and you're self-aware. No self-aware ugly bald man could possibly be a harbinger of doom.

My grandfather believed deeply in the promise of America, and had the highest hopes for his family. And I don't think it would surprise him much that a grandchild of his stands before you tonight as Vice President of the United States.

And there is, of course, no story more truly American than rising up from modest circumstances to wield power on a massive scale, blotting out the people that remind you of your own family's meager origins.

Opportunity also depends on a vibrant, growing economy. As President Bush and I were sworn into office, our nation was sliding into recession, and American workers were overburdened with federal taxes.

By "sliding into recession," Cheney carefully avoids telling the lie that Bush has told more than once: That America was in recession when he took office. It wasn't, of course. The recession didn't start until March 2001. And what did the Bush administration do for workers? Very, very little. Those who are earning little — and thus paying payroll taxes, not income taxes — have received almost no relief from this administration. But those "workers" in the top 1 percent of income, who make most of their money from investments, rather than salary... now they are doing quite nicely, indeed.

Then came the events of Sept. 11, which hit our economy very hard. So President Bush delivered the greatest tax reduction in a generation, and the results are clear to see.

They certainly are. With recent months of slow job growth, Bush will likely become the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over an administration that has created negative net jobs.

Under this president's leadership, we will reform medical liability so the system serves patients and good doctors, not personal injury lawyers.

Correction: Under this president's leadership, we will reform medical liability so the system serves patients and good doctors insurance companies, not patients, good doctors, and personal injury lawyers.

At this point, Cheney talks at length about Sept. 11, 2001, and the challenges it has posed for America. He compares the terrorists to the Nazis and the Soviets; not really great analogues. Yes, all three were ultimately forces of evil. But the Soviets could be reasoned with and contained through conventional means. And the Nazis had a state, called "Germany." Al Qaeda and its ilk have neither of those qualities.

As usual, the Republican impulse to oversimplify genuinely distorts the truth.

Cheney then launches what is a surprisingly tame attack on Kerry. If nothing else, it's evidence that he's lost the clean reputation that allowed him to move so freely as a public hatchet man during the 2000 race.

Even in this post-9/11 period, Senator Kerry doesn't appear to understand how the world has changed. He talks about leading a "more sensitive war on terror," as though Al Qaeda will be impressed with our softer side.

Strangely enough, Cheney and Bush themselves have used similar language. And is it ridiculous to suggest that a war that enrages the world in general, and Muslims in particular, isn't a very smart war to fight? That the killing of innocents and alienation of allies should be reduced?

Senator Kerry denounces American action when other countries don't approve — as if the whole object of our foreign policy were to please a few persistent critics. In fact, in the global war on terror, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush has brought many allies to our side.

Those "few persistant critics" include Russia, Germany, France, China, the United Nations, the British public, the developing world, the Arab street, most Arab governments, Turkey and good chunks of Latin America. Those "many allies" — with the notable exceptions of Britain, Poland and Italy — are largely symbolic participants including Mongolia (160 troops), Latvia (120), and Macedonia (37).

Senator Kerry also takes a different view when it comes to supporting our military. Although he voted to authorize force against Saddam Hussein, he then decided he was opposed to the war, and voted against funding for our men and women in the field.

He voted for the $87 billion before voting against it, right? Well, yes. He voted for a supplemental bill that would have taken the $87 billion out of the tax cut for the very richest Americans — in other words, he would have paid for the war by rescinding unfair tax breaks for those least deserving a government handout. He symbolically voted against Bush's irresponsibly funded version of the same bill, which he knew was going to pass.

A senator can be wrong for 20 years, without consequence to the nation. But a president — a president — always casts the deciding vote. And in this time of challenge, America needs — and America has — a president we can count on to get it right.

Here Cheney invokes the sacred myth of the Infallible Bush, an idea perpetuated by Bush himself at his infamous April press conference, where he could recall making no mistakes, despite tanking the economy through reckless tax cuts, transforming budgetary surpluses into deficits and heading into Iraq with a force utterly unprepared to occupy a splintered and hostile Middle Eastern country.

George W. Bush is a man who speaks plainly and means what he says.

What the record (including a very scant number of press conferences and unscripted public appearances) shows is that President Bush is a man who refuses to answer even the simplest questions from reporters whose job is to tell the public what's going on. The quickest way to explain his speaking style — as observed from any forum where Bush is facing probing, persistant questions — is: "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with bullshit."

George W. Bush saw this country through grief and tragedy ... he has acted with patience, and calm, and a moral seriousness that calls evil by its name.

President Bush took advantage of a nation crippled with grief and pushed through a series of greedy, reckless tax cuts, an omnibus domestic security bill that squelches aspects of the very freedom we're supposedly killing and dying for and a foolish war that has claimed the lives of almost 1,000 US troops and thousands of Iraqis. He took the country from its most united to its most divided, in a span of less than a year.

The historian Bernard DeVoto once wrote that when America was created, the stars must have danced in the sky. Our president understands the miracle of this great country.

The record suggests that if there's one thing this president doesn't understand, it's the miracle of American democracy; he was elected by judicial fiat assisted by the disenfranchisment of black voters; he ruled as though he had absolute power; and he mercilessly exploited a grief-stricken country to pass a partisan agenda to the benefit of a tiny ruling clique of cynical billionaires.

Or has it really been Cheney, all along? You wouldn't know it from this modest little speech, by the modest little acting President of the United States of America.

E-mail James Norton at jrnorton@flakmag.com.

— graphic by Derek Evernden (derek@ocellus.net)