Posted on 02/15/2006 8:14:37 AM PST by presidio9
No room for a laughingstock
It is humor that often drives the final nail in the political coffin. The images of Gerald Ford falling on his face and hitting spectators with golf balls outlived his presidency. Jimmy Carter endured the Iranian hostage crisis and the misery index, but he had no comeback to the million yuks that followed his battle with an attacking rabbit. All of which is to say that Deadeye Dick Cheney is history. He is the Dead Veep Walking, whether he knows it or not. Ridicule is fatal.
It's not just late-night comedians declaring open season on Cheney after he accidently shot a hunting companion in Texas. Team Bush, playing catchup after it bungled the public release of the incident, decided yesterday that joining in on the fun was to its advantage. Presidential press secretary Scott McClellan joked that the burnt-orange color of the University of Texas football team visiting the White House had nothing to do with hunter safety gear.
"The orange that they're wearing is not because they're concerned that the vice president may be there," said McClellan, who was wearing a burnt-orange necktie. But "that's why I'm wearing it." Even the President's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, got in the spirit. In Tampa, he put an orange sticker on his chest, then cracked, "I'm a little concerned that Dick Cheney is going to walk in."
The White House abandoned the tack when victim Harry Whittington took a turn for the worse, but the cause was lost from the git-go. Partisan humor can't rescue Cheney. Not when a knowing, howling humor fueled by accepted truth has him in its death grip. America, and the world, are not laughing with Cheney. We're laughing at him. The already diminished value of Cheney's presence now shrinks to zero.
For Ford, the clumsy mishaps 30 years ago reinforced the notion he had played football too long without a helmet. The irony is that one of Ford's ardent defenders in those days was his chief of staff, Dick Cheney.
Carter, already considered a prissy, ineffective moralist, would have fared better had a wolf attacked him in 1979 instead of a rabbit. The surreal quality was magnified because the incident happened in a pond. Carter was in a canoe fishing when the rabbit swam toward him baring its teeth.
"I saw it was going to attempt to climb in the boat with me," Carter said, adding that he beat it off with a paddle. In the court of public opinion, the "banzai bunny" was champ.
That Cheney is now being ridiculed reflects how far he has fallen. When he signed on as Bush's running mate in 2000, he was regarded as the intelligent adult on the ticket. But asset turned to liability as Iraq proved messy and Cheney's band of neocons seemed better at infighting than managing world affairs. The fact that his old company, Halliburton, profits from the war only adds to his baggage.
I was not alone in 2004 in hoping Bush would replace him for the second term with someone like Rudy Giuliani who might give the administration fresh energy. Instead, Bush's loyalty was repaid with the indictment of Scooter Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, for lying in the CIA leak case.
My well-wired colleague Tom DeFrank has written of a distance that has developed between Bush and Cheney over both Iraq and the Libby case. That's not to suggest the shooting will lead Bush to ask Cheney to disappear. Then again, he doesn't need to. The howls of laughter are doing it for him.
Originally published on February 15, 2006
That is Zogbyism.
Make it up. The public doesn't care. They continue to tune in.
Incidently, I think Rice would make a good president. I just realize that she can't win. If I could pick our next president, I would take Gingrich or Santorum, but neither of them can win either.
"Ridicule is fatal."
If that was the case, BOTH Clintons, Gore, Kerry, Kennedy, and a host of other dumb-a$$ Dim-o-crats would be dead by now.
Hillary Clinton's driver ran over a guard and they didn't even stop.
TOTALLY different approach.
Sad, but true.
I see a great campaign ad in making.
I know he said he lusted in his heart, but I never knew he was into S&M
Your comment makes no sense. Did you read what she posted?
Yes, for the first twenty days of the century Clinton was still President.
Thanks weegee, That's the one!
Clinton was in office as Prez until W took over Jan.22, 2000.
"Ridicule is fatal."
Cheney must have really been leading that quail.
I see nothing to ridicule about my VP having a hunting accident. Happens in the best of circles.
The only thing I'm stunned by in all this is the absolute stupidity and inanity of the press.
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