Cheney and Palin Redux

I have previously written about Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin. Unfortunately, both are still in the news. They will not lower their profile, shut up, or go away as I have hoped they would.

The latest on Cheney is that he was being interviewed on TV. The interviewer said that 73 percent of Americans, according to a poll, have said that they have to question whether the initial decision to invade Iraq was worth the cost to date in American lives. Cheney paused a moment, gave a dismissive gesture—I'd have to see it again to see if it warrants being called a shrug—and said, "So what?" In other words, We are the Emperor, we make the decisions and don't have to give a damn about what the people think.

And Sarah Palin has distorted what is in the health-care reform bill when she claims it includes a provision for a "death panel" that would decide when to pull the plug on the terminally ill and elderly.

This is a very serious distortion, a misreading of what the bill says. A commentator on MSNBC said he'd call that intellectual dishonesty, except that he does not want to use the word "intellectual" in the same sentence as the name of Palin.

Ms. Palin quoted a Washington Post columnist to support what she claims. If she had quoted just one more sentence—that is, the sentence following the quote—she would have included words that attack and discredit her.

On the former point, we can't be sure whether her misreading of the health-care reform bill was deliberate or simply lack of understanding it properly. I'm willing, rather than accusing her of malice, to assume it's her lack of adequate comprehension of what she was reading. However, when she reads and quotes the Washington Post, and goes no further in quoting than suits her—that is deliberately taking what she quotes out of context, and there's no mistaking intention there.

I see now (news a little bit more recent) that Obama has said she's wrong, but she refuses to back down. Why, oh why, can't everyone see her for the clown that she is?

So, even though I'm pretty sure my saying this yet again will do no good: Palin, Chaney, just shut up. Go away. I am sooo sick of you both.

Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein

Cheney Should Shut Up

George W. Bush has been observing some sort of protocol or tradition that says that a former president should not attempt to interfere in national political affairs. Dick Cheney, though, does not have any scruples about doing precisely that.

Cheney has been debating Obama--in public forums if not face to face--on the matter of the torture of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay prison.

The American voters have repudiated the Cowboy Culture of Bush-Cheney. Mr. Cheney should accept that he has had his day in the pulpit and simply shut up.

Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein