Because when you shoot a 78-year-old man in the face, and the same 78-year-old man ends up apologizing to you, say what you want but that's the ultimate hallmark of a real gangster. Although actually not having a heart doesn't hurt your notoriety either.
Born in Casper Wyoming (yes, the town is as pale and white as it sounds), the early life of Richard Bruce Cheney is as all American as it can get. He played football in high school, he's still married to his high school sweetheart Lynn, he soaked himself in beer when his life hit rock bottom and he got arrested for DUI twice. His favorite food is Spaghetti and he loves nothing more than to get on a boat and fly fish. While others in his age group were rioting and getting high for love and peace in the 1960s, he was the guy working away in the library while looking down on the hippies with his oh-so-Cheney scorn.
He was, and perhaps still is, the square among squares that whitey has to offer. And his squareness was a key factor shaping his imperial vice presidency we have come to know and despise.
By the time he became VP of the United States, Cheney had already assumed the position of White House chief of staff, deputy chief of staff, House Minority whip, and Secretary of Defense in the administration of Nixon, Ford, Reagan and H.W. Bush. Since Lil Bush had no experience or intention to read up and learn the details of policy, all the details and policy briefs were passed to and soaked up by Cheney, along with the authority of the most powerful man on the planet. His long career gave him a mass network of important people from politics, business and the Pentagon, and it allowed him to rearrange the power structure of the White House to his liking. Intimidating, silencing and hustling anyone who disagreed or asked questions.
On 9/11, as not-so-curious George was reading My Pet Goat in Florida, Cheney was ordering the military to shoot down the unidentified plane - possibly loaded with civilians - heading to D.C. as he assumed the authority of emergency operations. His response time in accepting this historic role of authority, according to his former #2 man "Scooter" Libby, was as fast as it takes "a batter to decide to swing."
He was also the man who out-bullied and out-intimidated the CIA over WMDs in Iraq. I repeat, he out-intimidated the CIA: arguably the most dangerous covert organization in the world. And even after he was proved wrong across the board, he has yet to change one iota of his opinions or his mannerism of absolute certainty as he criticizes Obama and U.S. foreign policy on Fox news. Making the historical achievement of being the conservative who was rebutted by non other than Fox New's Megyn Kelley.
As I've mentioned earlier, I hate everything that Dick Cheney stands for. He pretty much designed the surveillance state that led to the Snowden revelations; he was a key player and architect in the rise of Private Military Contractors like Blackwater and Halliburton subsidiary Kellog, Brown, and Root; and it is his company Haliburton that has patented and is currently expanding fracking, killing the Eco system faster than you can say enhanced interrogation.
But non-the-less, Dick Cheney still doesn't fail to fascinate me. And my fascination with this Dick among Dick's - who has definitely out-dicked tricky dick Nixon in my view - boils down to this: he didn't and still doesn't give a friendly ghost's ass what the entire world thinks about him, as demonstrated in the clip below.
To borrow the words of the author Barton Gellman, Cheney was "the nearest thing there was to an anti-politician in elected office." He never expressed any desire to be president, he didn't give a flying frack about polls and public opinion, and he read briefs and full intelligence reports every morning while other politicians were cold calling for checks and donations. He was a man with unwavering conviction, which was both his biggest weapon and liability. While this rigidness and inflexibility of his opinions led him to be alienated in the latter days of the Bush administration, it also made him the all time behind the scenes hustler that he was.
With his squareness, political experience and his Tony Soprano swagger combined, he shaped and hustled history unlike any other. And we have to admit that saying "so?" the way he did on national TV takes massive (and possibly reptilian) cojones of steel. For better or for worse we might never again see the likes of Cheney, but when you're in need of courage and conviction, remember that there once was a man who received an apology from a 78-year-old lawyer who he shot in the face. His name was Dick Cheney, the biggest gangster to ever shape history.
P.S. Did I tell you that he literally doesn't have a heart? Like, literally?
I really like this.
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