Why is the Administration Dickless? (sorry, had to say it, I'm twelve)
I'm sure we all remember how Dick Cheney vanished to an "undisclosed location" after 9/11. Now he's fallen off the radar again. I know I'm not the only person to wonder what in tarnation (see, I can be polite) is going on.
This diary is intended as a place to put questions, research, and theories -- I'll tell you right up front that I don't know where Dick has gone (sorry, it never gets old) or why.
I've come up with two theories:
- He's ill. How can we confirm/deny this? What reliable info is there about his current health?
- As long as Cheney is publically invisible, he's not self-tarring like Bush, Rice, Hastert, etc., are. Cheney is not becoming associated in the public mind with Katrina incompetance. His invisibility leaves him "clean" for a run in '08.
Okay, three theories.
3. He can't think on his feet, and he's smart enough to know it. This would explain why he disappeared after 9/11, too: he knew enough about his own reactions to stay off the public stage when he couldn't play the part.
Four theories. Among our chief theories:
4. He's too busy planning Halliburton's takeover of the Gulf. The LA/MS/AL Gulf, this time.
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Research:
References to Cheney in the last few days from the NY Times:
AP: Katrina Prompts Cheney to Postpone Trip. No actual quotes from Cheney, nor a statement of what he might be doing instead of going to Canada to talk about oil, as he had planned.
AP: Halliburton Subsidiary Gets Katrina Deal, supporting my theory #4. No actual Cheney sighting.
As White House Anxiety Grows, Bush Tries to Quell Political Crisis. Aha! We have struck Cheney. Bush gave a speech in the Rose Garden on Saturday, and:
As Mr. Bush spoke, Vice President Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser, listened on the sidelines, as did Dan Bartlett, the counselor to the president and Mr. Bush's overseer of communications strategy.
So has Cheney been staying behind the scenes to pull Bush's strings? If he has any vestige of political competence, why didn't he tug them a week ago? And you notice that this Cheney sighting did not include any public words.
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The Washington Post has some of the same AP stories the NYT has, plus this:
In the "White House Briefing" on Friday:
Vice President Cheney, who had been spending part of August at his home in Wyoming, returned to Washington yesterday, his spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride, tells me.
Note the distinct absence of visible Cheney.
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Please, add your research, your theories, your insights, your Google-fu. Hunt the rare and elusive Cheney on talk radio, in religious fora, consulting with "business leaders", re-calibrating GWB's radio controller. Every theory short of actual alien abduction is worth considering.
Where's the Dick?