Playing President
Saturday the George W Bush presidency will come to an end. As he is officially anesthetized and rendered insensitive to information and immune from good advice (or as cynics might will and do say, “Nothing new.”) Dick Cheney will become officially, what so many believe he has been unofficially, the acting President of the United States.
While George W has a colonoscopy (insert your own joke here, along with the light and camera), the VP will have all the duties and obligations of the president. Am I frightened by this? Of course not. What could he do in two hours? He could go to war. But he’s already done that. He could suspend Habeas Corpus. Whoops, too late. He could alienate all our former allies. Who’s left as an ally to alienate? He could steer lucrative contracts to his former employer. Mission accomplished. He could get his former assistant’s prison sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice commuted, but this too he’s already done. He could I suppose, absolutely worst case, decide to invade Iran, but with whose army? Our’s is already occupied occupying Iraq.
No wonder Vice President Cheney doesn’t want to run for president. There’s nothing left on the agenda. Like the young Alexander who surveyed the world and wept because there was nothing left to do, Cheney may be feeling strangely empty during his two hours of official power. He could always go hunting.