Cheney Conundrum

Image licensed under Creative Commons by Mick Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Cheney Conundrum: Dick's latest media foray could be his last (that is, before his attorneys and handlers clamp a Denver Boot on his tongue...) and its making us ask the question; "Just how dumb is he?" and, further, "Just how dumb are we?".  Boy, some of us just aren't grasping the Cheney Conundrum - and that means the heavy hitters like Keith-O, Rachel, Chris Matthews and more... Or maybe we just missed a report from David Corn or Chris Hayes (we like Chris...).  JoeNBC seems a little too quiet, maybe he gets it...Joe is, after all, conservative...but still a professional...

GET IT?  Get what?  You may ask.  What Countdown has aired on the primetime (last night AND the night before...) is video of apparently Dick Cheney stepping on his own...er, sword...and possibly foisting himself on it.  How?  By the tacit admission that he supported *enhanced interrogation techniques (i.e., waterboarding) and some other potential war crimes.  We - try to momentarily forget that we are leftofleftliberalefties - firmly believe that he has really set himself up here and just about every other high-level persons-of-interest in the former Bush Administration for war crimes prosecution or violations of the Geneva Convention.

Further, these "confessions" were obtained from a person who apparently was not tortured nor subjected to waterboarding nor *EITs.  Yet, this person has apparently put himself and others of his ilk in jeopardy of a war crimes trial (or military tribunal) - with possible punishments and fines and other sanctions.  Therefore, by his own administration's "definitions" he has made himself a war criminal, or loosely defined, a bit of a terrorist himself.  Yet, his confession(s) and/or admissions were obtained without mention of habeas corpus, without rendition (extraordinary or otherwise), without restraint, without punishment, without military detention, without EITs, without waterboarding and without torture.  The man has clearly given us information without benefit of his own tightly adhered-to embrace of EIT and other illogical means of extracting confessions and/or verdicts.  Without delay.  Without restriction.  With freedom of speech and liberties guaranteed under a Constitution and Bill of Rights that his kind appear to have willingly usurped.

Lets try this again.  This man Cheney was not waterboarded, nor subjected to any form of EIT that we know of.  Nor is he under threat of such or any physical harm or torture.  Yet he appears to have willingly admitted and/or confessed to "terroristic" forms of war crimes and tortures by himself and by his own members of his administration.  Now isn't that extraordinary?  Its extraordinary that a proponent of extrajudicial means of obtaining punishments and extreme measures need not have been subjected to them now nor in the past nor in the future.  Its extaordinary that he is going around town promoting such means live and on-air.

In other words, he's just contradicting himself.  Over and over and over.  He's a living walking contradiction.  And an alleged war criminal.  Its supremely ironic.  The man has publicly disproven his own argument of what he stands for and continues to support.  The man is running rings around himself logically.  Yet, here he be.  He exists despite himself.  He should have collapsed into a black hole of irony by now.  Or at the very least, the Bush Administration should appear out of a wormhole and render him unto a secret POW camp in the past.  Which is where they should be.

Get it yet?

Bit.ly: http://bit.ly/aqWZeP

FOM: Cheney's Costly Mistake , It Came from the Veep and Paradix or Dickundrum.

Updated/Revised: Wednesday, February 17, 2010