Because of Dick

(And because perris asked...)

There's been an increase in Cheney activity over the last several weeks, none of which has followed the man's M.O.

Or maybe it has. I can't recommend enough Joan Didion's recent essay, Cheney: Fatal Touch, featured in the New York Review of Books; in it Didion points to Cheney's lifetime of obsfucation which clouds our view of his "other priorities".

He is rarely ever direct, except in cursing others. "Go f*ck yourself" is pretty straightforward and could hardly be misinterpreted or parsed by the recipient, Senator Leahy, or any other person within earshot. But in most communications, Cheney inserts enough content to obscure direct attribution and blame. Perhaps he has fully assimilated the concept of Nixonian "plausible deniability" learned in his salad days to the point where everything is a double-entendre, possessed of more than one possibility. "It's not Harry's fault," he said of his victim's role in the hunting accident last year; Cheney couldn't simply say, "It was my fault, all my fault. Period."

It borders on the pathological, this inability to be direct, this inability to accept full, unvarnished responsibility.

Which makes one wonder exactly what is going on in Cheney's world right now, given his persistent muddying of every matter. He goes hunting the day before the elections, his plane leaves South Dakota a full 24 hours after the polls closed, when it is already very clear that things did not meet Karl Rove's expectations. Why was he not in Washington D.C.? Why was hunting more important? Why would a man who'd accidentally shot a friend within the last year even contemplate going hunting at a time that should have been more stress inducing for most hardcore Republican incumbents? (Although Cheney has gone hunting during a mid-term election -- back in 2002, before the Iraq War, when the case for war was still being built. Coincidence? Hmm...).

But perhaps I am asking questions that would occur only to normal Americans.

And what of Cheney's trip this week to visit Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, labeled a diplomatic visit? Since when does Cheney do diplomacy? Why do we suddenly need to negotiate with Saudi Arabia? Wouldn't we send State Department officials instead of a guy with an incredibly low job approval rating and no real track record in successful diplomacy? What is the real reason behind this trip, given the rumors that Cheney was in Iraq on Thanksgiving Day that have yet to be substantiated?

Both the hunting and diplomatic trips follow the reported arrival of a shredding truck at Cheney's residence. I'm sure the truck's crew wasn't there to move furniture, but then the media has done nothing to determine the reason for a shredding truck, let alone what was shredded. I don't know about your household, but a fifty-dollar cross-hatch shredder purchased at Staples handles all my household's shredding needs -- family and small business combined -- and then some. I can't fathom how much material I'd have to generate to call a shredding truck, let alone the kind of material sensitive enough to need professional handling.

Oh wait, I do know. I worked for a Fortune 100 company that had highly specific corporate standards on shredding; the most sensitive material would require secure handling and shredding, the kind of material that if misconstrued or misused could cause catastrophic financial damage to the company. We'd call security, who'd escort the shredders to pickup the material, and then take it away to "burn" (permanently and irretrievably destroy). But the volume of material a Fortune 100 company's legal department generates is surely different than the household of the Vice President, yes?

No further explanation from the Veep at this time, in keeping with his usual obscurity.

But maybe special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has an explanation for us. I'm hoping after the recent volley of filings ping-ponged between Scooter Libby's defense and Fitzgerald's teams, perhaps an obstruction of justice charge will emerge for the Veep. But if the targets and persons of interest have been obstructing Fitzgerald's view all along, this hope may be thwarted.

And entirely fitting Cheney's lifelong modus operandi.


[Sorry, perris, no snark here. I really think the Veep is trying to get away with multiple crimes and I'm plumb all out of snark about that.]