Playing the Blame Game: From Cheney to Cheerleader

by Thomas Dimopoulos

You could find them them late Wednesday morning, congregating in coffee
shops on Broadway, mothers with eyes reddened by tears, suffering from
the September separation after bringing their youngest ones to school.

In the collage of faces that make up a portrait of America, these were
some of them. Across the country in Houston, there were others. In the
Astrodome, a place built for baseball games, there are so many people
living in the field of dreams, it has been granted its own ZIP code.
These are the faces of the same portrait. There just may not be any more
tears left to shed.

It was a year ago this month that I sat in Madison Square Garden,
watching and listening to Vice President Dick Cheney making his case for
re-election. I remember it clearly because you could read the sentences
as they scrolled on the teleprompter over Cheney’s shoulder.

“George W. Bush is a man who speaks plainly,” Cheney read. “A man who
means what he says. A person of loyalty and of kindness. A man with a
heart for the weak, the vulnerable and the afflicted.”

That was a busy week for the vice president who only seems to pop up on
rare occasion, a political Punxsutawney Phil, emerging to poke his head
up just enough to predict long, cold winters and scare the bejesus out
of everybody before returning to his burrow.

So it was later in the week that Dick “The Phantom” told a town hall
audience in Des Moines, Iowa, that is was “absolutely essential’ to
“make the right choice” come Election Day.

“Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we will
get hit again,” he told them. “And we’ll be hit in a way that will be
devastating from the standpoint of the United States.”

Vote for Me or Die. That was the message coming out of the Republican
National Convention. We will save you. We will protect. We will preserve.

Eight weeks later, more than 50 million Americans voted these guys in,
largely I’m guessing because they bought the message.

A year later, with the gnarly eye of Katrina more than 300 miles away,
National Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield sounded the alarm that
for years everyone knew was coming.

“If that water breaches the levees, it will take forever to drain it
back out,” Mayfield said. Three days later the levees were breeched. And
in the days that followed, protection was nowhere to be found.

Eventually, President Bush spoke. “I don’t think anybody anticipated the
breach of the levees,” said the man who has proved that his finest hour
in his life’s work was when he was a cheerleader for the high school
football team. There at least, he could clap his hands together and not
hurt anybody.

In 2003, the cheerleader-turned-president nominated Mike Brown as the
head of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Previously, the director of FEMA was a chief rules enforcer for a horse
association. In 2005, Bush rewarded Michael Chertoff for his fundraising
efforts during the 2000 election by nominating him as Brown’s boss.

Chertoff became the director for Homeland Security. After the hurricane
hit, he said Katrina was “breathtaking in its surprise.”

Protect and preserve.

The only thing missing now is some genius to come forward and decree the
floods washing into New Orleans were divine punishment for the sins of
the city known for its jazz, its bourbon and its voodoo.

The only question is who will the genius be? We have gotten to know
quite a few of the characters in the past five years.

Republican Sen. Bill “Diagnosis from a Distance” Frist is a likely
candidate, given his across-the-country analysis of Terri Schiavo’s
condition. Then there is Condoleezza “I believe the title was Bin Laden
Determined to Attack Inside the United States” Rice, who despite actions
to the contrary, hasn’t verbally produced anything dopey in awhile.
There is also an entire pool of Rumsfelds and Roves and DeLays to choose
from. With protection like that, there won’t be much of anything left to
preserve.

The world, much of which was supportive just four years ago, has been
shaking its head in disbelief ever since. The people in this country, of
course, have been paying for the show. Although many seem to have
forgotten they are footing the bill. For them, hopefully it has been
entertaining watching the dime-store cowboy in action.

What to do now? Maybe he can pull on the old sweater and lead the nation
back on its feet with a rousing cheer.

“Come on people/ Rake ‘em over the coals/ clap, clap, clap/ clap, clap,
clap/ Show ‘em want you got/ Smoke ‘em outta their holes.”…

published in The Saratogian