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There isn't a single individual in American politics that I despise as much as The Dick Cheney. It doesn't appear that there is a single decent thing about him. He is the lowest level of human being I've seen. Think of the ground that covers ... I live in the redneck south.
The Dick decided to give an exit interview to Jim Lehrer of PBS and if any other person had said the things he said, I would assume they were delusional and should be given professional help, or perhaps they should even be locked away. With The Dick however, you know he's saying these things just to mess with us. That's what evil people do.
You see, The Dick is basically looking us in the eye and saying come and get me. He knows that even though the laws of the land are supposed to apply to him, they don't. For all the talk the right loves to hurl at the left about elitism, they are the ones who love to put themselves above the law. They are the ones who seek special treatment, even after they have broken the law.
It all began with another Dick (Tricky Dick to be exact), Richard Nixon. When Gerald Ford decided to pardon Nixon, it sent the message that any attempt to hold Republican politicians accountable for their criminal actions would not fly. When elected Republicans do bad things, well, so what? Move on. That's the past and only the future matters.
So Nixon committed crimes and he was pardoned. Reagan committed crimes but he couldn't remember so we just laughed them off. Bush I committed crimes as VP, but they were swept under the rug and he pardoned many of the Reagan offenders as well. Bush II and The Dick Cheney have run the most lawless administration we'll see in our lifetimes. There may be an electoral price to be paid, but the crimes themselves will be swept under the rug.
This is, of course, a double standard that only applies to Republican politicians. Republicans spent billions of dollars, yes billions, in an attempt to find anything that would bring the Clinton's down. Nothing worked, because they didn't find anything, because there was nothing to find. Well, they tricked Bill Clinton into lying about having an affair, but that was it. Of course, even if the impeachment didn't work, it had the effect of sidetracking a progressive administration.
Now that the Democrats are in power, I'd like to see a little accountability, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm going to go out on a limb when President-Elect Obama and many of the Democrats in Congress say they want to look forward rather than worry about what happened in the past. I find this dangerous. It treats serious criminal offenses as if they were nothing more than cheap political stunts. Additionally, the bad guys will be back in power someday and if we don't punish the criminals now, what's to stop them from pulling the same crap again?
The press will, of course, play along. They will paint any attempt to prosecute members of the Bush administration as nothing more than "partisan politics run amok". They will talk about the need of the American people to "heal" and "move on". The old cliche is that that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Thanks to the press, an accurate history won't even be available.
Now, I agree that the country needs to move forward. However, I, and many like me, will not forget the crimes that have been committed in the name of protecting the American people over the last eight years. If the elected party won't do their part in bringing the criminals to justice, it will be our responsibility to raise an unholy stink about it. We cannot tolerate these crimes. We cannot forget these crimes. We cannot allow the good name of the United State of America to be run through the mud.
