Cheney, the paranoid (Vanity Fair national editor Todd) Purdum reports that Cheney travels with a chemical-biological suit at all times. When he gave his friend Robin West and his twin children a ride to the White House a couple of years ago, West commented on the fact that Cheney's motorcade varied its daily path. "And he said, 'Yeah, we take different routes so that "The Jackal" can't get me,'" West tells Purdum. "And then there was this big duffel bag in the middle of the backseat, and I said, 'What's that? It's not very roomy in here.' And said, 'No, because it's a chemical-biological suit,' and he looked at it and said, 'Robin, there's only one. You lose.'"
When Purdum asks Cheney if he is fatalistic about his heart disease, Cheney says, "I am. I don't even think about it most of the time. You do those things a prudent man would do, and I live with it." Asked what he would have for breakfast at Nora's Fish Creek Inn, his favorite pre-fishing spot in Wilson, Wyoming, Cheney responds without missing a beat: "I'd probably have two eggs over easy, sausage, and hash browns," then hastens to add that that is not his normal breakfast. "The day I go fishing, I get off my diet," he says." At a roundtable lunch with reporters a couple of years ago, two who were present tell Purdum that Cheney cut his buffalo steak into bite-size pieces the moment it arrived, then proceeded to salt each side of each piece.
Purdum asks Cheney if, during his "darkest night," he has even "a little doubt" about the administration's course. "No," he tells Purdum. "I think we've done what needed to be done." Of the debate over whether or not the administration hyped the pre-war intelligence, Cheney says, "In the end, you can argue about the quality of the intelligence and so forth, but … I look at that whole spectrum of possibilities and options, and I think we did the right thing."
Cheney rejects the caricature of him as the power behind the throne, insisting, "I think we have created a system that works for this president and for me, in terms of my ability to be able to contribute and participate in the process." When Purdum says that the cartoon characterization of him must not be accurate, Cheney says, "My image might be better out there, this caricature you talk about might be avoided, if I spent more time as a public figure trying to improve my image, but that's not why I'm here."
Tip of the hat to
this blog for finding this upcoming
Vanity Fair piece.
And some great commentary on the piece from the blogger Jed:
Isn't that just typical? While we all scramble for duct tape and plastic sheeting, this asshole carts a biohazard suit around with him. What a dick. And is it any wonder the country has been in a perpetual state of delusional panic for the past six years? The madman at the helm of the ship is convinced that someone, anyone, everyone is out to get him. It's the trickle-down theory of paranoia. Sure, he could be joking about the 'the jackal' coming after him, but let's face it -- he's probably not.
snip
Does anyone honestly think that Bush is really ‘The Decider’ in this relationship? Hell, Bush wasn't even the one who decided to pick Cheney as his VP in the first place. Cheney chose himself.
snip
But Bush isn’t there to be the president; he's there to play the president. He's nothing more than a sock puppet, and Cheney is the hand.
snip
This is a man who isn’t interested in asking questions. He doesn’t want to be bothered by inconvenient contradictions to his set-in-stone belief system. He’s Uncurious George, and that’s exactly why the Neocons chose him for the role. These guys knew what they wanted to do going back 15 years, at least. They just needed someone uninterested and disengaged enough to pimp it for them without asking any pesky questions. They needed a hunk of clay, basically, and they chose George W. Bush.
They’ve appealed to Bush’s belief in a higher power. They’ve convinced him that he’s the chosen one. They persuade him to adopt their goals and opinions as his own and then let him ride out his messianic fantasy. They've created this insulated bio-dome for him to operate from, one where all his decisions are his own, are justified and ultimately turn out for the best. They need him to live in this fantasyland, where freedom is on the march and the armies of compassion hand out lollipops of liberty, in order to carry out their plan. And who are “they” led by? None other than Dick Cheney, an original signatory to ‘they’re’ plan, also known as the Project for the New American Century.
The next step in that plan apparently is to go after Iran.
snip
So who do we want calling the shots, a bumbling buffoon with the attention span of an 8-year-old? Or a paranoid schizophrenic with a penchant for blowing things up? I say neither, we gotta impeach ‘em both. And now.
Way to go, Jed! Hope to read more of your work.
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