We denizens of the Washington DC metropolitan area who work inside the Beltway know quite well who Dick Cheney is. Most people in the United States, however, have at best a hazy idea of him. And certainly, there is no particular reason why the international readers of this Web log, who are legion, would know anything much about him. So a little background is probably appropriate here.
Throughout his long and storied political career, Dick Cheney was associated with Richard Nixon, Donald Rumsfeld, John G. Tower, Ronald Reagan, and both Bushes, numbers 41 and 43. Bush 41 appointed him Secretary of Defense, where he directed the US invasion of Panama and, more famously, the first Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm. When Bill Clinton took over the White House, Dick went to work for the American Enterprise Institute and then became the Board Chairman and CEO of Satanic Industries, Inc., otherwise known as Halliburton. In 2000, when Bush 43 asked him to find a vice-presidential running make, Dick Cheney scoured the landscape for the best candidate and then recommended himself.
With a little bit of help from a conservative Supreme Court and some hanging chads in Florida, he and George W. Bush won, and Dick served as vice-president of the United States until 2009. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, he was a principal actor in making the case for the (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which in turn provided the pretext for the Second Gulf War. Throughout both Bush 43 administrations, the word on the street (and the cloak rooms) in Washington had it that Dick was really the one in the driver’s seat and “The Shrub” as the younger Bush was derisively known, was just along for the ride. In summary, if you looked up “Conservative Big-Business Military-Industrial Complex Republican Operative” in your favorite search engine any time before 2023, the SERP would be a list of hits on URLs pointing to Dick Cheney. Consequently, among liberals in general and progressives in particular, Dick Cheney’s reputation was similar to that of Darth Vader’s with the Rebel Alliance.
Now, however, Dick Cheney has announced that, come November, he will be voting for Kamala Harris. In other news, pigs flew, chickens grew teeth, the Amazon river ran dry, the Irish quit drinking, the French stopped smoking, Germans developed a sense of humor, Norwegians all turned into extroverts, English food became palatable, Hell froze over and Pope Francis got laid.
Yes, strangely enough, Dick Cheney is now voting for the same presidential candidate as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. According to my sources at the Brookings Institution and the RAND Corporation, this definitely signals one of two things: it’s either the first sign of the Apocalypse or the possible beginnings of a fundamental shift toward sanity in the 2024 elections. As to the likelihood of those alternatives, I figure a toss-up and according to the polls, Dick’s Big Announcement isn’t having much of an impact on the election, so maybe it’s time for everybody to head for their bunkers. Astoundingly, forty-six percent of the American electorate still say they are voting for Donald Trump, who, for his part, has recently announced his plans to jail and execute people who criticized him or contributed money to Democrats, and to scrap the US banking system, replacing the dollar as the world reserve currency with his own personal-branded crypto called “TrumpBucks.”
Concurrent with these interesting developments, US Attorney General Merrick Garland has announced a federal indictment of Tenet Media, Inc., a MAGA Republican media outfit headquartered in Tennessee, charging it with “a scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging.” Tenet Media promptly folded less than seventy-two hours later.
The company’s founders, Liam Donovan and Lauren Chen, who are Canadian, are, as might be expected, unavailable for comment and believed to be currently on the lam in the wilderness somewhere north of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, living off nothing but stale scones, trapped roast beaver and sixteen cases of LaBlatt’s. Left twisting slowly in the wind, as they say here in the Nation’s Capital, are three self-styled conservative internet personalities that worked for Tenet named Benny Johnson, David Rubin and Tim Pool, who, unlike their bosses, are US citizens and therefore less able to conveniently flee the FBI and let the RCMP and / or Interpol chase them instead. As all three organizations have a reputation for always getting their man (or in Lauren’s case, woman), every miscreant involved can expect to be called upon to answer some rather pointed questions concerning their services rendered to Vladimir Putin.
What the conniving Canucks have to say for themselves remains, for the moment, to be heard. The three stooges, on the other hand, have been vociferously protesting that they are just that – dupes, patsies, suckers, and know-nothing chumps; morons, and nincompoops; dunces, dolts and clueless imbeciles; nitwit, blockhead dummies who don’t know spit from Shinola, gibbering simpletons who lack the common sense God gave a picnic ant – in short, they are telling anyone who will listen they are the pitiful, ignorant, half-wit victims of sinister, nefarious and above all, absolutely inscrutable Russki deceit.
Actually, listening to what they have had to say over the years, it’s not all that hard to believe. So I was a bit startled when the three of them called me while I was trying to relax at home on a weekend afternoon.
Tom: Hello, who’s this?
Johnson: Hi! It’s Benny Johnson. I’m in a conference call with Tim Pool and Dave Rubin. Do you know who we are?
Tom: Whereas that’s not a crime, I’ll admit to it.
Johnson: [Laughs] Right. Very funny.
Tom: Where did you get my home telephone number?
Rubin: From Rand Paul! He’s a big fan of our podcasts and videos, you know.
Pool: He’s even been on my show!
Johnson: Hey! Me too!
Rubin: Me three!
Tom: Wonderful. Congratulations. I’m sure you had some… scintillating conversations with him. To what do I owe the honor of a phone call from your august company?
Rubin: Ah, yeah, well, that’s just it, see? We heard you’re pretty good in the advice department and we sure could use some. And what’s more, they say you offer free advice to first-time customers.
Tom: Clients.
Johnson: Yeah, right, clients, so we were all here brainstorming on this conference call, and Dave mentions that he has your number and we figured, hey, why not?
Tom: And, I take it, you couldn’t think of any reasons?
Pool: Right! Not a single one!
Tom: Well, I certainly don’t have any problem understanding that. What kind of advice do you gentlemen need?
Pool: Kind? That would be some kind of “stay-out-of-jail” advice, I guess.
Tom: I’m not a lawyer.
Johnson: No, no, he means, we’re concerned about the… what you’d call… I suppose… the…. Uh….
Rubin: The general acceptance, more or less, of our… um… explanations… of why we don’t know anything about the Russians being behind Tenet Media and all that stuff, you know?
Johnson: It’s a PR thing.
Rubin: Yeah, not a legal thing.
Pool: Uh-huh, that’s what I meant. It’s not like we want you to advise us to shut the [expletive] up and be careful not to go on YouTube and say anything that could be interpreted as intimidating a witness or obstructing justice or whatever, because our lawyers have already told us all that [expletive].
Rubin: Strictly branding advice, image consulting, that sort of thing.
Tom: Very well then, shoot.
Johnson: Okay – it’s like this: we keep telling folks that we had no idea the Russians were behind the stuff we were putting out there in our podcasts, videos and [expletive]…
Pool: ‘Cause we really didn’t! Honest!
Rubin: That’s right! Scouts’ honor! We knew absolutely nothing about any [expletive] Russians!
Johnson: But they just don’t seem to believe us!
Rubin: They just roll their eyes, sigh, nod and say stuff like, “Yeah, sure, of course you didn’t,” in like, this really sarcastic tone!
Pool: Can you imagine that? All three of us are world famous for our honesty and integrity, you know!
Johnson: Yeah! Our journalistic ethics are unquestionable!
Tom: I’m sure. So, I take it you need some ideas about what to say so people will believe you are just the innocent victims of an evil Russian plot?
Rubin, Johnson and Pool: Yes!
Johnson: That’s exactly what we need!
Pool: Some really… plausible stuff, you know?
Rubin: Really convincing stuff!
Pool: ‘Cause we’re all like, totally innocent!
Johnson: Completely innocent!
Rubin: No way we knew anything!
Tom: Understood. First of all, I assume you heard some… Slavic sounding names tossed around now and then there at Tenet?
Johnson: Uh… well… yeah, sometimes.
Tom: But when you heard them, you naturally concluded they were Polish, right?
Rubin: Um… what?
Tom: I mean, any time you heard a kind of Eastern European, Slavic sort of name, you naturally thought, “Oh, yeah, they must work for some kind of Polish affiliate media group,” didn’t you?
Johnson: Why… why, yeah, yeah, sure we did. All three of us did. How would we know those were the names of Russians?
Tom: You wouldn’t, of course.
Rubin: Right! Right! Of course we wouldn’t! We thought they were Polish!
Pool: All three of us thought they were Polish!
Tom: I’m sure you did.
Johnson: Okay, good. That’s real good, Collins. What else you got?
Pool: Yeah, like, we really need something to explain the money!
Rubin: Absolutely! Gotta have that.
Johnson: People are constantly asking about the money.
Tom: A hundred thousand a week for each of you, wasn’t it?
Johnson: Yeah, yeah, something like that.
Pool: And by now it’s added up to like, nearly ten million bucks, see…
Rubin: Nine point seven million.
Pool: Okay, right, like I said, nearly ten million, and people just won’t shut up, asking us questions about who did we think was paying us that kind of money to put their material on our podcasts, right?
Tom: Tenet’s a conservative outfit, correct?
Johnson: Huh? Oh, yeah, of course it is.
Tom: And all three of you are conservatives, aren’t you?
Rubin: That’s putting it mildly!
Pool: We’re conservative patriots, that’s what we are!
Johnson: Conservatives’ conservatives, that’s us!
Tom: So you believe in Christian values, right?
Johnson: Of course!
Pool: No doubt!
Rubin: Well, actually, I’m Jewish.
Tom: No problem. There’s a Jewish version of this solution, too.
Rubin: Okay, what is it?
Tom: Mr. Pool and Mr. Johnson, you became followers of the Prosperity Gospel, watching Joel Osteen, John Hagee and Kenneth Copeland on television.
Pool and Johnson: We did?
Tom: You did. You watched their television services, and you made up prayers based on the Prosperity Gospel and then you recited them with your hand on the TV set so God could hear them. That’s standard procedure.
Pool and Johnson: We did?
Tom: You did. And when you did, as advertised, it appeared to you that your prosperity prayers were answered. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, you were offered a hundred thousand dollars a week to do your podcasts and videos. So, naturally, you assumed that it was the promised miracle of the Prosperity Gospel being fulfilled. And you were pleased, naturally, but felt that it would be presumptuous to question the Will of the Lord. So you decided just to accept your good fortune, not question it. Given the circumstances, to delve into the source of the money would be tantamount to blasphemy. Got it?
Pool: Yeah, right, got it!
Johnson: Hey, wait, not so fast. Wouldn’t there be records of us sending those guys money?
Tom: Did I say you sent them money? No. These men of God inspired you and Mr. Pool with the Prosperity Gospel and you called upon the Lord using those principles. At no time did you join or contribute to their congregations, however. And Mr. Rubin, there’s a very similar story for you, except it’s Rabbi Daniel Lapin and his Talmudic revelation that the true nature of money is spiritual. You got into that, you davened your butt off praying, asking for spiritual enlightenment through wealth, and you got it. And when you got it, you, too, felt it would be blasphemy to question too deeply where that money came from.
Rubin: Oh. Um, okay, sure.
Tom: You all were just piously accepting the bounty of the Almighty with proper gratitude and not presuming to doubt your Heavenly Benefactor.
Johnson: No, no, we’d never do that.
Pool: What else you got?
Tom: How about – Liam Donovan and Lauren Chen created the impression that they were secretly working for Rupert Murdoch, and the copy they were getting was material the FCC wouldn’t let Fox News broadcast.
Rubin: So we thought that Murdoch was secretly using us as an alternate channel?
Tom: Correct. I guess you could call it an “Alt-right” alternate channel.
Johnson: Hey, yeah, I like that!
Pool: And he’s really rich, so we could say we thought maybe the money was coming from him!
Tom: Well, perhaps the thought crossed your mind, but you never looked into it all that closely.
Johnson: Right, right – we didn’t want to question the Lord’s Will.
Tom: Exactly. And you could also say that Liam and Donovan told you the Russian disinformation and propaganda was coming through a secret channel from Q.
Pool: Q?
Tom: Yes, Q as in QAnon.
Johnson: Oh… him! Right!
Rubin: Sure, that’s where we believed that [expletive] was coming from!
Tom: Or, maybe you were under the impression that all that material was being collected by Liam and Donovan from incels living in their parents’ basements, posting to 4Chan and Reddit.
Pool: Oh, right, sure, it seems to me I remember them saying something like that.
Tom: On the telephone.
Johnson: Right.
Tom: Not in an email or a text or in any kind of hard copy, of course. It would have to be something they just mentioned in passing.
Rubin: Definitely. That’s what I remember, for sure.
Tom: Or perhaps they might have told you, in person or during a telephone conversation involving only yourselves and one of them, that the material was policy analysis and investigative studies from the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society.
Pool: Sure, sure, seems to me I just might have heard them say something like that, too.
Tom: And actually, the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society have been getting a lot of their material under the table from the Kremlin lately, anyway.
Rubin: Oh, right – so when the FBI finds out about that…
Johnson: It will corroborate what we said!
Pool: Sweet! What else?
Tom: Well, there’s this run-around story I have that’s designed to confused the press and the public so much, its veracity will be virtually unquestionable.
Rubin: Really? Sounds interesting.
Johnson: Yeah, please tell us about that one!
Tom: Okay, the setup is, you three guys, like a lot of journalists, have a friendly rivalry going on trying to scoop each other.
Pool: Yeah, sure, sure, everybody does that.
Tom: And the Russians, they’re really sneaky, see, and they knew about it. So what they did was, they sent, say, Pool here some of their dirty, rotten Russian stories through various intermediaries, who, of course, were sources requesting anonymity…
Johnson: Oh, oh! I get it! And since we’re journalists, we can’t be forced to reveal who they are!
Tom: Correct. And these intermediates pitched you, Pool, for instance, a story by saying it was a scoop stolen from, say, Johnson here. So you, Pool, you had to snap it up and put it on your podcast quickly before Johnson could, which is why there was never any time to fact-check anything.
Rubin: And the [expletive] Russians did that with all of us! Hey, [expletive] it! Now that you mention it, I think maybe they really did do that with all of us!
Johnson: Damn, it, I think he’s right!
Pool: Oh, [expletive]! Those vodka-swilling [expletive] borscht guzzling [expletive] Russian [expletive]!
Rubin: Hey, wait a [expletive] minute! You guys really stole my [expletive] scoops from me?
Johnson: Oh, and like you didn’t?
Rubin: Well, now that I know what was going on, maybe it’s a good thing I did!
Pool: Oh, [expletive]! You guys stole my scoops? I mean, you really did, didn’t you! You mother [expletive] [expletive]!
Johnson: You stole ours, you [expletive] [expletive]! Serves you right!
Pool: [Expletive] my [expletive] [expletive] you [expletive] [expletive]!
Tom: Gentlemen, I think my work is done here…
Johnson: No! You [expletive] my [expletive] you [expletive]!
Rubin: [Expletive] you!
Pool: Who, me?
Rubin: Yeah, you too, you [expletive] [expletive]…
Tom: Goodbye!