He Got Old
Dennis Miller was on The Tonight Show last night, and while it's my policy to avoid Jay Leno, Dennis Miller is an excuse to violate policy. He's one of the smartest and funniest guys around, as far as I'm concerned, no matter what he's talking about. Strangely, though, he uttered the words "Look, I used to be a liberal," and then spent close to a minute addressing George Bush directly, telling him that he's got many more supporters than it might seem and that Miller is proud to be his supporter.
It's official, folks: Dennis Miller has gotten old.
John Perry Barlow hasn't, however and has written a great piece on the possibilities of war in general, and Dick Cheney in particular. Barlow paints Cheney as possibly "the smartest man [he's] ever met," and goes on to explain how maybe, just maybe, he's got the best interest of the whole planet in mind. I'm still not optimistic.
February 26, 2003 - 11:05 AM
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Geh. Well, as much as I wanted that article to piss me off, it didn’t. Maybe it was the title. That’s one of my favorite songs.
Don’t ever put me in charge of anything; I’m way too easily influenced.
Cheney is a co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, along with Rumsfeld and several other architects of the Bush administration’s current policies. The PNAC’s reports (e.g. “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”) explicitly call for the US to fight wars in order to demonstrate its military might, with the goal of US hegemony over the world (Barlow got this part sort of right). This doesn’t jibe with Barlow’s theory that Cheney et al are just bluffing and really aren’t interested in war - they’ve made it quite clear that they want it. Unless their reports were also part of some elaborate bluff, which would be odd considering they weren’t part of the government when they wrote them.
As for Cheney being a “man of principle” and “indifferent to greed”, I can only assume Barlow is basing this on his personal interactions with the man. The public record paints a very different picture. As CEO of Halliburton, Cheney played accounting tricks to hide liabilities in order to maintain the stock price, then sold $18 million in stock just before it tanked, and finally received a $20 million retirement package he wasn’t entitled to. All of this while cutting tens of millions in employee retirement benefits. What motivation other than greed would explain this?
There’s a lot of other tripe in here as well. For one the assertion that the Soviet Union “capitulated” in the face of US nuclear superiority and perceived irrationality, when in fact it simply collapsed economically. For another the notion that there was ever a “symmetrical balance of power” between the US and USSR. While it’s true that each could annihilate the other completely, in economic and conventional military terms it was never close.
In any case we’ll see how this all plays out very soon. Even though I don’t think it’s Cheney’s motivation, I think the scenarios Barlow mentions (coup or exile for Saddam) are probably the best that can be hoped for at this point. At least the Iraqis will be spared from barrages of cruise missiles and who knows what else.