With Halloween approaching, I'm reminded of something I've wondered about from time to time: Just what is the deal with Dick Cheney, anyway? Does he think he's going to live forever? I realize if one is Lucifer's spawn or an undead from Scowlvania, one doesn't actually "live" in the technical sense, but I ask you to go along for argument's sake. (During Cheney's debate with John Edwards, he said he hails from Wyoming. What he didn't mention, though, was that this was, in fact, Wyoming, Hell, a place where he spent a lot of quality time with his dad, Satan Cheney.)

Asking what drives Cheney is essentially a rhetorical question, of course, since his middle name is secrecy and he'll surely never let the black cat out of the bag. (Actually, his middle name is "Bruce," but don't let that fool you: "Bruce," in Scowlvanian, means "secrecy." See now how it all fits together?)

This is still a semi-free country, though, so we can at least speculate why Cheney, who is 63 years old but doesn't look a day over 75, still insists on pushing his sick agenda of destroying all that is good about America, when, someday in the not too distant future, he'll just be an incredibly bad memory. (Or some really scary ghost-like, soul-sucking, creature-type thingy.)

Knowing that horses rear and flowers wither when Cheney passes, the GOP tries its best to put a (para)normal face on him, but this is sort of like putting a dress on Dennis Rodman. (OK, so this may not be the best or most topical example, but my analogy assistant is on vacation.)

For instance, on Fright Night at the Republican National Convention last month, Americans were treated to quite the double bill of double-dealers: an evening with Democrat-cum-Republican Senator Zell Miller and then Cheney, two guys colder'n an Antarctica ice core sample from two miles down, who nonetheless tried tugging at our heartstrings with homilies about their families. Each expressed grim-faced concern about the futures faced by, respectively, Miller's great grandchildren and Cheney's grandkids.

Why, I wondered: so they can eat them? I mean, can you even imagine being related to either of these two? Cheney, in response to John Kerry's mention of the veep's openly lesbian daughter during the last presidential debate, said he was a "pretty angry father."

Wow -- now there's a scoop.

Back to my main point, though, about Cheney, which is: What is the point? Just why does he still insist on mucking with us so? Why doesn't he just go away to wherever evil things go when they go away?

For one thing, look at the guy's health: he's already had about 17 heart attacks, which no doubt assures him of being accompanied everywhere by a team of high-priced, 24-hour-a-day on-duty cardiac specialists, along with a spare heart or two, just in case a transplant is needed.

Or perhaps a "football" travels with Cheney, like the one with nuclear missile launch codes that goes wherever the president goes. Only this is a real football, ready for jamming into Cheney's chest cavity at a moment's notice in case whatever is in there now falters. ("Spiking" penalties would not apply, I'm guessing.)

So his health bites (vampire joke bypassed here), yet Cheney presses on to suck the very lifeblood out of every living thing he encounters (but not here).

Additionally, he's fabulously wealthy, having been a successful rip-off artist—uh, businessman—for years. And he is also the real president, as anyone who follows the gruesome twosome haunting the White House must know by now. Isn't this enough?

Well, no. It's never enough. I'm reminded here of the so-called Q-tips® theory (called so by me): You know how when you put a Q-tip in your ear, and then really dig around in there even though you know you shouldn't do it because the doctor warned you about that sort of thing the last time you had to see her because, yet again, your ear ended up all inflamed and you were all embarrassed because she'd told you before you really should know better than to go sticking things in your ear because you're an adult, for crying out loud, and then you tell her you swear you're not going to do it anymore, but later go ahead and do it anyway, because it just feels so damn good and, besides, what could just one more time hurt?

Though not a favorite of Unilever, the Q-tips® theory helps explain why creatures like Cheney and his fellow Project for the New American Century pals Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, and the rest, deem it a capital idea to militarily occupy the world in an insane and brutal effort to secure "American preeminence": the pursuit of unfettered power and untold bounty produces a high that, if you can believe it, feels even better than inserting into your ear small pieces of cotton affixed to thin little sticks and then wiggling them all around.

In other words, it's an addiction like any other, and Cheney is just another junkie, pure and simple. Unfortunately for the global community, the price of Cheney's fix(ation on ruling the world) doesn't just result in a broken marriage or lost time on the job or even sore ear canals, but in the deaths of thousands and the systematic looting of their lands (also sometimes called "no-bid contracts").

Studies have shown that most people, if pressed, will admit they're against being killed and pillaged. It's also a generally accepted tenet of polite society that trying to take over the world, no matter how good the reason might sound back in the old PNAC break room, is, for lack of a better term, kind of wrong.

But for an addict like Cheney who is on a serious imperialistic runner, this is utterly inconsequential. In the rush for his next rush, he has lost all sense of his own mortality. If asked: "Do human beings live forever?" the majority of respondents would likely answer, "Probably not." (Most experts agree even Dubya would have a decent shot at getting this one right.) But not Cheney. He acts like if he starts enough wars and accumulates enough money, he will somehow thwart his own demise and be able to forever revel in the rotten spoils of his mad deeds.

So here's the deal: Cheney is not an orc or part werewolf or from another planet or a grim zombie (although, if he were, he'd be sour even by zombie standards) or a giant worm or descended from vampires. What he is, though, is very sick, and extremely dangerously so. And just as all such others who came before him, and all those sure to follow, in order to stop him, it's up to us, the people, or, I guess, maybe that should be "we, the people" (or, come to think of it, is it the "wee people"?)—well, at any rate, somebody's gotta stop him. And if'n my calendar's correct, I do believe there is an opportunity for a big-time national intervention coming up November 2.

Still, just in case, I'm off to Home Depot to stock up on some wooden stakes.

Copyright (c) 2004 Mark Drolette. All rights reserved.

Published originally in Online Journal.
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