Les Aucoin at Huff Post: "You Don't Know (Morbid) Dick"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-aucoin/you-dont-know-dick_b_54249.html

Les AuCoin
You Don't Know Dick

It's surprising that it took so long for Dick Cheney to be seen as the shadowy, macabre figure he has revealed himself to be -- a tout of torture, a prophet of preemptive war, and a sorcerer of secrecy (not to mention a wholly self-owned branch of the U.S. government).

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My epiphany occurred on a May morning in 1987, when Cheney and I found ourselves together in Red Square.

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On our second morning in Moscow, my friend, U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA), and I rose early to jog before the start of a long day of meetings. What could be more indicative of the new US-Soviet era than two U.S. congressmen trotting through Red Square, past Lenin's Tomb and the Kremlin, without clearance from a party apparatchik?

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Steam rising from our sweat suits, Dicks and I were anxious to share our exuberant moment with Cheney. "Imagine, Dick!" Norm exclaimed. "Here we are, standing in the middle of Red Square. What does it make you think?"

Cheney gave a thin smile and replied, "Just that I'm standing on Ground Zero."

I knew Cheney for ten years as a fellow congressman and for four years when he was defense secretary and I, a member the House Defense Appropriations Committee.

When people ask me to describe Cheney, I say, "morbid."

This is a man who believes in war (despite -- perhaps because -- he's never been in one), feels no moral qualms about making the U.S. an attack-first nation, and subscribed to the nuclear doctrine perfected by Reagan's defense secretary, Casper Weinberger: "1) to fight a protracted nuclear war; 2) to fight it on a global basis and, 3) to prevail" .

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twisted, evil little soul.

his soul is an apalling dump heap overflowing
with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable
rubbish imaginable, mangled up in tangled up knots.


(thank you dr. seuss)

children to their deaths. It's not difficult being autocratic when your supporters reinforce your behavior because they mistaken it for leadership. And, as long as there is no Fairness Doctrine and conservative pundits can keep the spell alive, who is going to tell them differently?

Just our luck. Cheney gets a Napoleon Complex at the wrong time in history.