Hello, uncle fucker.

Hats off, friends – Uncle Dick Cheney, president of these here United States, came to my home town this Friday to do a fundraiser for a local GOP geek who’s running for an open seat in the House of Representatives. The visit has generated a range of reactions, from expressions of delight at what an honor it is for Utica to host such an illustrious guest (like that nice general Pinochet… oh, and Mrs. Pinochet!) to a fair-sized protest march and rally (see www.creepyveep.com for details). Personally, I’m glad that this 300 pounds of condemned veal in a gray suit (as Gore Vidal so aptly described him) is going out of his way to endorse the Republican in this district’s first truly competitive congressional race in a quarter century. Cheney is a political leper, quite frankly, even less popular than his mutant ninja boss; a clip of him saying what a great congressman Ray Meier would make is just the kind of free advertising the opposition needs.

Many people ascribe a kind of satanic darkness to this bloated object, but I have to say that I agree with Alex Cockburn on Cheney – he’s largely a fuck up, and thick as a plank. I mean, when has he gotten anything right? If it weren’t for the fact that there is, in essence, no opposition party and that the corporate press is a pack of subservient curs, Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld would have been out on their incompetent asses a long time ago. As it is, the vice president is now probably the most despised politician in America. Pity he’s running the country, really. I mean, the guy is so lame that even Vladmir Putin — VLADMIR PUTIN, for chrissake! — got a laugh line out on him the other day. I always think of that day down in Mississippi when Cheney was doing a post-Katrina photo op in his shirt sleeves and some guy shouted, “Fuck yourself, mister Cheney!” Probably the high point of his presidency… I mean, VICE presidency. Well… I suppose that would beat Bush’s high point — catching a big fish in his private pond. These boneheads could wreck the entire American empire simply by strolling through it.

Speaking of the empire, things are really going septic just lately. If some kind of imperial order does exist, there is currently no one at the helm. Israel is pounding the living hell out of Gaza and Lebanon at the same time, while Hizbullah (in Lebanon) is vowing all out war on Israel in retaliation. They are, of course, a Shi’ite organization, and attacks on them will ripple through the majority population of Iraq, as well as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. Probably 100-150 million Shi’ia Muslims in the world, and I can’t think that very many of them are happy to see clerics’ homes being flattened and their children beheaded by Israeli munitions. Our official response? Israel has the right to offend itself. Did I get that right? Oh, yeah… a good offense is the best defense, right? So our way of helping is by lecturing the victims. That’s the stuff, Bolton. You tell ’em.