Cheney's infamous "So?"

Former Republican congressman Mickey Edwards wrote yesterday:

Cheney told Raddatz that American war policy should not be affected by the views of the people. But that is precisely whose views should matter: It is the people who should decide whether the nation shall go to war. That is not a radical, or liberal, or unpatriotic idea. It is the very heart of America's constitutional system.

In Europe, before America's founding, there were rulers and their subjects. The Founders decided that in the United States there would be not subjects but citizens. Rulers tell their subjects what to do, but citizens tell their government what to do.

If Dick Cheney believes, as he obviously does, that the war in Iraq is vital to American interests, it is his job, and that of President Bush, to make the case with sufficient proof to win the necessary public support.

That is the difference between a strong president (one who leads) and a strong presidency (one in which ultimate power resides in the hands of a single person). Bush is officially America's "head of state," but he is not the head of government; he is the head of one branch of our government, and it's not the branch that decides on war and peace.

When the vice president dismisses public opposition to war with a simple "So?" he violates the single most important element in the American system of government: Here, the people rule.

Since when did Bush/Cheney rule for the people? Their reign has always been about ruling over the people. The public are but mere peasants who are ignorant to what is best for them. With Cheney's constant smirk, he knows what's best for us and this country -- not us. The sweet irony being these two guys have done more to take us back to pre-Founding Fathers days, pre-Constitution, back to when we were ruled over by a king in England. Just wonderful.

Yes, this two-headed king in the White House knows best and supposedly we're going to realize this fact decades from now. Wasn't it Keynes who said in the long-run we're all dead? Don't you just love Bush/Cheney's long-term timeframe to be judged on Iraq, and yet when it comes to something like global warming -- truly an occurrence with long-range repercussions -- they apparently have no concerns, assuming they'll be judged equally well.

Look, it's all a crock of BS, they know it and we know it. The bottom line is they could care less about anything 50-100 years from now, knowing they'll be long dead and gone and all that matters to them is the here and now. It's called maniacal sociopathic narcissism.