Character
In a courtroom, "character witnesses" are often called to vouch for - or against - the good name of the accused. In political campaigns, it's become the ammunition of choice - paint the Democrat as a tree-hugging wuss while the Democrat keeps talking about all the things the Republican has destroyed through willful negligence.
Why does character matter? Because the only way to know what someone will do in the future is to examine their past. Past behavior is the only sure indicator of what truly resides in a person's heart, and of what decisions they will make when faced with a challenge.
And so the Swift Boat Traitors were assembled by Karl Rove to lie about John Kerry's war record. In doing so, they created enough doubt in the minds of the low-IQ crowd to cost votes and make the presidential race close enough to steal. The hunter-gatherers thought that if Kerry behaved shamefully while under fire in Vietnam - or lied about actually being under fire - he would make similarly timid and over-cautious decisions as president.
Which they were actually right about, in a sense. If there had been any truth to the disgusting lies of the Swift Boat Traitors, it would have meant that John Kerry was a coward and a liar.
But in fact, the only cowards and liars were the accusers. Which brings us back to Bush-Cheney.
Dick Cheney was successful in avoiding service in Vietnam. While maintaining hawkish conservative opinions about the fight, he hypocritically declined to serve. That's character.
Cheney has operated under the radar as the most powerful VP in history, and has pushed the Junta to its most catastrophic failures. He was the engine of the fabrication machine that drove the Iraq war, and it was his office that ignored the information about the broken levees that "Brownie" was calling in.
It's impossible to list all his failures, and to name the names of the dead he's left in his horrible wake, but we can look, once again, at his character after he recently became the first - to my knowledge - sitting Vice President to shoot a man.
Character, in an important political leader, influences all the important decision made around him. Cheney is so dark and malevolent that White House staff fear him - and would not make the right decisions about announcing his attack to the press when they had the opportunity.
Bad character led the Secret Service to turn away local police investigators until the next morning. Bad character led to Cheney continuing to hide from the American people to whom he has an obligation to explain his actions.
Bad character led him to ignore the rules of hunting (as I've read from numerous sources over the last several days) in whirling around 180 degrees to fire in an area he was unsure of. And it turns out that the victim was downhill from Cheney - meaning he had to lower his aim to hit his victim - extremely irresponsible behavior which indicates bad character.
Cheney allowed his host to call the local media instead of being a man and standing up to explosion himself to the national media. He has continued to allow his victim to be blamed for the incident - which is always the fault of the shooter.
Was Cheney drunk? Since he hid from the police until the morning, it will never be proven that he was drinking - but it will never be disproved either. I'd be curious to see if blood tests showed the presence of alcohol in the victim - perhaps an indicator of whether the hunting party was drinking.
Cheney, for all his macho bluster, has acted un-manfully. He has not stepped up to take responsibility for his actions, as a real man would. Hell, he hasn't even publicly alologized.
The incident is getting a lot of play in the press, and rightfully so. It's not that it's important to how the government functions, or foreign policy, or the record deficit.
It's the character test, and Cheney has failed.
Why does character matter? Because the only way to know what someone will do in the future is to examine their past. Past behavior is the only sure indicator of what truly resides in a person's heart, and of what decisions they will make when faced with a challenge.
And so the Swift Boat Traitors were assembled by Karl Rove to lie about John Kerry's war record. In doing so, they created enough doubt in the minds of the low-IQ crowd to cost votes and make the presidential race close enough to steal. The hunter-gatherers thought that if Kerry behaved shamefully while under fire in Vietnam - or lied about actually being under fire - he would make similarly timid and over-cautious decisions as president.
Which they were actually right about, in a sense. If there had been any truth to the disgusting lies of the Swift Boat Traitors, it would have meant that John Kerry was a coward and a liar.
But in fact, the only cowards and liars were the accusers. Which brings us back to Bush-Cheney.
Dick Cheney was successful in avoiding service in Vietnam. While maintaining hawkish conservative opinions about the fight, he hypocritically declined to serve. That's character.
Cheney has operated under the radar as the most powerful VP in history, and has pushed the Junta to its most catastrophic failures. He was the engine of the fabrication machine that drove the Iraq war, and it was his office that ignored the information about the broken levees that "Brownie" was calling in.
It's impossible to list all his failures, and to name the names of the dead he's left in his horrible wake, but we can look, once again, at his character after he recently became the first - to my knowledge - sitting Vice President to shoot a man.
Character, in an important political leader, influences all the important decision made around him. Cheney is so dark and malevolent that White House staff fear him - and would not make the right decisions about announcing his attack to the press when they had the opportunity.
Bad character led the Secret Service to turn away local police investigators until the next morning. Bad character led to Cheney continuing to hide from the American people to whom he has an obligation to explain his actions.
Bad character led him to ignore the rules of hunting (as I've read from numerous sources over the last several days) in whirling around 180 degrees to fire in an area he was unsure of. And it turns out that the victim was downhill from Cheney - meaning he had to lower his aim to hit his victim - extremely irresponsible behavior which indicates bad character.
Cheney allowed his host to call the local media instead of being a man and standing up to explosion himself to the national media. He has continued to allow his victim to be blamed for the incident - which is always the fault of the shooter.
Was Cheney drunk? Since he hid from the police until the morning, it will never be proven that he was drinking - but it will never be disproved either. I'd be curious to see if blood tests showed the presence of alcohol in the victim - perhaps an indicator of whether the hunting party was drinking.
Cheney, for all his macho bluster, has acted un-manfully. He has not stepped up to take responsibility for his actions, as a real man would. Hell, he hasn't even publicly alologized.
The incident is getting a lot of play in the press, and rightfully so. It's not that it's important to how the government functions, or foreign policy, or the record deficit.
It's the character test, and Cheney has failed.
posted by fiduciary at 7:56 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home