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Faulking Opinions - Feb 17, 2006 - Printable Version
- A Bridge Too Far
by Linda C. Wilson
As we listen to the media express with glee how Dick Cheney's legacy will forever be "The Shooter", I am sad to recall a night in 1969 when Ted Kennedy, old lead foot, had an auto accident at Chappaquiddick. No mercy from the press, the local sheriff, or the Republicans. No milk of human kindness shown for the youngest Kennedy brother who survived this accident. Only screams of sorrow for the girl in the car who drowned. Ted K. made the wrong decision that night. The Republicans have fed off this for years, as his brothers lie dead from assassin's bullets. When Ted tried to make a run for US President, they threatened to kill him. They branded him a drunk and a murderer! In 1969, Ted Kennedy did not report his accident immediately. Beginning with his first statement to police Kennedy always maintained that he delayed reporting the accident to authorities because he was "confused and in shock" after the accident. Now, today, in 2006, V.P. Cheney uses this same excuse for delaying the interview with law enforcement and sidestepping responsibility for notifying the media as well as the White House. I think all the world now sees who is really in charge and who's the boss. Cheney didn't need to call Bush because Bush takes orders from the VP, not the other way around. That is quite another story.
To this day, mean-spirited people continue to call for Kennedy's head because of this accident. He is called a "murderer". Is this bridge accident too far in the past to remind us that men in high places make big mistakes because they are human, after all!
When Richard Mellon Scaife was paying people to investigate Clinton's sex life, did he know that before all the shoes fell, GOP headliners like Henry Hyde and Newt Gingrinch would be outed for their infidelities as well? When they impeached Clinton for lying about sex, did they lower the bar for impeachment in such a way that men like Cheney could lie over and over about Weapons of Mass Destruction and never be held accountable for these deceptions, even though they helped pushed America into an illegal war against a very small country?
Yes, the right wingers know that men are weak and men make mistakes and try to hide them. But life often being a crapshoot, the GOP has been spraying us with buckshot for 30 or 40 years, as they vilified the liberals and divided this country into REDS and BLUES. While liberal civil rights workers have fought for decades to erase the color line, the conservatives have pitted the Left against the Right, and just left us to fight it out in the lower courts and in the streets, while they roost in Ivory Towers built with Black Gold...Oil!
Now it's time for us to pour forth the milk of human kindness for Cheney because he made a mistake. He was so arrogant and greedy, he tried to take out a little bird without following protocol, that being to know where all the hunting party members stood prior to taking his shot.
Dick Cheney is an old man and the man he shot is an old man, they don't get much practice, he messed up, we are asked to understand and not condemn him as he grieves for his friend's welfare. But is that bridge in Chappaquiddick too far from their memory's now for them to remember a younger Ted Kennedy who made a mistake, killed a friend, didn't report his accident appropriately and tried to hide from his mistake until he got his ducks in a row? (No pun intended!)
No, this is another case of the conservatives talking one thing and living another. Rules that they set for the Kennedy's in 1969 do not apply to the entitled VP Cheney. He has executive powers. I think that Dick Cheney had to be counseled by Rove to appear in public and to appear contrite. How can we tell what's real with this man as Cheney's head is always bent, eyes averted, grimace lurking right below the surface.
If Ted Kennedy's excuse for his night of shame and horror was insufficient and has been fodder for the right wing for decades, so will Cheney's excuse fall flat and his apology be empty.
They have demonized the Liberals for so many years, it will be hard to find much sympathy now for a secretive, above-the-law guy like the Vice President. He isn't friendly, he isn't fun, he isn't fair, he isn't honest about anything important like WMD and war for oil, and he isn't going to get any free pass on this hunting accident.
What great things might have been accomplished for America and the whole world had they put aside their smear campaigns and greedy ambitions, forgiven mistakes in the other's private lives, and done the business of government for the people who elected them. What a safe and healthy planet we would have if these guys spent more time in the office than out drinking beer and driving, or more recently, drinking beer and blasting away with a shotgun. We can only, as John Lennon sang, imagine.
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