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Is Cheney Evil or Just a Weasel?

By likening Dick to He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, we confirm the bully’s power rather than undermine it

By Susan J. Douglas

Cheney has done some scary things, but likening to him to He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, we confirm his power rather than undermine it.

The Dark Lord. Voldemort. Darth Vader. The Shadow President. These threatening, macho soubriquets have been applied to Dick Cheney over the past six years, and are in rapid circulation in the wake of recent charges that Cheney’s office, beginning in 2003, refused to submit annual reports about how it classifies secret documents to the National Archives’ Security Oversight Office. Turns out Cheney claims to be above such laws. The Washington Post’s June 24-27 series by Pulitzer Prize winner Barton Gellman and Jo Becker about Cheney’s ruthless and determined consolidation of power in the White House has further burnished the Dark Lord aura.

But the time has come to dispatch these heavily armored nicknames and go with another. I propose “Weasel.” In an era when image is everything, it’s time to change the image and attack the power.

Yes, Cheney has been scary for a long time, has done evil things, and his iron-jawed, gravel-voiced, unflinching assertion of certitude (often in clear contradiction to the Constitution) has protected him and his policies. But by likening him to He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, we confirm his power rather than undermine it. That’s why I like “Weasel.” Other comparable nominations are most welcome, as long as they convey furtiveness, evasion, prevarication and cowardice.

Obsessed with secrecy and domination, Cheney is a bully. And within every bully lies a coward, someone, for example, who waits 20 hours before notifying the media that he has accidentally shot a friend and then has a woman make the announcement for him. Macho, macho man.

Cheney’s long overdue need for ridicule is why we should be grateful that so many young people get their news from The Daily Show. Cheney’s office made the preposterous assertion that he didn’t have to comply with the Executive Order mandating the annual reports to the National Archives because he wasn’t part of the executive branch. Unfortunately for a dignified correspondent like ABC’s Martha Raddatz, the constraints of her job confined her to reporting, with a straight face, that Cheney has used “the opposite argument in the past, citing executive privilege when asked for information about his travel and visitors to his office.”

Jon Stewart, under no such proscriptions, can provide the level of disbelief that matches the outrageousness of this latest Cheney gambit. What The Daily Show consistently does best is juxtapose video of administration officials making their bogus pronouncements with video clips from the past, showing them saying the exact opposite. So Stewart showed Cheney on tape emphatically asserting executive privilege because he’s in the, er, executive branch. Stewart then looked into the camera to tell Americans that Cheney has always meant “to come up to us personally and say ‘go fuck ourselves.’ “

Now, for the sake of comparison, let’s imagine an administration official who has made a decision that goes very wrong, one in which people, including children, die. This official, only on the job for a month, could have blamed the FBI, which had urged the disastrous course of action, but did not. Instead, the official said, simply, “I’m responsible.”

That official was Janet Reno and she immediately admitted that the decision to assault the Branch Davidian compound in Waco with tear gas, leading to a conflagration that killed more than 80 people, was “obviously wrong.” The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had begun the confrontation with the Branch Davidians on Feb. 28, 1993, two weeks before Reno was even confirmed; this was a catastrophe she inherited and yet came to own. She did not hide from the press or retreat to an undisclosed location; she appeared on CNN and “Nightline,” and told Ted Koppel, “I think it’s one of the great tragedies of this time.” As Laura Blumenfeld wrote for the Post, “It is clear that a different kind of bird has nested at Justice … . The attorney general’s candor may surprise those used to politicians who duck and cover when things go wrong.” Several months later Reno’s approval ratings were higher than Clinton’s and she had one of the lowest unfavorable ratings of anyone in his administration. Nonetheless, because Reno was also deeply threatening to American gender norms—she simply looked at the masquerade of femininity women are supposed to don and said “No thanks”—she was the ongoing butt of jokes on Leno, Letterman and, of course, Will Ferrell’s SNL “Janet Reno’s Dance Party.” No protective covering for her.

Commentary about Dick Cheney should now strip him of his various creepy veneers because they give him the cover that makes his power seem all that much more unassailable. As the indefatigable Rep. Henry Waxman, the Post and others go after him for his serial assaults on democracy and the rule of law, the macho language surrounding him should give way to images evoking an utter inability to ever face the music. Cheney et al. have attacked others who threaten their power with variations on the “girly-man” slur. But when you think about standing tall and alone, having true courage and taking the heat for your mistakes, who is the true girly-man: Janet Reno or Dick “Weasel” Cheney?

Susan J. Douglas is a professor of communications at the University of Michigan and author of The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How it Has Undermined Women.

More information about Susan J. Douglas

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  • Reader Comments

    Abuse of Power

    From Nixon, Reagan to Lil Bush we have seen a reoccurring theme of Republican lawlessness and systematic abuse of power. Isn’t it about time we asked, “Are all republicans sociopaths?”

    Republicans have turned our government into a dictatorship in all but name only. Once independent federal agencies have been corrupted and subverted into Republican fiefdoms answerable to no one but the president. Bush’s never seen a covert plan to increase his power by lying, violating laws and the Constitution, he didn’t adore. This power mad monkey has no respect for our troops, our people, our country, or the rule of law. He is a sociopath.

    Bush’s ascension to the throne began with a crime committed by the Republican dominated Supreme Court’s decision to appoint him president. And it’s been followed by an unprecedented Republican Crime Spree ever since. Nothing apparently bothers republican voters but illegal aliens, abortion, gays and sex scandals. They are oblivious to a multitude of crimes too numerous to list, committed by Bush and Republican Congressmen. Not war profiteering, war crimes or stolen elections. For republicans there is no law but the Law of the Jungle.

    Cheney/Bush lied us into an unwinnable, illegal and insane war with less planning than a White House Easter Egg hunt. One would think we might have learned a lesson in Viet Nam, where we didn’t win with a half million troops surrounded by millions of Vietnamese guerillas. If Republicans had had their way, we’d still be fighting in Viet Nam, and still losing. The same applies to Iraq. We can bomb them into the stone age, but we can’t dominate their people.

    Why has no national news agency (or the Monopoly Media) called for Bush’s impeachment?

    Why has no national leader called for Bush’s impeachment?

    The answer is simple, they justifiably fear him and the Almighty Republican Establishment.

    But how did things get to the point that the American people fear elected and non elected (Bush & Rupert Murdoch for instance) criminals and tyrants?

    Are we not “the land of the brave and the free?”

    .

    .

    Posted by rabblerowzer on Jul 12, 2007 at 6:55 AM

    Hello Prof. Douglas:

    Let’s use two metaphors, both drawn from Roman history. Late Republican Rome and early imperial Rome are themselves such a rich source.

    It’s no “veneer” to see Sejanus in Cheney. It’s no veneer to see America (the Empire since 1896) as hated and feared, even by millions of its own citizens.

    The truth goes way beyond beast fable—

    Those wretched ephemeral babblers lusting after the purple in ‘08 notwithstanding, a slide into the abyss can only be slowed, not reversed.

    No political force exists which can not be enslaved or aborted by MIXR—the military industrial Xian right.

    Cheney, our postmodern Sejanus, merely catalyzes the rot of Empire.

    This is not necessarily a bad thing.

    “Ceterum censeo, Carthago delenda est.”

    eye-of horus
    copyright asserted 2007

    Posted by eye-of-horus on Jul 12, 2007 at 11:52 AM

    Addendum:

    “Ceterum censeo, Carthago delenda est.” is already spreading in the popular culture. Wanna buy a t-shirt --

    http://www.cafepress.com/trackemdown/1334844

    It’s a way of protest. The thought police in Carthage don’t use Latin.

    eye-of-horus

    Posted by eye-of-horus on Jul 12, 2007 at 12:06 PM

    Hi Y’all !

    I’ve been away for a while. Summer school!

    Need we even ask this question?

    Yes!

    People like Cheney aren’t evil. They’re not doing what they do to get back at God. Rather, they are just greedy, opportunistic b*st*rds who will do whatever it takes to get the biggest piece of the pie and control who gets the rest. Then again, that’s probably evil.

    Isn’t it funny that we have these misdealings and shenanigans EVERY time republicans get into the White House?

    Had Al Gore been elected we would have probably NOT had 9/11 as he would have eliminated those who attacked the USS Cole, a group (the taliban) that Georgie Jr. invited into our country as guests a few months later. Had the airliners been seized under his watch, he would have had F-15’s shoot them down instead of sitting there like an ignoramus reading a children’s book. And ol’ Rush would have deconstructed his actions with the fervor of the true believing idiot scamming the rubes with snake- oil.

    “IT WAS JUST A SCHEME TO GET RID OF BARBARA OLSON! SHE USED TO CRITICIZE HIM! FOLKS, DON’T YOU SEE WHAT THE DEMOCRATS ARE WILLING TO DO TO MAINTAIN THEIR PC AGENDA?”
    So easy to dupilcate.

    CORRECTION: strike the word “like”. Especially if that’s what you are.

    It would not surprise me that Cheney is more responsible for foreign policy dictates than most realize.

    Let me throw out a tin-foil- in- the- hat postulation:

    Is it entierly possible that Chandra Levy was murdered under the orders of high-ranking GOP’ers to keep Gary Condit, the only Democrat on the energy comission, VERY busy until energy policy (the B.S. we’re currently suffering) could be worked out.

    I know. It sounds crazy. Then again, this administration has shown it will do ANYTHING to achieve its goals. Is, then, eliminating one twenty something worth billions in revenue?

    Now I’m sure one of the right-wingers who cruise these site on an hourly basis will come after me. Have fun.

    Posted by Aunty Rightwing on Jul 12, 2007 at 11:31 PM

    P.S.

    one of my right-wing detractors made the juvenile comment that my posts were some sort of way to stay connected to the world. How pretentiously junior high school of you, especially since that person is on this post nearly every single day, sometimes several times per day. Attack based on premise of argument rather than ad hominem. Let’;s try to keep the postings at an adult level. Otherwise go to LGF and act like a moron!

    Just an opinion!

    Ta-Ta!

    Posted by Aunty Rightwing on Jul 12, 2007 at 11:38 PM

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Appeared in the August 2007 Issue
Also by Susan J. Douglas
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