Hating on Everybody, Starting with Dick Cheney

So I haven't been posting much. (I won't apologize because, really, whose feelings am I hurting?) In part, I've been trying to get some work done. And some sleep. (Failing at the sleep right now.)

But mostly I've just been too pissed off to blog.

Readers of this blog may assume I'm pissed off all the time. Usually, "grumpy" is a better adjective. But lately "pissed off" is accurate. "Infuriated" is even better. I'm infuriated all the time with my government, and my blogging just makes it worse. So I've been trying to fight the urge.

Sometimes, I can numb the rage by reminding myself that they haven't yet figured out a way to keep Bush in office for four more years, though I don't doubt that some Regent University law grad is working on it over at Justice.

Still, I can't believe the administration is standing by Gonzales, threatening to bomb Iran, trying to appoint as Surgeon General someone who thinks he's found a way to cure homosexuality (next up, Doctor Demento cures the clitoris), calling the Iraq War the most important struggle that America faces while not asking anybody but twenty-year-olds in fatigues to make any sacrifices for it, pretending we can fix climate change by blaming it on China, half-ignoring Afghanistan, totally ignoring the Sudan, blah dee in-a-handbasket blah.

There's so much to say and so little reason to say it--anybody paying any attention of any kind knows how bad it is and is waiting for Nov. 2008 because it seems like any change must be for the better.

So in a way, I should be grateful to Bush. He's been so bad for America, so disastrous, that people across the political spectrum have started to realize that, although they do they have have fundamental differences, they all want a President who, at a minimum, can find on a map the places he wants to blow off that map. Hell, I'm starting to hear liberals, in all seriousness, call radio shows and praise Ron Paul. You know things are bad when people start saying, "Sure, Paul wants to abolish the Dept. of Education and end Social Security, but even so, George W. Bush makes me feel that that Paul really shares my lefty values."

But I'm not grateful to Bush. I'm mad. Very mad but also very tired. I'm past spitting mad because my mouth has dried up and my hawking muscles are all worn out.

So I'm not going to tackle any big issues in this post. Just a small one.

Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Henry Waxman just posted a set of documents outlining Dick Cheney's efforts to thwart routine operations by the Information Security Oversight Office, a branch of the National Archives created by executive order to ensure that all executive branch entities properly label and safeguard classified information. Since 2003, Cheney has refused to let the ISOO do its job. The ISOO has appealed, and the Justice Department is erasing its own e-mails. I mean, the Justice Department is considering the appeal.

Cheney hasn't replied in writing to the ISOO, so nobody's sure what his rationale is for refusing. (All previous VPs have since complied the order creating the ISOO went into effect, and Cheney himself complied in 2001 and 2002.) The New York Times is reporting that Cheney's justification seems to be that he's not really part of the executive branch because he's also a member of the Senate. Or maybe that his office isn't really an executive branch "entity" in the sense meant by the executive order. (And I thought Republicans frowned on ontological questions about what is is and what entities are.)

Well, fine, Mr. Vice Presisenator, but if you're not really part of the executive branch, then you can damn well stop claiming executive privilege when the Congress or a special prosecutor wants to ask you about your meetings with oil execs or about one of you aides mishandling classified information.

Or, if your really want to distance yourself from the executive branch, you could resign.

You could go back to Haliburton. As a contractor. In Anbar province.