Change the Channel Already

Yet another missive excluded from "All The News That's Fit To Print." Why I have no idea...


CHANGE THE CHANNEL ALREADY

November 19, 2007


Dear Mr Friedman;

I feel that your most recent Op-Ed ("Channeling Dick Cheney," November 18, 2007) should have been tabled for a later date. Specifically, the first of April. Reading through it didn't exactly beg a question, at least not at first, but rather a conclusion: the charmingly colloquial, "You done fell out your tree." Kindly file my response alongside what is certain to be a fusillade of electronic mail.

On what successes, exactly, could you possibly base Cheney-based brinkmanship as a positive? (As Vice President, of course; his stellar track record in private practice wheeling and dealing is beyond dispute. And we'll leave alone, for the moment, the image of 70 million Persians quizzically adopting a befuddled Scooby-Doo pose in unison, with a sardonic, "What's his problem? Didn't that guy just sell us those centrifuges?" emanating toward the heavens in free-flowing Farsi.)

Assuming you weren't wear ing your I Think They're in the Last Throes, if You Will, of the Insurgency tee-shirt whilst writing "what's on my mind" for this column, please allow a couple of your assertions / suppositions to be roped back into reality:

i) Cheney may indeed have half a policy, as you say, but it's the kind that eats the other half.

ii) Stating that "...Cheney’s Dr. Strangelove imitation is totally wasted with President Bush and Secretary of State Condi Rice. Because the president and secretary of state have never been able to make up their minds as to what U.S. policy toward Iran should be — to bring about regime change or a change of behavior — it’s impossible to have any effective diplomacy" only obfuscates the true chain of command: Bush and Condi can make up their minds all they wish; if Dick doesn't do diplomacy, then there's no diplomacy, period.

iii) That the secretary of state should go play-acting to the Iranians as if they were dimwitted redskins about to lose either a little or a lot more land was a bit unnecessary, and borderline rude. They can always be bombed back to the Stone Age later, right?

iv) Quoting Robert Litwak was helpful, as “...for coercive diplomacy to work, you also need to be ready to take yes for an answer” takes us to the core of the Cheney legacy: There isn't any room for "yes" in his version of diplomacy, though there appears an inexhaustible capacity to make things worse by ignoring facts, baiting other nations and perpetuating conflict whenever possible. It's created an enormous tab that will take generations to pay off, running concomitant and irrespective of how level is the surface of the earth for some to drive their assorted Lexi through respective groves of olive trees...

v) Throwing Tony Soprano vs. Big Bird upon this hypothetical Obama canvas, however, was not helpful: Tony Soprano actually negotiated away conflict on occasion. He also generally punished, rather than rewarded, those beneath him who screwed up (and here you can add equal parts Bush to the recipe). You're describing Cheney the businessman with such an allusion, not Cheney the civil servant. Perhaps more appropriate would be sentencing the Vice President to spend his remaining days in office sporting a suit of yellow feathers, muttering on endlessly about Iraq's Snuffleupagus of Mass Destruction.

vi) It's doubtful that you'll ever hear an American trumpet Jimmy Carter's successes with respect to Iran, primarily because there weren't any. Were he to be elected, Barack Obama could indeed learn something by studying the Carter presidency thoroughly and then not replicating it. But what is perhaps even more uniquely American is an assumption that the only other option is to "...work, through, sort of the dark side, if you will..." with a Dick Cheney mindset. In recent months Cheney again carried on about the Iraq / al-Qaida link pre the 2003 U.S. invasion. Unless such fiction seems plausible to you, Mr Friedman, I can start with almost 3900 reasons why you should refrain from suggesting, even if partly in jest, that being Cheney-like in any respect is good for this country or its citizenry.

But let's let Lord Vader speak for himself:

“Let me make a generalized statement about a trend I see in the U.S. Congress that I find disturbing, that applies not only with respect to the Iranian situation but a number of others as well,” Cheney said. “I think we Americans sometimes make mistakes . . . There seems to be an assumption that somehow we know what’s best for everybody else and that we are going to use our economic clout to get everybody else to live the way we would like.”

"The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratic regimes friendly to the United States."

Vintage (centrifuge-era) Cheney. Honk once to lift sanctions, twice if sending in the military increases stock options 3000 percent...

Mr Friedman, with all due respect for the times you've made sense, after allowing this semi-inscrutable piece to be published you may wish to just say Uncle, Tom.


PT
Seattle, Washington


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