He wasn’t talking to the pictures on the wall, as Nixon did when he
finally cracked. Vice doesn’t trust those portraits anyway. The walls
have ears. He was talking to the only reliable man in a city of
dimwits, cowards, traitors and fools: himself.

He hurled a sheaf of news reports with such force it knocked over the
picture of Ahmad Chalabi that he keeps next to the picture of
Churchill. Winston Chalabi, he likes to call him.

Vice is fed up with all the whining and carping — and that’s just
inside the White House. The only negativity in Washington is supposed
to be his own. He’s the only one allowed to scowl and grumble and
conspire.

The impertinent Tom DeFrank reported in New York’s Daily News that
embattled White House aides felt ”President Bush must take the reins
personally” to save his presidency.

Let him try, Cheney said with a sneer. Things are nowhere near dire
enough for that. Even if Junior somehow managed to grab the reins to
his presidency, Vice holds Junior’s reins. So he just needs to get all
these sniveling, poll-driven wimps and losers back on board with the
master plan.

Things had been going so smoothly. The global torture franchise was up
and running. Halliburton contracts were flowing. Tax cuts were sailing
through. Oil companies were raking it in. Alaska drilling was
thrillingly close. The courts were defending his executive privilege on
energy policy, and people were still buying all that smoke about
Saddam’s being responsible for 9/11, and that drivel about how we’re
fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here. Everything was
groovy.

But not anymore. Cheney could not believe that Karl had made him go out
and call that loudmouth Jack Murtha a patriot. He was sure the Pentagon
generals had put the congressman up to calling for a withdrawal from
Iraq. Is the military brass getting in touch with its pacifist side? In
Wyoming, Vice shoots doves.

How dare Murtha suggest that Cheney dodged and dodged and dodged and
dodged and dodged the draft? Murtha thinks he knows about war just
because he served in one and was a marine for 37 years? Vice started
his own war. Now that’s a credential!

It always goes this way with the cut-and-run crowd. First they start
nitpicking the war, complaining about little things like the lack of
armor for the troops. Then they complain that there aren’t enough
troops. Well, that would just require more armor that we don’t have.
Then they kvetch about using incendiary weapons in a city like Falluja.
Vice likes the smell of white phosphorus in the morning.

What really enrages him is all the Republicans in the Senate making
noises about timetables. Before you know it, it’s going to be
helicopters on the rooftop at the Baghdad embassy.

Just because Junior’s approval ratings are in the 30’s, people around
here are going all wobbly. Vice was 10 points lower and he wasn’t
worried. Numbers are for sissies.

Why do Harry Reid and his Democratic turncoats think they can call the
White House on the carpet? Do they think Vice would fear to lie about
lying about the rationale for going to war? A real liar never stops
lying.

He didn’t want to have to tell the rest of the senators to go do to
themselves what he had told Patrick Leahy to go do to himself.

Now all these idiots are getting caught, even Scooter. DeLay’s on the
ropes and the Dukester is a total embarrassment, spending bribes on
antique commodes and a Rolls-Royce. Vice should never have let an
amateur get involved with defense contracts.

Republican moderates are running scared in the House, worried about
re-election. Even senators seem to have forgotten which side their
bread is oiled on. Ted Stevens let oil company executives get caught
lying about the energy task force meeting, while Vice can’t even get a
little thing like torture chambers through the Senate. What’s so wrong
with a little torture?

And now John Warner wants Junior to use fireside chats to explain his
plan for Iraq. When did everybody get the un-American idea that the
president is answerable to America?

Vice is fed up with the whining of squirrelly surrogates like Brent
Scowcroft and Lawrence Wilkerson on behalf of peaceniks like George
Senior and Colin Powell. If Poppy’s upset about his kid’s mentor, he
should be man enough to come slug it out.

Poppy isn’t getting Junior back, Vice vowed, muttering: ”He’s my son. It’s my war. It’s my country.”