Cheney and The Pequod

I pulled in last night after losing a tennis match (I play in a rec. league here in BR for exercise, and got plenty of it. The match was three sets, and the two sets we lost took tiebreakers to decide).

Anyway, after cleaning up, I took a quick look at a couple of sites, and came across this via The Angry Arab. Bob Woodward, who is no Melville, nonetheless has excerpts from his latest book on page one of The Washington Post.

Now, I can't vouch for Woodward's veracity, but if his story is accurate, Bush becomes little more than second-mate Flask to Dick Cheney's Ahab (actually, Cheney's physical appearance is more of a morph between Peleg and Ahab, but...). Colin Powell (Starbuck?) called the Veep's obsession with Hussein a "fever," and I wonder of Dick personally held Saddam responsible for at least one of his heart attacks--or the gradual deterioration of his ticker over time.

I picture Cheney, clad in a hospital gown, scowl on his face, pacing up and down the hallways, wheeling along an IV dispenser, pondering Hussein, who floats along in the Sea of Oil (robbing old Dick of his breath, his energy, his very life force), muttering to himself: "I seek the Great White Unfinished Business! I had you in my sights, Moby Saddam, but old man Bush wouldn't move in for the kill!"

Later, he pulls out a dabloon and, breathing heavily, hammers it into the wall of his West Wing office. "Cost-plus military contracts to whoever brings me the head of Saddam Hussein!" As he lets his obsession grow, the mid-sized fish that Saddam represents grows to leviathian proportions. Growing ever more delusional, Dick rants, "I seek the proof of Weapons of Mass Destruction! I seek the elusive connection to Al Qaeda and 9/11! I seek to place the Great White Blame on Clinton for allowing this to tarnish my reputation! I seek"--then he grabs his chest in a fit of coughing and heaving--"nitro! Get---me---goddamned nitro pills! Adrenaline---hypo--now!" before collapsing on the couch, aides at the ready with his pharmacopia.

Having crossed the line long ago, Dick is no longer worried about the unhealthy ramifications of his Saddam fixation. EVERYTHING becomes an excuse to attack. There are those who argue that Saddam is hardly more than a guppy in the whole scheme of things, but to Cheney, the Sea of Oil is vast, and Saddam is Nemesis. It may kill him, it may sink the boat, but he will have Hussein.

Well, unlike the epic, Cheney got his man. But the boat has been beached on the sands of Mesopotamia. A beached ship is about as useful as a beached whale, and the small fry that are the resistance will be able to snipe at and otherwise pick off the odd patrol more or less at will. The "coalition" is sinking, as more countries realize the futility of the operation. The Pottery Barn Rule is in full force: Iraq is ours. We broke it--now we have to pay. $200 billion and counting. Maybe it's even worse than the Pottery Barn Rule: at the mall, you only have to pay once. We'll be paying for Iraq over and over again.

And Cheney is going down with the ship.