The White House’s legacy of failure.

I know, of course, that President Bush has failed at nearly everything that he’s ever done, no matter how shiny the silver platter on which opportunity has been handed to him. Bush Exploration, Arbusto, Spectrum 7, Harken — all kaput. But what I didn’t know was that Cheney’s record is just as terrible, and not just on the business front. In the current issue of Rolling Stone, T.D. Allman has a piece entitled “The Curse of Dick Cheney: The veep’s career has been marred by one disaster after another” that provides an enlightening character study of Cheney, in addition to the depressing biographical sketch. My favorite bit is how he avoided the Vietnam War — which he has since justified by saying that he “had other priorities” — and still ended up becoming the Secretary of Defense and, of course, Vice President:

He showed no interest, one way or another, in the Vietnam War — until a Texas president, nearly forty years before George W. Bush, turned a remote foreign struggle into a catastrophic, unwinnable war. Thanks to Lyndon Johnson’s escalation of Vietnam, lounging around was suddenly no longer an option. Cheney snapped into action. First he enrolled in Casper Community College; then he went to the University of Wyoming. That kept him out of the draft until August 7th, 1964, when Congress initiated massive conscription in the armed forces. Three weeks later, Cheney married Lynne Vincent, his high school girlfriend, earning him another deferment. Then, on October 26th, 1965, the Selective Service announced that childless married men no longer would be exempted from having to fight for their country. Nine months and two days later, the first of Cheney’s two daughters, Elizabeth, was born. All told, between 1963 and 1966, Cheney received five deferments.

In January 1967, when he was enrolled at the University of Wisconsin, Cheney passed his twenty-sixth birthday, making him safe from the draft — and making it safe for him to abandon work on a doctoral degree

Everything that Cheney touches crumbles to dust — every president under whom he has ever served (Nixon, Ford, and George H. W. Bush) has self-destructed. Here’s hoping history repeats itself.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »