...and another...

The one they call The Doctor writes in response to my Cheney screed... erm... I mean, learned disquisition upon the matter of the Vice President:

There is of course the other way to look at Cheney. Cheney the survivor. Cheney the main-chancer. Cheney, from my perspective, always thinks of one thing: How am I gonna get my next job?

Remember it was Cheney that set up his own job at Halliburton by lobbying hard during the first Bush administration for the Armed Forces to use more independent contracting. That move landed him the CEO gig at Halliburton, and allowed him to whiz around the country in corporate jets while the DEMs held the white house.

And, of course, even more famously, when put in charge of W's VP search committee, he set parameters that only he had and got the gig. Cheney had pulled a similar move in the Ford administration, becoming the youngest Chief of Staff in history.

Yup, Cheney's an idiot. Flunking out of Yale, especially in 1959, took real effort. But I think he knows he's an idiot, and therefore has focused on keeping and getting better jobs. Relying on the maxim: If you're in the room, you must belong there. Cheney gets in a lot of good rooms, and stays in most of them.

Which is, of course, entirely right. Cheney has shown an astonishing ability to better himself and gild his own pocket. Not entirely pleasant, but one wouldn't call a man an idiot for that. The reason why Cheney's a true idiot - a Neville Chamberlain, Louis XVI level idiot - is this: his actions have consistently damaged the same interests he so fanatically promotes: Republican governance, the stock value of the corporations he sits on, his most valued aide.

The consequences of his actions bring about the very things he wants to avoid.

And that is the mark of the idiot.