Monday, February 15, 2010

Thanks A Lot Clarence!

So there I was...watching "This Week" with Jonathan Karl on ABC. He was interviewing former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Normally I would have hissed and booed and turned it off. I am not a big Cheney fan.

But, for some reason...maybe to be as informed as I can be...I watched and listened. I tried to listen with an open mind.

Karl questioned, Cheney responded. I looked everywhere for horns and flames and I looked especially closely at his ears to see if there was any smoke coming out.

I couldn't find anything. No horns, no smoke...nothing.

I listened to an apparently intelligent man talk cogently about terrorism, Obama, Guantanamo and a host of other topics.

The surprising thing was that he made sense. He wasn't offensive nor was he an angry soldier of the Right.

He was making an argument that seemed to make sense. It didn't seem that he was criticising Obama out of hand but, instead, he seemed to making his observations based on experience and a realistic and plausible point of view...one that shouldn't be negated simply because it was coming from him...Mr. Very Low Poll Numbers Satan Incarnate himself.

Now I know that it is fashionable in Left leaning intellectual circles to deride Cheney and his friends...Palin, McConnell and McCain to name a few.

But he was making some sense to me.

But then again...maybe it was like that moment in Capra's "It's A Wonderful Life" when George Bailey is being lured by Mr. Potter to take a job worth a lot of money. George is listening and being persuaded by Potter's deference and charm.

And then all of a sudden George jumps up and declares that he doesn't have to take time to make up his mind about Potter's offer.

He knows right then and there how he feels. He rejects Potter and storms off.

Is Cheney Potter? Am I George Bailey?

I don't know. I still don't really like him but it was, and is, hard to dismiss him as a Right Wing crank with dollar signs for eyes.

The world is a frightening place. We are in trouble. We don't seem to have the answers.

But information is king and the only way out. For a brief moment I let my guard down and shelved my predeterminations and listened.

I'm just not sure what I heard.

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