I’ve been struggling all day for a word to describe Dick Cheney. And I’ve finally found it. Diabolical. The man is diabolical. We’re talking, way past bad politician evil; no, we’re talking Batman villain evil.

(Kerry to Edwards: Its… looking… grim… old… chum.)

First, of course, you have the overt Halliburton corruption—government no-bid contracts; the Iraq war has been great for Halliburton and their stockholders. If we invade any more countries I may buy some myself. Of course Cheney severed all his ties with the company…. Er… ah… except for his 433,000 stock options. Oh yeah, those. Without going into too much detail on stock options, let me put it like this. There is no financial risk associated with options, the worst that can happen is the stock doesn’t rise and you don’t make any money on them. But each time Halliburton goes up a dollar, Cheney makes $433,000. If it goes up ten dollars, he makes $4.33 million. Good thing he retains no financial interest in the company, because you know that it would be imprudent for even the appearance of impropriety. Right?

Right?

Then there was his lovely pronouncement about Kerry earlier this week. I’m paraphrasing now, but it went basically like this: “If you vote for John Kerry, terrorists will detonate a nuclear bomb in your city and it will be your fault!” Now, admittedly I’m no expert, but that strikes me as wrong. Nasty, evil, duplicitous… I’m grasping for words, and there is really only the one. Diabolical.

There’s a good article about Cheney in the Rolling Stone with Michael Moore on the cover (I know; I’m not any happier about it than you are.)

Anyway, don’t take my word for it. Here’s the Joker. And here’s Cheney.

You tell me.

Labels: The politics