Cheney, Cheney, Cheney

I’m not sure why so many fringe folk, Left and Right, are spending time right now on the dire question, “Will Dick Cheney be the veep contender this year?” But, heck, why should I be any different?

Why Dick Cheney won’t be the veep on the 2004 GOP ticket:

1. He’s made his zillions of dollars in hidden deals, for himself and his friends, so it’s time to skip town before he gets nailed for it. Maybe the Bahamas, to work on his tan.
2. Because by the time November rolls around, he’ll be a fugitive, fleeing from international justice. “But — the war was started by a one-armed man!”
3. Because Cheney is so identified with the nassssty policies of the Bush Administration that he’s a political liability. By getting rid of Cheney, everyone will trust the GOP again.
4. Because compared to John Edwards, Cheney looks like he’s rehearsing for the lead roll in A Christmas Carol revival. Or perhaps a Grinch stage show.
5. Because his heart is held together with bailing wire and duct tape (sold to the government under a no-bid multi-trillion dollar contract with You-Know-Who), and he’s liable to pitch over dead at any time.
6. Because he just fired his doctor, you know, and that’s just laying the groundwork for finding another doctor who will give him cover to quit.
7. Because he’s in charge of the CIA director selection team, which is setting him up to be CIA directory, where he can still be the Power Behind the Throne, but Bush can choose some more human-seeming for his running mate.

Why Dick Cheney will be the veep on the 2004 GOP ticket:

1. Because he had his brain transferred into a robotic body long ago (what, you really believed in those “away recovering from a heart attack” stories?), and now he’s “more machine than man, twisted and evil.”
2. Because he’s a member of the living dead, and thus not only will continue to live for all eternity, but still needs to set up the reign of his fellows, ensuring that he can take baths in virgins’ blood fortnightly.
3. Because the various obvious GOP alternatives — Powell, Rice, McCain, Quayle — wouldn’t take the position on a bet.
4. Because he’s a power-mad fool, the Grey Eminence, and who’d give up being Emperor of the World by Proxy?
5. Because Bush has a reputation for loyalty (to a fault), and would never ask him to step down, even if it turned out that he really was bathing in the blood of virgins under the full moon each month, and the virgins were being supplied by a trillion-dollar no-bid contract by You-Know-Who.
6. Because to choose someone else, even with the flimsy cover of “health reasons” (what, you believe those “heart attack” stories?), would be to admit that the past four years have been an unmitigated disaster. Only by pretending that nothing is wrong will the electorate ever be properly duped.

Take your pick. No, I’m not serious. Mostly.