Jabba Lives!
In light of this evening's debated, Pudentilla considers a question that has been troubling her for several years now. Almost four years.
Is Dick Cheney (FOAL*) (pix) Jabba the Hut (pix)? Their physical resemblence, while not dispositive, is unnerving. Each has been endowed by his creator with a jubilence of jowls. Each bears a schnoz of Roman proportion. Both men prefer to sit, rather than stand, perhaps because of shared waistline issues.
Cheney (FOAL*) and Jabba share similar approaches to governance. As the Washington Post headline suggests, Cheney (FOAL*) likes to make an "Impact from the Shadows." Just as Jabba sent his minions out to deal with Han Solo, Cheney (FOAL*)'s preferred mode is to deal through staff or behind closed doors. However, just as Jabba exercised his influence directly, so to Cheney (FOAL*) will go down to Capitol Hill and knocked some sense in recalcitrant members of his caucus, when the situation demands such extreme measures.
Cheney (FOAL*), just like Jabba, is a "master of the politics of fear," according to today's Chicago Tribune. Moreover, just as Jabba offered appeared coated in a slime to which all dirt stuck, so too, according to the Trib, Cheney (FOAL*) has a "Velcro" quality. "He's been hurt over the last four years," said Light. "Practically every negative issue out there has stuck to him." According to Newsday, moreover, like Jabba, Cheney (FOAL*) reacts negatively he feels his integrity is challenged.
One important difference between Cheney (FOAL*) and Jabba the Hut, however, is that Jabba is a fictional character and Cheney (FOAL*) is a real person, who creates fiction for political consumption. For example, Cheney (FOAL*), as Dick Poleman of Knight Ridder today notes, has "repeatedly claimed that there was "overwhelming evidence" of an important link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, when, in reality, there was no demonstrable evidence." Similarly, Cheney (FOAL*) opined that US forces would be greeted as liberators in Iraq. And he said that Saddam had WMD.
Some people might call "creating fictions for political consumption" lying. A lot of Iraqis and Americans and coalition forces have died proving that Mr. Cheney is a liar. Pudentilla notes that Jabba, as offensive as he was, doesn't appear to have been a liar.
Pudentilla is grateful to Froomkin's column today which led her to all these wonderful links.
*FOAL: Father of a Lesbian
