If Cheney Was Still In Charge

The whole right wing is in a state of mourning today because the very courageous Captain Phillips was rescued from Somali pirates.  They’re afraid that this might reflect well on President Obama and that’s put them in full attack mode, even though by any sane standards, there’s nothing to attack. That’s not going to stop lunatic fringe that has become the right of center.

They are either constructing scenarios that didn’t happen in which President Obama provided some sort of impediment to the rescue that did happen or superfluously pointing out that President Obama himself didn’t perform the rescue. The Mahablog very correctly identifies this as a severe case of Obama Derangement Syndrome. On Steroids.

We can play, too. As long as we’re imagining, let’s think how Cheney would have handled it. Now, Cheney’s administration could go any which way. Given the kind of rhetoric they liked to use it’s easy to assume that they’d have blown that  lifeboat right out of the water, Captain Phillips and all. We do not negotiate with pirates! But it’s hard to say. They might also have dillied and dallied and futzed around until the pirates managed to break away and make for Somalia with Phillips. Or they might have thrown a hissy fit when the USS Bainbridge offered to tow the lifeboat to safer waters. Coddling pirates, you know.  Really, when Cheney was in charge just about anything was possible. What was for sure was that no matter what the outcome, former President Bush would be called away from his bike ride to show up and take credit for a victory and then we’d have invaded Madagascar, just for the hell of it.