Dick Cheney Warm-Ups for Blitzer Interview

Vice-President Dick Cheney was on CNN's "The Situation Room Today" responding to Wolf Blitzer's questions about Iraq, Hillary Clinton, and Mary Cheney's babies. Cheney told a couple of huge, whopping lies during the interview. The biggest whopper was that Saddam Hussein and the Iranians would be in a nuclear arms race now if we hadn't invaded Iraq. But he almost topped that when he implied that U. S. failure to stay in Afghanistan after the departure of the Soviet Union led to 9-11.

How does Cheney do it? How does he lie with such gusto? Such brio? Is this kind of lying a talent or is it a skill that has to be cultivated? What about when Cheney leaves the studio? Does he go cold turkey and start telling the truth or does he habitually lie to his wife, his staff, his secret service protection and everybody else in his life? Personally, I imagine that Cheney doesn't spend all his time telling lies to the people and that he limits his lying to his speeches, his contacts with the media, and his personal conversations with the president.

But how does he make the transition from truth-telling to lying? I'm sure he knows that wrenching emotional transitions like his transitions from truth-telling to lying and back again could cause heart attacks in people his age. So, Cheney must have some sort of warm-up for his exercises in lying or some sort of mantra that he says as he prepares for important "truth-distorting occasions" like interviews with Blitzer. Given that Cheney's not a Buddhist (if he's telling the truth about his religious views), I suspect that he must have some sort of warm-up exercises. Perhaps he starts with some easy lies about his personal appearance. I think "Yes, Wolf, I've always had blonde hair" would be a good start. Then he could rattle off some quick lies about himself as he worked himself up to lying about politics--for example: "Yes, Wolf I have lost thirty pounds recently;" "No, I've never had a heart attack;" "I really wanted to serve in Vietnam;" "I marched with Martin Luther King in Birmingham and Selma;" "Did you know that I was faster than O.J. Simpson."

Once Dick started to get his groove on, he could punch the air of the CNN Green Room with some real whoppers. How about "Did you know Wolf that that was me on the moon, not Neil Armstrong, that George Bush invented hip-hop, that Mary Cheney gave up her career in opera to work on his campaigns, or that the finest wines were made outside Caspar, Wyoming rather than California or France?" After riffing off about ten more lines like this, Cheney would know that he was master of his domain and that he's just about there.

One final lie: "America is lucky to have me as its Vice-President"--and he 's ready to go on.