Dick Seen As Eponymous, By Most

America does not love Dick Cheney. Don’t love him like we love Oprah or even Ellen; don’t like him like we like Bill or even Hill. Only 16% of Americans in a recent CBS News Poll had a favorable view of this vice president. Wonder if he ever wonders why. Let’s see.

Could it be that he resembles a used car salesman trying to sell you a Ford Pinto? Or that he’s almost always smirking?

But no, I don’t believe America’s that superficial—we usually have better reasons for who we love and can’t stand. So what else could it be?

Could it be that he shot his friend in the face?

Could it be that he repeatedly tried to influence reporters in the Joe Wilson scandal? That he responded to Wilson’s New York Times Op-Ed, which criticized the Bush administration's plans for an Iraq war, by “dictating talking points for the news media to subordinates and hastily summoning conservative columnists to a lunch… Most strikingly, Mr. Cheney cleared with President Bush the secret declassification of an intelligence document on Iraqi weapons so that it could be leaked to a reporter Mr. [Lewis "Scooter"] Libby saw as friendly, Judith Miller, then of the Times,” the Times said yesterday.

"Mr. Cheney, Mr. Libby said, 'dictated to me what he wanted me to say to the press,' including a 'word-for-word' quote to give Time magazine and 'background material that he wanted me to use'... A few months later, when Mr. Libby was being publicly discussed as a possible target of the criminal investigation, Mr. Cheney weighed in again. He directed Scott McClellan, then the White House spokesman, to publicly clear Mr. Libby just as he had cleared Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's political adviser"—a.k.a. "Bush's Brain."

Could it be that the vice president misled us about Iraq having WMDs—continued to insist on it even after the “flawed intelligence” behind the claim had been exposed?

Could it be that he seems to be following the same tragic course now as the wingman for a new, flawed rationale for a military conflict with Iran—a prospect most Americans view as unecessary, not to mention insane?

Could it be that he just keeps saying we're "winning in Iraq"?

Could it be that we wonder who he means by "we"? Certainly not the tens of thousands who have died; not the families of the dead soldiers. Could it be that, since the Iraq war began, Halliburton/KBR, the company Mr. Cheney formerly helmed, has made billions thanks to a sweetheart deal brokered by his office? Could it be that we wonder just what he’s getting out of all that?

Could it be that this is a dangerous and corrupt man?