July 13, 2004

Sounds about right to me...

Jay Bryant thinks Dick Cheney may be the best VP in US history. Of course that's not a high bar to leap, traditionally the Veep doesn't do anything...

...Cheney is the only Vice President ever accused of being too influential. The paranoid caricatures paint him as a Svengali, manipulating President and nation in the interests of – what, Halliburton? I have observed Dick Cheney since his days in Congress; he is one of the most responsible and capable leaders I can think of. He was in government decades before he went to work for Halliburton and any suggestion that he would put that or any other private interest ahead of his country is a canard both absurd and malicious.

Dick Cheney has elevated the Vice Presidency to an unprecedented level of importance and influence. Because of this, his enemies have attacked him with unprecedented vituperation, his very competence grist for their mills of hatred....

Posted by John Weidner at July 13, 2004 08:12 AM | TrackBack
Comments

I must agree. Cheney has filled the VP slot with distinction and more. Seldom has a vice-president been given his degree of latitude, or shown his degree of energy and wisdom.

Posted by: Francis W. Porretto at July 13, 2004 02:17 PM

Writers should avoid ``canard.'' Some readers will amuse themselves thinking ``duck,'' and then you have an absurd and malicious duck in your prose. This duck is a distraction.

Then you feed it grist in the next paragraph to get liver bile.

I only mention it because ``canard'' has been showing up a lot recently, and it needs to be stamped out. There is no record of Wm. F. Buckley ever having used it. That speaks volumes.

I remember it as a scene on TV, some ancient comedy show, and the woman in the upscale restaurant says to the waiter ``I'll have the canard [American pronunciation].'' That's the word for the wise of the day.

Posted by: Ron Hardin at July 13, 2004 04:05 PM

What! You mean I don't sound sophisticated and French when I use canard? Quel toupet!

Posted by: John Weidner at July 13, 2004 05:33 PM
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