The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Richard Day's picture

    Cicero Calls Out Cheney

    By Richard Day on Thu, 05/28/2009 - 2:22pm |

    WHEN, 1 O Cheney, do you mean to cease abusing our patience?

    How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an

    end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now?

     

    Do you not feel that your plans are detected? Do you not see that

    your conspiracy is already arrested and rendered powerless by the

    knowledge which every one here possesses of it? What is there

    that you did last year, along with the seven years  before, what design

    was there which was adopted by you, with which you think that any

    one of us is unacquainted?

    Shame on your administration and on its principles! The senate is

    aware of these things; the House is beginning to  see them; and yet

    your voice still thrives.


    Lies!  It is time for you to appear before the senate with out your claim of

    Executive Privilege.. And we, gallant men and women that we are, wonder

    then your someone challenges your frenzied attacks.

    You ought, O Cheney, long ago to have been led to trial by

    command of the of the Executive Branch of Government--even

    though you denied which Branch you actually belonged to.

    That destruction of the Republic, which you have been long

    plotting against us ought to have already fallen on your own head.


    What?  You have spent so many years in office, more than

    slightly undermining the constitution? And shall we, the common

    citizens, tolerate Cheney, openly desirous to destroy the whole

    world with fire and slaughter?. There was--there was once such

    virtue in this republic that brave men would repress mischievous

    citizens with severer chastisement than the most bitter enemy.

    For we have need of a resolution of the senate, a formidable

    and authoritative decree against you, O Cheney; the wisdom of

    the republic is not at fault, nor the dignity of this senatorial body.

    We, we alone--I say it openly,--we, the citizens, are wanting in

    our duty.

    But we, for these one hundred twenty days, have been allowing

    the edge of the senate's authority to grow blunt, as it were. For

    we are in possession of evidence of your wrong doing, wrong

    doing already admitted by you and our New Administration

    has the power to issue decrees against you and issue an

    indictment, but that indictment is

    kept  locked up in its parchment--buried, I may say, in the

    sheath; and following indictment and ultimate conviction you

    ought, O Cheney, to be put to death this instant. You live,

    --and you live, not to lay aside, but to persist in your audacity.

      I wish, O conscript fathers, to be merciful; we wish not to

    appear overly eager in our search for justice amid such danger

    to the state; but we should now accuse ourselves of remissness

    and culpable inactivity.

     

    We see you now in the media, planning every day some internal

    injury to the republic. If, O Cheney, the powers that be should

    now order you to be arrested, to be tried before a jury of your

    peers, I should, I suppose, have to fear lest all good men should

    say that the government had acted tardily, rather than that any one

    should affirm that it acted cruelly. But yet this, which ought to

    have been done long since, As long as one person exists who

    can dare to defend you, you shall live; but you shall live as you

    do now, surrounded by my many and trusty guards, so that you

    shall not be able to stir one finger against the republic; many

    eyes and ears shall still observe and watch you, as they have

    hitherto done, tho you shall not perceive them.

      For what is there, O Cheney, that you can still expect, if night

    is not able to veil your past nefarious meetings in darkness, and

    if private houses can not conceal the voice of your conspiracy

    within their walls--if everything is seen and displayed? Change

    your mind: trust me: forget the lies and defenses you are

    meditating. You are hemmed in on all sides; all your past sins

    are clearer than the day to us; let me remind you of them.

     

    Your lies over eight long years, and before that even have been

    monumental:

     


    You got to have people at the top who respond to and are selected

    by presidents.
     Dick Cheney

    If we have reason to believe someone is preparing an attack

    against the U.S., has developed that capability, harbours those

    aspirations, then I think the U.S. is justified in dealing with that,

    if necessary, by military force.
     Dick Cheney

    There comes a time when deceit and defiance must be seen

    for what they are. At that point, a gathering danger must be

    directly confronted. At that point, we must show that beyond

    our resolutions is actual resolve.
     Dick Cheney


    Direct threats require decisive action.
     Dick Cheney

    Except for the occasional heart attack, I never felt better.
     Dick Cheney
     
    Had the decision belonged to Senator Kerry, Saddam hussein

    would still be in power today in Iraq. In fact, Saddam Hussein

    would almost certainly still be in control of Kuwait.
     Dick Cheney

    I can think of a lot of words to describe Senator Kerry's position

    on Iraq; "consistent" is not one of them.
     Dick Cheney

    I think the record speaks for itself. These are two individuals

    who have been for the war when the headlines were good and

    against it when their poll ratings were bad.
     Dick Cheney

    I'm absolutely convinced that the threat we face now, the idea

    of a terrorist in the middle of one of our cities with a nuclear

    weapon, is very real and that we have to use extraordinary

    measures to deal with it.
     Dick Cheney
     
    If we have reason to believe someone is preparing an attack

    against the U.S., has developed that capability, harbours those

    aspirations, then I think the U.S. is justified in dealing with that,

    if necessary, by military force.
     Dick Cheney

    In his years in Washington, Senator Kerry has been one vote

    of a hundred in the United States Senate - and fortunately on

    matters of national security he was very often in the minority.
     Dick Cheney

     
    Senator Kerry says he sees two Americas. It makes the

    whole thing mutual - America sees two John Kerrys.
     Dick Cheney

     
    The Iraqi forces are conducting the Mother of all Retreats.
    Dick Cheney

    The plan was criticized by some retired military officers

    embedded in TV studios. But with every advance by our

    coalition forces, the wisdom of that plan becomes more apparent.
     Dick Cheney

    The Senator from Massachusetts has given us ample grounds to

    doubt the judgment and the attitude he brings to bear on vital

    issues of national security.
     Dick Cheney

    There comes a time when deceit and defiance must be seen for

    what they are. At that point, a gathering danger must be directly

    confronted. At that point, we must show that beyond our

    resolutions is actual resolve.
     Dick Cheney

    We have to make America the best place in the world to do

    business.
    Dick Cheney

     

    We must be prepared to face our responsibilities and be willing

    to use force if necessary.
     Dick Cheney

    We urge all democratic nations and the United Nations to

    answer the Iraqi Governing Council's call for support for the

    people of Iraq in making the transition to democracy.
     Dick Cheney

    We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.
     Dick Cheney

    http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/dick_cheney_2.html

     

    These are just a score of the hundreds of lies told by you during

    your term.


    O ye immortal gods, where on earth are we? In what country

    are we living? What constitution is ours? 


    As, then, this is the case, O Cheney, do not continue as you have

    begun. Leave the country at least; the gates are open; depart. And

    lead forth with you all your friends, or at least as many as you

    can; purge the country of your presence; you will deliver us

    from a great fear, when there is a wall between you and us.

    Among us you can dwell no longer--I will not bear it, I will

    not permit it, I will not tolerate it. Great thanks are due to the

    immortal gods, and to this very Jupiter Stator, in whose temple

    we are, the most ancient protector of this country, that we have

    already so often escaped so foul, so horrible, and so deadly an

    enemy to the republic. But the safety of the commonwealth must

    not be too often allowed to be risked on one man. As long as you,

    O Cheney, plotted against our Republic, and continue doing so,

    you are a threat to our Republic and our Democracy. But now

    you are openly attacking the entire republic.


      You are summoning to destruction and devastation the temples

    of the immortal gods, the houses of this country, the lives of all

    the citizens. Do you ask me, Are you to go into banishment? I do

    not order it; but, if you consult me, I advise it.

      For what is there, O Cheney, that can now afford you any

    pleasure in this country? For there is no one in it, except that

    band of profligate conspirators of yours, who does not fear

    you,--no one who does not hate you. What brand of domestic

    baseness is not stamped upon your life? What disgraceful

    circumstance is wanting to your infamy in your private affairs?

    From what licentiousness have your eyes, from what atrocity

    have your hands, from what iniquity has your whole body ever

    abstained? Is there one youth, when you have once entangled

    him in the temptations of your corruption, to whom you have

    not held out a sword for audacious crime, or a torch for licentious wickedness?


      With these omens, O Cheney, be gone to your impious and

    nefarious war, to the great safety of the republic, to your own misfortune and injury, and to the destruction of those who have

    joined themselves to you in every wickedness and atrocity.

    Then do you, O Jupiter, who were consecrated by Lincoln

    with the same auspices as this country, whom we rightly call the

    stay of this country, repel this man and his companions

    from your altars and from the other temples,--from the houses

    and walls of the country,--from the lives and fortunes of all the

    citizens; and overwhelm all the enemies of good men, the foes

    of the republic, the robbers of America, men bound together by a

    treaty and infamous alliance of crimes, dead and alive, with

    eternal punishments.

      30

     

     

    (Note 1. Delivered in the Roman senate in 63 B.C.

    Translated by Charles Duke Yonge. [back] With

    poetic changes)