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

Cicero Calls Out Cheney

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)

 



 


 

 




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