The reptilian Dick Cheney

David Edelstein uses all his critical powers to explain the thing that is Dick Cheney and his seemingly innocuous sidekick, President Bush, in an interview at Bookslut.

[Q] For what it’s worth, Dick Cheney seems more outlandish than anything Oliver Stone or anyone else could have created.

[Edelstein] I would say Darth Vader, but no. Dick Cheney is so much scarier than Darth Vader. There is something subterranean about him.

...

[Q]There are precedents of George W. Bush, the idiot child-president who doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s like Peter Sellers’ president in Dr. Strangelove.

[Edelstein] ]No, he’s far worse than that.

[Q] The part where he’s talking to his Russian counterpart on the telephone. “Yes, I understand Dmitri…”

[Edelstein] No, I must disagree. He’s a much more terrifying character in and of his own right. You have the combination of someone who’s been insulated and protected his whole life by Daddy and by Daddy’s power and who at the same time hates Daddy and needed to prove himself against Daddy. The fragility of his ego, not to be able to admit other opinions, other views. “I’m the decider guy.” He’s scary. I had problems with American Dreamz because it presented him as this nice buffoon. That gives him too much credit. He’s a perfect storm.

But Cheney. Remember Men in Black. They’d shoot someone’s head, the head would split open and this big black insect would crawl out. That’s what I think of when I see Cheney. There’s no way to account for him on a terrestrial level. I know it sounds like I’m being facetious, but I’m really not. I actually find it easier to imagine an insect coming out of his head than to think, “What are the human forces that shaped him?” The man is just entrenched in evil and slime.