The One

by Jeff Fecke | May 21, 2009 • This is some absurd hero worship right here:

Politicians and the media seem unduly impressed by favorability polls, often drawing unwarranted conclusions from them. Since Cheney has relatively high unfavorables, it’s assumed that the public dismisses his statements.

It would be interesting to see the results of a more finely calibrated poll, one that compares how well-respected, competent, and effective the subject is perceived to be relative to similarly situated individuals. As a friend succinctly puts it, “When that big asteroid finally heads toward Earth, who’s the person you’d most want to be in charge?” I suspect Cheney would score at or near the top.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? I mean, I know I joke that Cheney is the inhuman spawn of demons, but he still can’t shoot frickin’ laser beams at the asteroid and make it go boom. I can tell you this: given the Bush/Cheney administration’s skill at handling natural disasters, I would pretty much pick any human on Earth other than George W. Bush or Dick Cheney to be sitting in the Oval Office when the meteor hit. I mean, we know what would happen then: Bush would just watch ESPN, and Cheney would react by waterboarding rocks to reveal the connection between the meteor and Saddam Hussein.