Shark with Glasses.

• Author: Durst, Will
• Position: Off the Map - Viewpoint essay

You got to love I Dick. Vice President Cheney, that is. For so many things. For making another unannounced visit to Iraq in his unofficial capacity as heavy schtarker foreign policy hit man for that Halliburton subsidy we know and love as the Bush White House. "So, Mr. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, planning on letting the Iraqi Parliament go on vacation for two months while our troops keep on protecting your sorry asses, eh? Well, perhaps a few minutes alone with the ENFORCER will set you straight." Cue Darth Vader theme.

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To me, the biggest surprise is Big Dick entered a battle zone under his own free will. Must have burned through his whole stash of deferments back in the '60s.

Then again, maybe wars, like kids, are different when they're your own. Yes, they are! They're special. A gift from God. Or maybe he's turning into a big old softie on us. After all, at an undisclosed base near Baghdad, he was shown descending the transport steps sporting a flak jacket under his suit coat, seeming to indicate his bullet repelling powers are diminishing.

But his remarkable powers of polarization remain intact.

When Hugo Chavez called President Bush the devil at the United Nations, everyone knew he was out of line.

Bush isn't the devil. Cheney is. Bush is just one of his little helper monkeys.

I can prove it. Last year, Cheney shoots a guy in the face with a 12gauge. Who else but the devil could get the victim to apologize? "I fervently wish to beg forgiveness for placing my bulbous head between the gun and the bird, thereby ruining the shot of my dark lord. I must now slither away to polish the scuff marks off his cloven hooves."

Hating him only makes him stronger.

Besides, you got to admire the Dark Prince for his singlemindedness. The man will say or do whatever it takes to get what he wants. Probably explains why he's so dismissive of Democrats. He literally does not understand them.

While he is willing to lie, cheat, steal, eat bugs, sell out his daughter, invade a country, wiretap American citizens, whatever he deems necessary to achieve his goal, with Democrats, it's often a struggle to get them to take their own side in an argument.

"Well, that's true ... but then again, my point is valid, too. Oh for crum's...