Reaction of the intestinal kind

Some folks get a gut reaction when simply seeing a photograph of another person.

My guts react somewhat differently. I get that grrrrrrr-reaction whenever I even hear the name Dick Cheney.

Eight-plus years ago I went to my rural polling place with the choice of either voting for George Bush or punching Al Gore's dot. I didn't want a wooden wonk as president, thinking the boredom of listening to Gore for four years would kill my spirit. So I knee-jerked and voted for Bush.

It was a gut reaction, a mental trigger-pull tied to emotion and disgust at the choices. The only commonality I could find at the time was Bush was considered a "good" Texan and I grew up in the State of Contradiction. In Texas, the connection I had with Bush is considered good enough to even vote for a blind dog named Amos Moses.

If I could genie-blink myself back in time, I would not only have voted for Gore, I would have campaigned door-to-door for him. Sent him money, too. Probably. Maybe.

I have come to a happy-place in my mind about my vote for the former president: I voted for him once, which makes me half as smart as those that never voted for him and twice as smart as those that voted for him in both elections.

That, at least, salves my conscience to a degree that suicide by throwing myself under a red-balling truck hauling chickens is no longer considered an option.

Oh, yes – sorry. Got distracted. Back to Dick Cheney.

Can anyone recall any time in recent political history when a former vice president made a campaign out of lambasting a seated president of the opposing party? Cheney's "he-nanigans" would be laughable if the man were not so full of venom. Poison leaks from his pores.

Watching him perform his Obama-is-making-yet-another-huge mistake schtick on Fox News is akin to watching so-called hunters bash baby seals in the head with iron bars. It’s just plain mean.

The GOPer clan who believe every word Cheney and his Bush-puppet ever uttered are blind, deaf, and really, really dumb to much of the doctored snake oil sold to the American public over the past eight years. To hear some Republicrats tell it, the financial crisis started the day Obama took office.

Face it, folks: The political skirts of Cheney and Bush are as dirty as that of Mrs. Ricardo in the classic grape-stomping scene in an early-day "I Love Lucy" television. That show, like Cheney and Bush, is a blurry example of some semblance of life, in black-and-white.

Cheney and Devil’s Advocate Karl Rove were both on the same recent so-called news program.

Attention! Tighten that sphincter! Get rid of that grimace!

It had a slightly altered classic morality play cast: No-good and evil.

And it shall be written: Never a straight word has ever passed the mouth of either man.

And those that believe what they utter to the masses is the true political gospel . . . God help you.