Hertzberg on Cheney

There are plenty of reasons to love the New Yorker (Sy Hersh, Anthony Lane, Jane Mayer, James Surowiecki), but Hendrik Hertzberg's commentaries are high on my list. Reading them, I'm filled with admiration and despair--the former for Hertzberg's writing; the latter at the inadequacy of my own. Hertzberg's prose combines precision and clarity, dry wit, and a carefully controlled (but blistering) outrage. What crappy blockbusters are for Anthony Lane, the Bush administration is for Hertzberg: an inspiration to ever-greater heights of furious brilliance.

His latest commentary (on Cheney, prompted by the WaPo series) is a particularly stellar example. Here are some highlights:

It took thirty years for "Frost / Nixon" to reach Broadway. Assuming that civilization survives and the Great White Way remains above water, we can expect "Cheney / Bush" to mount the boards sometime in the late twenty-thirties or early twenty-forties. The playwright and the actors, whoever they are, will have plenty to work with. The story of the scowling, scheming, domineering, silently sinister Vice-President and the spoiled, petted prince who becomes his plaything is irresistible—set in a pristine White House, played against an ominous, unseen background of violence and catastrophe, like distant thunder, and packed with drama, palace intrigue, and black comedy.

And:

[F]or the past six years, Dick Cheney, the occupant of what John Adams called "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived," has been the most influential public official in the country, not necessarily excluding President Bush, and his influence has been entirely malign. He is pathologically (but purposefully) secretive; treacherous toward colleagues; coldly manipulative of the callow, lazy, and ignorant President he serves; contemptuous of public opinion; and dismissive not only of international law (a fairly standard attitude for conservatives of his stripe) but also of the very idea that the Constitution and laws of the United States, including laws signed by his nominal superior, can be construed to limit the power of the executive to take any action that can plausibly be classified as part of an endless, endlessly expandable "war on terror."

And:

That unfortunate day in the duck blind wasn't the only time the Vice-President has seemed more Elmer Fudd than Ernst Blofeld; last week, Cheney provoked widespread hilarity by pleading executive privilege (in order to deny one set of documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee) while simultaneously maintaining that his office is not part of the executive branch (in order to deny another set to the Information Security Oversight Office of the National Archives). On Cheney's version of the government organization chart, it seems, the location of the Office of the Vice-President is undisclosed.

Really, go read the whole thing. And if you're not already familiar with him, go browse his archived pieces. While you're there, don't miss this one, with the most devastating opening sentence I've seen in a long time:

The hanging of Saddam Hussein was meant to be, by the depraved standards of the Iraq war, something of a feel-good moment.

Moral clarity: the antidote to 'moral clarity'.