Northern exposure

The Fifth Estate is a newsmagazine program that airs on CBC TV, (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), a taxpayer—subsidized television station. Their season debut in mid—October was an "expose" of Dick Cheney. 
 
Anyone familiar with the editorial tone of the CBC will know the program was not flattering to the Vice President. For any Americans who aren't familiar with the CBC, let me explain that the government of your neighbor to the north just aired a program that barely stopped short of calling the Vice President a war criminal and a traitor to his country. It didn't scruple to paint him as a liar, a scoundrel, a coward and a hypocrite.
 
The first part of the program, which we won't belabor, reviews Cheney's misspent youth and suggests that he only married Mrs. Cheney to avoid the draft. I'm sure he's planning to tell her any day now that theirs is only a marriage of convenience.
 
Then, the program briefly recounts how Cheney rose from humble circumstances to the highest levels of politics and business. In Canada, conspicuous success is always viewed with suspicion, the more so when it involves conservatives, so his achievements are characterized as 'the relentless accumulation of power in every form.'
 
Now, the meat of the program: Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton, did millions of dollars in business with Iraq through 'old subsidiaries' of a subsidiary, and 'worked with Iran and Libya as well, using its own subsidiaries.'
 
Then — on to the part where Cheney twisted the facts, lied to the country and the entire world, and led us into a disastrous war. The program interviewed Joe Wilson IV, who told his Uranium—in—Niger story, (without mentioning that Wilson's version of events has been discredited). They also interviewed retired Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who explained that Cheney personally 'cherry—picked' unreliable intelligence info to falsely lead the country into war, 
 
This ruthlessness and duplicity led, of course, to more business for Halliburton.

By this point I was listening carefully, waiting for the investigative journalists to explain why Cheney was so eager to upset the apple cart and declare war on Saddam Hussein if Halliburton was doing business with the corrupt regimes of the Middle East? Why go through enormous effort, expense and lethal casualties when you can sit back and make money with off—shore subsidiaries?

The program did suggest, in a back—handed fashion, that the quagmire in Iraq had something to do with freedom and democracy. That is, they brought in journalist Seymour Hersh to explain that Cheney and his cronies actually believed that by introducing democracy in Iraq, 'democracy (will flow ) — like water out of a fountain. And not only will democracy flow in Iraq. It will flow into Syria. The Iranians will also see the light.'  But Hersh also explains —— in case we Canadians are a little slow on the uptake —— that this idea is 'Utopian, idealist, crazy."

The moment stands out in the program because everything before and after Hersh's appearance is a litany of insinuations and accusations that paint Cheney as utterly corrupt, ruthless and contemptuous of the laws of God and man. Yes, he is a scoundrel, says the CBC — oh, and he's got some goofball notions about freedom and democracy. What an ass.

Now, I don't have the business or governmental expertise to evaluate just how evil Cheney really is. All I know is, exporting democracy is a peculiar obsession for a man who is a liar, a hypocrite and a war profiteer. The journalists of the Fifth Estate don't even attempt to reconcile the contradiction. Perhaps we are to assume — in the same way we must assume that if a corporation is 'big,' it must be bad — that Cheney is also a lying hypocrite on the subject of freedom and democracy.

The thing is, if Cheney's only interest is making money, then this elaborate charade, this enormous effort to seize the levers of power in Washington, strikes me as being inefficient. Just as Mark Steyn said of Farenheit 9/11,
the more elaborate the conspiracy becomes, the less logical it is.

Here are two obvious ways for Cheney to make the money he craves — and this is just off the top of my head:

1.  Quit as Vice—President and stay CEO of Halliburton. In 2000, Cheney made over $36 million dollars.
As Vice—President, he makes $202,900.

2.  Stop giving so much money to charity!  Cheney and his wife donated $321,141 to charity last year.

A return to private life would also spare him from the indignity of being villified on Canadian newsmagazine shows.

Lona Manning writes for The American Thinker from Canada