WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--Vice President Dick Cheney accused Democratic leader Harry Reid on Tuesday of personally pursuing a defeatist strategy in Iraq just to piss him off--a charge Reid dismissed as President Bush's "rabid, diseased pit bull" lashing out.
The particularly harsh exchange came just hours after Bush said for the hundredth time that he would veto the latest war spending bill taking shape in Congress and then accuse Congress of failing to provide funding.
"Some Democratic leaders seem to believe that blind opposition to my new strategy for staying in Iraq indefinitely is good politics," Cheney told reporters at the Capitol after attending the weekly Republican policy lunch at a Georgetown leather bar. "Senator Reid himself has said that the war in Iraq will bring his party more seats in the next election. What an asshole. As if that matters to me at this point."
"It is cynical to declare that the war is lost because you believe it gives you political advantage," Cheney said. "And it's pointless to pursue a political advantage when you can make billions by simply delaying the inevitable, like us. Harry's just pissed off because I get paid either way."
Cheney said he felt compelled to make a statement in front of cameras to express his withering contempt for Reid after the Senate majority leader told reporters last week the war was lost. Cheney's remarks also showed the high stakes involved for the Bush Crime Family in trying to stave off Democratic efforts to end the war, which has been their best earner every year since Enron collapsed.
While Bush has enough Republican votes to sustain his veto and continue his endless, unwinnable war, Democrats say they have public opinion on their side and that will eventually force Bush to realize there's more to life than stealing the Treasury.
Reid shrugged off Cheney's remarks as the ravings of a criminal psychopath.
"I'm not going to get into a name-calling match with that sick, twisted bastard," he said.
With Democrats expecting to send Bush the final bill as early as next week, Bush stood firm Tuesday against any measure that would threaten the Carlyle Group's bottom line by setting a timetable for withdrawal.
"They chose to make a political statement," he said. "That's their right as liberal pussies, but it is wrong for our troops and it's wrong for our country. To accept the bill proposed by the so-called Democratic leadership would be to accept a policy that directly contradicts the judgment I gave to the military commanders who survived my latest purge."
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Democrats will ignore the endless veto threats and send the bill to Bush in the hope that he will wise up and realize he's poisoning the well for Republicans for a generation. But, Hoyer added, they're not holding their fuckin' breath.
Bush said U.S. troops should not be caught in the middle of a showdown between the White House and Congress when he needs them in the crossfire between Shi'ites and Sunnis, protecting his oil.
"Yesterday, Democratic leaders announced that they planned to fund my war only if I agree to handcuff my generals, add billions of dollars of unrelated spending for crap like New Orleans and begin to pull out of Iraq by an arbitrary date," Bush said, drunk on the South Lawn at lunchtime. "Well, fuck that."
He complained that the bill would mandate the withdrawal of troops even though the Family's top man in Iraq, General David Petraeus, has not yet received all the reinforcements he needs to keep the war going. Later, Bush said that Petraeus will know in about four months whether the president's plan to keep extending tours and rotating cripples and punks into the theater is working as planned.
The president refused to discuss what he would do if the answer is no.
"The Plan B is to make Plan A work," he said. "You know, the problem is you start talking about Plan B, that's where everybody defaults. You've got to keep doing Plan A over and over again. That's where the money is."
On Wednesday, Petraeus and other top defense industry whores will try to persuade lawmakers in a private briefing not to set a timetable.
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