Guest Commentary

from CNN's Jack Cafferty, not normally one of my favorite political commentators or news stations by a longshot:

(CNN) -- It's time for the Republican Party to tell former Vice President Dick Cheney to put a sock in it.

Here we are 100 days into the new administration of Barack Obama, and Darth Vader is still wandering around grumbling about why the new administration is all wrong.

Nobody is interested anymore, Mr. Vice President. You and your gaggle of miscreants had your shot, and we are in the toilet because of it. Don't you get it?

The election of this nation's first African-American president and his massacre of John McCain in the Electoral College is because of you and President Bush and the myriad problems you left us all with.

Last week, you were predicting President Obama's economic policies would have devastating effects in the long term. This from a member of an administration that more than doubled the national debt in eight years and gave $700 billion to its buddies on Wall Street, no questions asked. You're a little short on credibility when it comes to the economy, don't you think?

We are reading about enhanced interrogation memos written by lawyers at the Justice Department that authorized the United States of America to behave like some Third World gang of hoodlums like the Taliban or al Qaeda.

Two members of al Qaeda were waterboarded 266 times in a single month in violation of the Geneva Conventions as well as other international agreements we are signatories to. Who authorized those memos to be written, Mr. Vice President?

President Obama has done an about-face and said he now favors an investigation into those memos. Where will that investigation lead, Mr. Vice President? This country used to stand for something before you and President Bush got your hooks into it.

Now our reputation is shot, we are bankrupt, we continue to fight two wars that you started and the economy is in the worst recession since the Great Depression. And you have the temerity to go around criticizing those who replaced you? How dare you?

If the Republican Party has any hopes of redeeming itself in the eyes of the voters, they must distance themselves from the likes of Dick Cheney and the fundamentalist right-wingers who have become the poster children of political intolerance in this country.

Why do you think some members of your party are suggesting you embrace same-sex marriage? Because of a change of heart? I doubt it. More likely, the wiser heads in the party recognize that without some nod toward inclusion of someone besides the extremists you represent, your party's political chances going forward hover between slim and none.

Please, go quail hunting and leave the rest of us alone.

BONUS PHOTO!

.. A true oddity: a group photo where Dick Cheney may look the *least* scary.

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