Dither

Former President Dick Cheney has gone all blustery again, this time accusing President Obama of moving too cautiously in Afghanistan. "The White House must stop dithering while America's armed forces are in danger," said the frightening clown at the ultra-conservative Center for Security Policy, where he was this year's recipient of the 'Keeper of the Flame' award. [Past winners include Paul Wolfowitz, Newt Gingrich, and Donald Rumsfeld] "It's time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity," he continued, oblivious to the irony inherent in having spent more than seven years presiding over a strategy consisting entirely of dithering. However, as Cheney explained, that had all been about to change. For the first time, he revealed that before leaving office, he had conducted a review of the Afghanistan conflict, and prepared a secret strategy report for the Obama transition team. And then he was double-crossed. "They asked us not to announce our findings publicly, and we agreed, giving them the benefit of our work and the benefit of the doubt," he said. "Duplicitous bastards, the lot of them. But I guess I should have foreseen this. If they had proceeded with my new strategy, we would have won the war by now but the credit would have been seen as mine. And there's no way Obama was going to let that happen, so he's been dithering until I've been absent long enough from the American stage." "This is not a stage and Afghanistan is not a show," presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs shot back. ""What Vice President Cheney calls dithering, President Obama calls his solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform and to the American public. I think we've all seen what happens when somebody doesn't take that responsibility seriously. Dithering, that's what. And as long as we're all in the mood for revealing state secrets, let me reveal exactly what was in the so-called Cheney strategy. It was only three words - Tag, you're it." One person particularly upset about Cheney's claim was Julius Dithers, founder of J.C. Dithers & Co., which holds a trademark on the word dithering. "I'll tell you exactly what dithering means," said Dithers. "It means sucking up to me in an attempt to get a raise. For example, I've got this employee, let's just call him Bumstead. Boneheaded and lazy, he was constantly dithering - always giving me unnecessary compliments, and having his wife cook me sumptuous meals. All to no avail, because he was still nothing but a bum. Cheney should understand that as well as anyone - after all, he had a Bumstead of his own."