The InstaHypocrite Soils Himself In Public

"Physical bravery is a much bigger deal for old men than young ones. I don't care how many draft deferments Dick Cheney received. He's a very brave man. His heart is somewhere between forty and sixty percent dead. He's known this for a long time. He has nevertheless continuously exposed himself to stress that would kill much healthier men, and he has done it without the single most powerful incentive any man can have for accepting the back-handed honor of the vice-presidency of the United States. He never intended to run for President. And he didn't. Now, when he could be luxuriating in the last-years comfort of a loving family, he comes back again to do battle in the political arena, where he can legitimately expect nothing but abuse, contempt, and ridicule. Why? Because he's a patriot. Because he believes in what he advocates. Period.

Why have we never given him his due before? We have a good excuse and a less good truth to share. The excuse, which is valid, is that the leftists were so determined to portray him as the real president of the United States, manipulating the idiot puppet Bush, that to make him the center of any post was to authenticate the false notion that he was something more than a particularly hard-working and involved vice-president. We didn't want to seem to be exalting the lie that President Bush was not the man truly in charge.

The less good truth is that the left succeeded so spectacularly in demonizing Cheney that it was simply easier, even for those of us who trafficked in satire, to forfeit that game. They ran the score up so unfairly but amazingly high against him that defending him in any but the most cursory way felt like a self-destructive wound to our own credibility. That one's on us. We should have defended him personally, just as we defended Bush for quite similar reasons. We chose not to, because we were being more political than honorable. A bitter pill to swallow, especially when it's administered by a liberal journalist who doesn't agree, as we do, with most of Cheney's positions over the years.

As I said. We're embarrassed.

...Cheers for Dick Cheney."

-- The InstaPunk, making the kind of admission this blog is designed to never have to stoop to - We state it all, unpopular or not, and stand by our positions (because seeking popularity in politics is a fool's game, resulting in mea culpas like the one above) which is why, we think, right or wrong, we're not covered by Glenn Reynolds, or Ann Althouse, or any of the other wimpy and/or hypocritical media folks out there - Like Dick Cheney, we refuse to ever look back and find ourselves caught up short, like this "popular" blog called InstaPunk.com.*

*BTW: Is this self-revealed cowardly hypocrite (scared of the Left?) another relative of Glenn Reynolds in the online mediasphere? Kinda hard to keep 'em all straight, at this point, with the Instapundit, the Instawife and Instadaughter, etc.