WHY IS THIS MAN SMILING?

A strange shadow has appeared behind Junior Bush in all of his phony "can’t we all get along, heh heh" get-togethers with victorious Democrats and others in the past week. After six years of pulling the puppet strings from an undisclosed location, VP Dick Cheney suddenly appears everyday, strangely silent, at all staged photo ops in the White House.

There he is shaking hands with Sen. Dick Durbin in the Oval Office. There he is with U.S. auto executives, as he and Bush try to put a band-aid on the hemorrhaging, unimaginative industry. There he is, meeting with the Baker-Hamilton commission that has been brought in to define and try to fix the incredible mess that his own arrogance created in Iraq.

Just look at that goofy look on his face in the Iraq meeting. Here they are discussing death, chaos and disintegration and he’s chuckling like he just heard a new joke about the Democrat and the Priest or something. What else do you need to know about this Prince of Darkness, this Master of Disaster, this historical anomaly?

We can only hope that he kept as quiet in the meetings as he was during the photo ops. Imagine if you are Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid in one of these meetings and Dick Cheney pipes up with one of his cynical words of wisdom. Do you just look over your shoulder at him, like you would an insolent child? Do you turn your chair to face him and stare him down until he stops? Do you cut him off in the middle and say "Hey, man, haven’t you done quite enough?"

And how about the Iraq commission meeting? This week’s meeting was supposedly about facts on the ground now – not about how we got there or what we do now – but even the Velvet Hammer, professional fixer Jim Baker, who helped Bush and Cheney preserve their "election" in the first place, knows a skunk in the room when he smells one. You can imagine Cheney chiming in with one of his "we know the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein" bromides and the whole room turning their backs in disgust.

Now that his radical agenda of death, war, bankruptcy, secrecy and violation of civil rights has been rejected by the voters, it is time for Dick Cheney to go permanently to that undisclosed location and take a pass on the next two years. Junior’s real dad – or, at least his brain trust – will now step in and try to make the best of the rest of the worst presidency in U.S. – or anyone else’s – history. It’s time for the grown-ups to take over.

Say "goodnight", Dick. And that’s no joke.