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It’s Good to Be the Viceroy
Posted By Matt On 26th October 2006 @ 20:17 In Politics, Dick Cheney, Food & Drink | 3 Comments
On NPR today, reporter Don Gonyea recounted his trip to the 8th Congressional District of Wisconsin — a heavily Republican district that Gonyea describes as “real Republican, red Wisconsin.” In the last election there, the Republican candidate received 70% of the vote; the current election is now a toss-up.
Though the report is interesting, from its small details (I love the Oneida Nation surf music) to its larger point (I love the fact that this district is now in play), what made it special was a little detail sandwiched, so to speak, amid all the political mumbo-jumbo.
The detail — the telling detail — came when Gonyea interviewed a waitress at a Green Bay restaurant called The Golden Basket:
Don Gonyea: So, the next day, back in Green Bay, I hit the morning rush hour at the Golden Basket Restaurant. It’s a place not too far from Lambeau Field, where the Packers play football. Bonnie Leroy has worked here for seventeen years.
Bonnie Leroy: Well, we have eggs, meat, potatoes, toast, for $2.99. Then we also have other specials, like Mexican omelette and pancakes.
Gonyea: Leroy says candidates come in here a lot; they shake hands at election time. . . in fact, she fondly remembers the time, in 2004, when the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, complete with his Secret Service protection, stopped by.
Leroy: He brought his own food in. You know, he wouldn’t eat the food that’s here, for . . . safety reasons. It was for his own protection . . . great! great!
Whaaa? Cheney’s too high and mighty to eat the same chow as the good people of Green Bay, Wisconsin?
Really, I have no idea whether it’s common practice, among politicians, to travel with a coterie of private chefs so as to avoid sharing meat and potatoes with the hoi polloi, but perhaps we should all remember that Cheney isn’t so much an elected politician as an appointed one — a Viceroy, if you will, who is only a heartbeat away from the royal throne.
And we all know that royalty must be protected from the grave security threat posed by short-order cooks.
3 Comments To "It’s Good to Be the Viceroy"
#1 Comment By Erleichda! On 26th October 2006 @ 23:56
There are those who would argue that Dick Cheney is a cyborg and therefore has different nutritional requirements than humans …
#2 Comment By Eric On 27th October 2006 @ 08:41
In Cheney’s defense (I can’t believe I just used those words), he probably can’t eat “real people” food. He probably has to eat a plate of pureed oats because if he touched one piece of bacon at this point his heart would explode. So the safety reasons probably weren’t poison, but heart-related. Being a hate-filled greedy murderer is hard on the heart.
#3 Comment By Rod On 27th October 2006 @ 13:45
There’s a beautiful poetic and karmic justice in the fact that Cheney really does have a bad heart.
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