OK, Star Wars fans. Liberals still like to call Dick Cheney "Darth
Vader". It's time to brush up on your Darth Vader political
history as you review the speeches below and decide who is really on the
dark side. Go back and watch all six movies again. It's time
to reconsider your old assumptions. It's time for the rebels to
strike back before the Emperor does even more damage to the Republic.
It's "A New Hope" time now. Darth Vader
may die, but he will take this Emperor down with him. The
Empire struck back last November, but it isn't as invincible as they
believe themselves to be. Pelosi and Reid may think they command
an invincible Death Star now, but it will blow up again, as it did in
the 1994 mid-term elections for Bill Clinton.
The real master of evil on the "dark side" was always
the Emperor, not Darth Vader. He concealed his true identity while
manipulating others to fight each other until he would consolidate power
to control the universe by defeating the Jedi and intimidating all other
opposition. While he pretended in the Imperial Senate to be a
noble defender of the values of the Republic, he was always scheming to
create his own empire and to destroy his enemies. He even used the
greedy Trade Federation as his witless pawns.
In this epic, we may finally know who to call
Emperor now - Barack Obama, not Bush. Some would say it is
George Soros. Bush was never the evil
threat to the Republic. He was more like a benign Jedi character
who showed unexpected power when confronting a dangerous threat.
The fundamental principles and values of the Jedi, including respect for
the power that flowed from everything around them to defend the
Republic, checked any personal ambition. The Jedi Council were all
accused of seeking power for themselves, but their accusers were the
real threat to the Republic all along. Many in the Imperial Senate
and bureaucracy were far too witless or corrupt to recognize this
growing danger to the liberty of all.
Cheney never was Darth Vader. Obiwan
Kenobi might be a closer fit, except that he has no obvious protégé like
Anakin who has been lured over to the dark side by his ego to become a
fatalistic Darth Vader, believing that resistance to the Emperor is
futile (John McCain, perhaps? No, he's not the Sith type.).
In defeat Obiwan became a more powerful enemy for the
narcissist Emperor and Darth Vader together by inspiring and helping the
Rebels through the return of the Jedi from their prior crushing defeats.
Would Ronald Reagan be cast as Master Yoda, with
Cheney as Obiwan, and perhaps Gingrich as his protégé Luke who has come
back from obscurity despite his flaws to defeat the Emperor a second time?
Who is Anakin then as Luke's flawed father, Darth
Vader? Who is Princess Leia? (Sarah Palin?) Who the
heck is Chewbacca? Who is Han Solo? (Ambassador Romney?)
There are probably numerous contenders in DC for the corrupt gangster
Jabba the Hut and all of the alien bar scene characters.
Darth Vader can't be George Soros, because he was
never on the side of the Jedi in the first place. He's more like
the bounty hunter who created the army of clones as the secret weapon of
the Emperor to kill the Jedi, even though they supposedly existed for
the defense of the Republic against the evil drones of the Trade
Federation. They were all just being manipulated by their unknown
masters. Some might argue that he is the real Emperor still in
hiding behind the scenes, but that seems a stretch. He's the
bounty hunter, looking to profit by the collapse of the Republic, just
as he got rich by betting against the Bank of England.
Like the Star Wars trilogy which doubled into a
complex trilogy of prequels, plus many interpretations of the stories
and characters plus cartoon sequels, all of these analogies have obvious
limitations. The simplistic good versus evil themes quickly become
very complicated and confusing in the real world. Who is telling
the truth? Who can you really trust? How is it all going to
end happily this time? Will it end happily?
In any case, we may finally be starting to recognize
who is the Emperor - unless Obama has been suckered too, like the
ambitious Sith apprentice predecessors of Darth Vader who dreamed of
great power but were also just being exploited and then discarded by their hidden master.
Maybe Obama isn't the real Emperor yet. Is he just another Sith
apprentice, soon to be cast aside once he has served his purpose? Maybe he
isn't totally devoted to the power of the dark side yet. It just
sure
looks that way right now.
In any case, it seems to be a real stretch of
imagination to picture Obama as a noble Jedi defender of the Republic.
He looks a lot more like the ambitious Chancellor in the Senate who got
his wish to become an authoritarian Emperor. The speech at the National
Archives had all the contrived imagery and sincerity of the Chancellor's
feigned reluctance to accept all the powers which the Senate had just given to
him. That was another staged crisis for the Republic which
couldn't be wasted as an opportunity to grab more power.
