Cheney Considers Preaching Word Of Gawd

In my last column I divulged the kinds of jobs the American people think Alberto Gonzales should hold. Now I know what you’re thinking: What about Dick Cheney? Where’s he going to work? Well, cronies of mine with their ears to the train tracks inform me that our (thankfully) former VP has been offered the top position at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. A source has provided Demockracy with a secret taping of Mr. Cheney’s meeting with the university’s Dean of Academic Affairs in the latter’s office. A transcript follows:

Dean: I’m so delighted you’ve come to share some of your valuable time with us, Mr. Cheney. It’s a great pleasure. Scones? A donut perhaps?

Cheney: Uhm—thank you, no. My heart gets clogged up with anything fattier than celery sticks and a rice cracker.

Dean: Ah, yes, a pity sir, a pity. Well let me get right to the point.With the death of our beloved spiritual leader and founder, Jerry Falwell, we seek inspired leadership to carry on our mission teaching of alleged intolerance and creationism. We feel that you are the right man to take us on the course forward to renewed heights. As you may know, sir, our squeaky-clean campus boasts a pre-eminent natural history museum that is the only one in the world that labels dinosaur fossils as “5,000 years old.”

Cheney: I have heard of that, although it’s a radical-conservative bit of revisionist science even for me. But then again, I am a Christian….

Dean: Exactly, Mr. Vice President. As our dear departed Reverend Falwell said so eloquently, “If you’re not a born-again Christian, you’re a failure as a human being.”

Cheney: Amen to that.

Dean: And that’s why I’m calling on you today, sir, to help me follow Gawd’s mission to save our country and educate our flock in America’s holier-than-thou and debatably most intolerant institution of higher education, Liberty University. You’re especially a good fit with us since you’ve been awarded an honorary doctorate by Brigham Young University. While we abhor that particular denomination, at least they have the reactionary credentials that make your résumé stand out from the crowd.

Cheney: That’s very flattering, Dean, and I thank you. Nonetheless, even a reactionary such as myself has a hard time reconciling the basic and multiple scientific methods of dating our earth with the notion that dinosaurs lived 5,000 years ago and sailed on Noah’s Ark. Wouldn’t the T-Rex have eaten all the other animals along with Noah himself? Won’t society at large, even conservatives, question all this, not to mention my association with such educational assumptions as you put forth at Liberty?

Dean: Well, sir, praise Gawd, Reverend Falwell had the wisdom to teach us that “Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions.”

Cheney: Now that I can relate to. If we could convert the media to Christianity, we’d have something here.

Dean: Besides, it is a documented fact that you, yourself, Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove were fossils revived from the same excavation.

Cheney: Well, you’ve got me there. I’m not a spring chicken.

Dean: Indeed, sir. Praise Gawd, Reverend Falwell brought you all to life with healing power of prayer!

Cheney: Uhm…Amen. And your curriculum? To what extent would I be able to put forward a—

Dean: [thumps a nearby bible] The Bible, sir, the Bible! Reverend Falwell said, and I quote, ‘Textbooks are Soviet propaganda.”

Cheney: Well, Dean, this has been most illuminating, and it has given me food for thought. Let me mull this over at least for a day or two or until the new Ice Age, whichever comes first.