-"In the tape, bin Laden spoke in a soft voice, as he has in previous recordings, but his tone was flatter than in the past and had an echo, as if recorded indoors."
Lara Jakes Jordan/AP-Yahoo 20.Jan.06
Anyone who can read that and not think about aliens from other planets bent on the enslavement of the human race is not someone I'd look forward to sitting next to at the family reunion barbecue/picnic.
Just above it Jakes Jordan explains that the CIA analysts in charge of establishing bin Laden's identity did so by comparing his voice to earlier tapes. A little murkier, but still within the guidelines for recognizing alien attempts at human logic.
That Cheney comes across looking, in the story, like John Wayne pretending to be Gary Cooper walking slow and calm on his way to the final showdown on Main Street makes me want to compose a theme appropriate for him - something like "Do not forsake me, Oh my darling" or "Knockin On Heaven's Door".
Songs which if you think about it have a lot in common. The difference mostly resting in the moral ambiguities in the Pat Garrett/Billy The Kid match-up - whereas Cooper is the hero all the way, flawed but redeemed, and redeeming what he puts above himself.
The songs reflect that, it's why they're so memorable.
Cheney's theme would have to incorporate the horrifying emptiness he moves toward, taking so much innocence with him - the way he seems to move willingly and with no apparent reluctance. And the complicity that gave him the badge in the first place.
