Any Inhuman Heart

I know someone who was in a position to rub elbows with Dick Cheney before he ran the world. They once argued about some issue at an otherwise abandoned table after a dinner in Georgetown. Cheney had the consistency that comes from mania, there on display. 

Reality would be brought to heel, in Cheney's hands, and made to conform to his disposition and predisposition. For a militarist like Cheney there was something missing, though, the reality-check of facing the consequences of your actions and opinions, life in the field. 

It isn't fair. In the latter World War projectiles like Patton, MacArthur and LeMay found their places at a level lower than strategy, though their insane fantasies were later publicly known. Thank God there were people who understood enough to rein them in and use them.

With Cheney it wasn't so. There can still be a reckoning on his catastrophic effects and, not just to pick on Dick, there are others like him waiting in line, politicians, policy and financial people. Crazies have their place. It's essential to see that they stay there.