The John Paul I/Neves/Casey Scenario

The Slangwhanger-in-Chief, presumably for his sins, has recently endured a hectic work schedule that has meanly curtailed his presence here in Scenic Lower Bloggovia. However, the light is where? At the end of the tunnel. And it has done what? Broken on a new day. And how lieved are we? Re.

Never a man to fear to tread where angels won't even crawl, the S-i-C is happy to present a bit of history wrapped around a supposition, and to then infundibulate that tasty little theoretico-historico bagel-dog into a fully-cooked speculation. Oughtta prove nutritious enough to base a little aleatory action on.

To kick it off, here's a bit of the wikipedia article on Pope John Paul I, a humble pastor who was neither a diplomat nor a Curialist, and who perished after a 33-day Pontificate in 1978.

Even those who believe that John Paul I died naturally admit that the Vatican in its handling of the death behaved with at best scant regard for the truth or accuracy. For others, the suspicion remains that the 'smiling pope', who charmed the world, died in a highly suspicious manner that has yet to be explained adequately.

Then there was the strange case of Tancredo Neves. Who? First civilian president of Brazil under the new dispensation. Died before assuming office. Deal was like this.

On January 15, 1985 Tancredo Neves was elected to the Presidency by a majority of the members of Congress. However, just one day before he was scheduled to take the oath of office (March 15, 1985), Neves became severely ill. He suffered from abdominal complications and developed generalized infections. After seven operations, Tancredo Neves died on April 21, 1985. He was succeeded by José Sarney.

Eerie, huh? Wait, there's more.

Remember one William J. Casey, a cold warrior, assassination-orderer whose 1987 brain-cancer death conveniently spared the Reagan Administration much embarrassing Iran-Contra scandal testimony?

Often misattributed to Ian Fleming, the old Royal Naval Intelligence axiom is, "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. But three times is enemy action." In this case, not an external enemy, but that oldest imperial enemy, history itself, is involved.

You already saw where this is going, right? Saw it coming a long way away. Here's the incomparable investigator Murray Waas on Scooter Libby's legal gyrations:

First, [Libby's claim of acting on direct authorization] significantly adds to a mounting body of information that [Vice President Dick "Lying Sack of Excrement"] Cheney played a central and personal role in directing efforts to counter claims by Wilson and other administration critics that the Bush administration had misused intelligence information to go to war with Iraq.

As the Administration's sad and sorry edifice of lying, spying, torture and corruption disintegrates, Cheney is everywhere to be found actually in charge or deeply involved. Driver of the neo-con Israeli branch of the securocrats, Cheney personally wove the greater lies about Iraq and clings to their threadbare texture to this day. He has also insisted on unlimited Presidential power to warrantlessly wiretap whomever whenever. He is the Administration's key torture defender, if not outright instigator. And the Administration's corruption was signalled by his assembling of energy company executives such as the Enron-disgraced Ken Lay to formulate the country's energy policy. Every evil done by this Administration has Cheney's DNA all over it.

And many of us think he might soon be volunteered to "take one for the team," to use a particularly loathsome sports metaphor. The S-i-C is contacting one of the offshore betting sites to see if they will put up an over/under number on days until Cheney is "suddenly stricken." (Personal bet: this summer, so that new-Veep-hoopla distracts from Abramoff-related trials.) The S-i-C is grimly heartened at the possibilities when recalling the seven operations endured by Tancredo Neves, and he hopes that Generalissimo Francisco Franco's medical team can be flown over from Spain to prolong Cheney in a Schiavo-like condition for, oh, say, many, many years.