Did I Ever Tell You Dick Cheney Is A Crook?

A French investigation into corrupt practices in Nigeria has uncovered a series of more-than-questionable payments totalling $132 million made by Cheney's Halliburton, many of which occured directly under Cheney's watch as CEO.

Kellogg, Brown & Root, the infamous Halliburton subsidiary, was part of a consortium that bid successfully to win a $12bn contract to build a gas terminal at Bonny Island in Nigeria. It seems certain that the $132 million was used to ease the passage of the contract into the right hands. Bribery and corruption is, after all, an old American tradition.

Where, I wonder, is the mainstream coverage of this story in the USA? This is hardly the first time that Cheney's Halliburton has been linked to dubious business practices. In fact, it seems impossible to get through a month these days without some new revelation of greed and malfeasance by the ex-CEO and his minions. This latest bribery story has had a little play in the rear sections of the business news, but nothing that the viewers of network or cable news would be aware of. I find that simply amazing.

Here we have the Vice-President of the United States -- one heartbeat away from the Presidency -- linked over and over again to stories of ethical lapses and fiduciary irresponsibility (at best), and he's not being hammered for it. Clinton screws an intern and we get eighteen months of nothing else. Cheney screws the US taxpayer and everyone else and it's shuffled under the carpet. I don't believe in a media owners' conspiracy of silence, but I do appreciate the atmosphere of fear some of these characters can generate.

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I was going through some books this morning and came across the first volume of Robert Caro's epic biography of Lyndon Johnson. Flipping through the pages, I was reminded of the part Kellogg, Root & Brown played in LBJ's unorthodox rise to fortune and political power. Plus ca change, plus the meme chose.