Exploding heads? Cheney wrong again

Capital police have yet to report an epidemic of exploding craniums in Washington. Thus, the man who more than anyone assured America that Iraq abounded with WMD is wrong again.

Dick Cheney said the release of his self-indulgently titled “In My Time” would cause “heads to explode”

It’s typical bravado from a trigger-happy chicken hawk who sought and received five deferments to duck duty in Vietnam, yet never personally drew human blood until 2006 when a Texas lawyer forgot to duck when Cheney nearly cooked his goose.

And to further add to the fowl coincidences, both men were hunting a bird whose name is pronounced exactly the same as a previous VP under a previous Bush.

It stretches the credulity of all the old birds-in-the-bush aphorisms.

I nearly had a vested interest in the release of the Cheney book and exploding heads would have certainly goosed up sales in a fanciful project over which I still feel sentimental.

It was 2009 when Cheney was becoming so visible I suggested he replace Simon Cowell as a take-no-prisoners judge on “American Idol.”

Remember? Obama had just taken office and Cheney was predicting so much imminent doom I was surprised anyone was still bothering to peruse the seed catalogues.

He hinted bin Laden was probably chortling over having such a rank amateur as Obama going after him.

And Cheney may have been right about that. We’ll never know.

So Cheney seemed a natural to step in for Cowell. Who wouldn’t have tuned in to hear him tell some “Freebird” mangling hillbilly, “You can’t sing, you’re ugly and you smell like Detroit during a garbage strike.

“I’d advise you to go back to welding bent tailpipes, but I’ll be happy to shove you out the window if you’re just going to stand there and pout. It’s up to you friend. I don’t care one way or the other.”

He remains one of the most fascinating political characters of our time and is certainly the most frightening.

Besides being an uber-war monger with that fistful of deferments, he’s a dour moralist with two DUIs. He’s the leader of the far right movement that rails against gay marriage, yet he’s the doting grandfather to two children who are being raised in an alternative lifestyle loathed by his many ardent supporters.

I through tightly clenched teeth found psycho-analyzing him irresistible.

I wondered if my bitter partisanship was blinding me to a side of Cheney he sought to conceal.

Like perhaps the presence of a soul.

I had so much fun with it I decided to dash off a jiffy book proposal called, “The Audacious, Startling True Adventures of Pvt. Cheney -- Stealth Superhero!” It’s marooned at the orphanage section for unwanted stories at www.chrisrodell.com.

I was sure I had a smash hit on my hands and pitched it to some publishers who -- and this is symptomatic of my many failures -- said, wow, this is a great, hilarious, if only you’d have thought of this about six months ago!

What’s funny is whenever I’m invited to speak to high school or college journalism students, the story that gets the most enthusiastic comment is invariably the one about Pvt. Cheney and it’s always from the students who look the most thoroughly burned out, God bless ‘em.

Makes me hope burn outs gravitate to the publishing world before it’s too late for me.

I’m sure the book would be enjoying a nice little run right now.

It’s bound to have been more entertaining than Cheney score settling bore, which reviews are saying is just his way to kill time.

And, hey, I’m all for that.

It’s a vast improvement over all that Cheney was responsible for killing from 2003-2008.