Former Vice President and Eternal Sith Lord Dick Cheney received a heart transplant last night. According to the Times he is recuperating at a Northern Virginia hospital. "Although the former Vice President and his family do not know the identity of the donor, they will be forever grateful for this lifesaving gift," aide Kara Ahern said in a statement. Cheney, a former smoker, has suffered five heart attacks, the first of which occurred when he was 37 years old. He had been living with a battery-powered heart pump until the pump saw W and threatened to walk off the job.
But some people aren't laughing at all the jokes about Cheney's heart transplant being the first that used a living donor, or that the new heart is already rejecting Cheney's body because it's "having difficulty lying." Important D.C. publication The Daily Caller wonders what happened to the supposed "new era of political civility" with all the "Cheney hate" floating around. Yes! Remember the bygone era of politesse when a Vice President could gently tell a Senator to "Go fuck yourself"? Those were the days.
Even the New York Times' David Carr is NOT AMUSED.
Funny how health, most personal of all issues, brings out the twerp in ppl. Hardly a Cheney guy, but why go there? Hoary and tired.
— david carr (@carr2n) March 25, 2012
Why go there? Because Cheney isn't merely a former public servant who deserves our quiet respect while a few generations of grad students figure out his "legacy." He has changed the course of this country in ways few Vice Presidents have. Where do you even begin? His vigorous propagation of torture, and his outright false justifications for it? Waging war over bogus intelligence (and insisting he'd do it again)? Enriching his former oil company with no-bid contracts? Opening unprecedented amounts of protected federal land to energy companies? Valerie Plame? Shooting a friend in the face and refusing to apologize?
The Times notes that older patients like Cheney (he is 71) have a tougher time after the transplant.
A 2008 study in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery found that outcomes were significantly worse for older patients. For patients over 55, the study found, 63 percent were still alive five years after their transplant, 48 percent survived a decade and 35 percent were living 15 years later.
