Community notice: Cheney shiva call details
Temple Congregation Shalom Shpilkes mourns the loss of someone whose death confirms he was, to our surprise, a person.
With a deep sense of ineffectual catharsis, we come together to observe the passing of, as Google has it, a businessman. Richard Bruce Cheney, more accurately known as Dick, was also the 43 1/2 President of the United States.
Despite access to the wonders of modern medicine that most Americans cannot reasonably afford, Dick’s poor heart finally gave out when confronted with a Muslim’s imminent victory in the race to run New York City. This is not a world to which he wished to belong and, in his long and storied career, worked tirelessly to prevent.
Dick is survived by his wife, politically fraught daughters, and the Democratic Party that inherits his spirit of American interventionism and global primacy.
(Does that make Donald Trump a liberal? Tawk amongst yourselves …)
For those who wish to pay their final respects, Jeffrey Goldberg has generously opened his home for shiva calls. Anne Applebaum has agreed to bring bagels; Bill Kristol will ensure all mirrors are covered so no one has to reflect on how we got here; and The New York Times editorial board is asking everyone to please denote their preference for cinnamon or chocolate rugelach.
zikhrono livrakha. May his memory be a blessing … accompanied by a heavy dose of footnotes and caveats.
In this difficult time, Temple Congregation Shalom Shpilkes takes discomfort in the knowledge that though a person may die, the destruction he wrought in his life is the true meaning of immortality.