Double McSame Dick Cheney took a moment off from his European tour to offer his opinion about his prospective replacement, Sarah Palin:

“I thought her appearance at (the) convention was superb. I watched that with great interest. I loved some of her lines: ‘What was the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? It’s lipstick,’” he told reporters…

“I think she is a good candidate and I don’t see any reason why she can’t be an effective vice president,” he said.

Cheney should be thrilled with the choice of Palin for the ticket. Ironically, he and Palin appear to be more similar in character and ideology than the men who were on John McCain’s short list, including Joe Lieberman, Tom Ridge, Tim Pawlenty or even Mitt Romney.

This is not just about the fact that Cheney and Palin both wear glasses, confuse sarcasm with humor and like to hunt, they have some fundamentally frightening traits in common:

Sociopathic Lying

Like George Bush, Dick Cheney has an easily read “tell” that can tip off even the casual observer when he is lying: His lips are moving.
She invoked executive privilege in refusing to disclose information about one ethics case, and last week she moved to hobble a legislative inquiry into her role in the firing of a state public safety official.
During her acceptance speech at the GOP convention — her only national appearance so far — Palin told a series of whoppers, most notably that she opposed the “bridge to nowhere” that was proposed by her mentor, Sen. Ted Stevens, the elderly senior senator from Alaska, who is currently under indictment for accepting bribes.

She also said Barack Obama would raise taxes on the middle class, when in fact his plan would increase middle-class after-tax income. She said Obama hadn’t used the word “victory” in relation to Iraq, when he had, and that he has never authored legislation, which was also false. She also famously lied about selling a state jet on E-Bay. She did not.

It’s all about Oil

Since taking office in 2001, Dick Cheney, the former CEO of Halliburton, has done everything in his power to help his buddies who run the oil companies. With the oil reserves in Iraq safely under their control and gas prices hovering around $4 per gallon, it’s clear that he has done a heckuva job.

Palin also favors raping the land for fun and profit:

“We want it to happen,” she said, “Alaskans want to open up the lands for that development, for the contributions that are potential here for the rest of the US.” Palin went on to note that “it’s really a pathetic situation [sic].

“And I have to ask lawmakers in Washington, DC, who have prohibited this drilling in ANWR if they’re doing all they can to secure the United States. When you consider, too, the geology that we’re talking about here, and the physical space that’s even needed to drill now, about a 2,000 acre plot, because of directional drilling and new technology, allowing such a small footprint to even be placed upon the tundra up north, it’s about 2,000 acres, which is smaller than the size of LAX and other big-city airports, that we would need to drill, and allow these resources to finally be tapped and to flow into hungry markets, and make us more secure. I think it’s so short-sighted.”

She also sued the Bush administration to try to prevent polar bears from being listed as endangered because the listing would prevent drilling in their habitats.

Obsessed with Secrecy

Today we learned that civil libertarians and historians are trying to prevent Cheney from destroying records from his eight years as a public employee.

Palin is known for her secrecy and aversion to transparency, too. She got elected governor promising to reform ethics in Alaska, but then she not only failed to provide leadership on the reforms, in true Cheneyesque fashion, she hid potential evidence her own ethical lapses behind a wall of secrecy:

Her administration has not been marked by the transparency she promised: She invoked executive privilege in refusing to disclose information about one ethics case, and last week she moved to hobble a legislative inquiry into her role in the firing of a state public safety official.

Several legislators also say the governor’s office is not a place for open debate: Palin does not tolerate much dissent, they say, sometimes cutting off relations with those deemed unhelpful or critical.

And she shows only marginal interest in crafting policy proposals and getting them passed, these critics say.

“Her ethics proposal had to be beefed up substantially with very basic additions,” said state Rep. Les Gara, an Anchorage Democrat who tried to get the governor’s attention on ethics and other issues.

It lacked such long-needed provisions as language making legislators subject to prosecution for bribery if they exchanged votes for campaign contributions. To Gara and to some others, including Republicans who have often supported the governor, their experience on the ethics bill has proven disconcertingly similar to their experience with Palin on other issues.

A Penchant for Spying

Cheney and Bush repeatedly violated the FISA act to spy on Americans. Palin spied on a colleague and then had him charged with ethical lapses based on her illegally obtained evidence:

In January 2004, she resigned as chairwoman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission after a public spat squabble with fellow commissioner Randy Ruedrich, who was also happens to chair of the Republican Party of Alaska. In 2003, Palin alerted Gov. Frank Murkowski’s administration that she suspected Ruedrich of an ethics breach, conducting work for the state GOP on government time.

Palin hacked into Ruedrich’s computer, an ethical lapse in its own right, to obtain evidence of her colleague’s malfeasance.

Never Served in the Military

Cheney received five deferments from the Vietnam draft on the excuse he ha a boil on his ass — no, wait that was Rush Limbaugh. Cheney got his five deferments because he had “other priorities,” or so he says. Palin, who went to six different colleges, is an extreme rightwing militarist like Cheney but rather than serve in the military, she took a job as a sportscaster.

One Major Difference

Of course, there are differences between the current Republican vice president and the wannabe. Cheney has a face that scares children and small animals, and is often parodied as Darth Vader. Palin has a voice that can chill water that is destined to be parodied on Saturday Night Live.