Judy Loves Dick

In real life my pal TexasJudy loves Skip, her longtime hubby. But in her fantasy life, well, this is what Judy has to say: “I want to tell you I saw a fine picture of our President and Vice President Cheney at the Dallas IRS Building yesterday and, yes, I drooled over Cheney again.”

So what’s the secret of Dick Cheney’s charm? Cheney excelled at his Wyoming high school. He was elected senior class president, he represented the school at Boys State, and played halfback on the football team. After high school graduation in 1959 and for six summers, Cheney worked on power lines and was a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union. In 1964, he married Lynne Vincent, his high-school sweetheart, whom he had met at age fourteen. They had two children. Lovely Lynn is currently a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

OK, so Dick's athletic, a leader, a bit of a cowboy. What’s the big deal?

Perhaps it’s the “model of ideal manhood” that Meghan Daum found in “Brokeback Mountain?” (LA Times, 1/7/06)

Despite its vast Western landscapes, drunken cowboy talk and gay sex scenes, "Brokeback Mountain" is a thinking girl's chick flick. For all their monosyllabism, Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis (Heath Ledger) are fonts of emotion. Sure, they're prone to the usual male-pattern drinking, fighting and marrying women without knowing quite what they're doing, but when it comes to their love for each other, their hearts aren't just on their sleeves, they're pinned to their foreheads. And guess what? Chicks dig it.

Could it be that’s what Judy sees in Dick?

Daum notes: Instead of merely acquiring the trappings of kinder, gentler manhood, Jack and Ennis actually walk the walk. The sight of Jack crying in his truck as he drives away from Ennis (who retreats to an alley and vomits in tortured despair) is enough to make even the bitterest woman swoon.

Meghan admits: I was just pretending Heath Ledger was vomiting because of me. By acting like men but emoting like women, by embodying both sides of the divide, Jack and Ennis cover all the bases of the romantic equation.

I guess that must be it: Dick Cheney covering both sides of the sexual divide, wearing his heart on his forehead as he pines over Karl Rove. Judy?