He'll trash countries, but not hotel rooms

As if I didn't already find this time of year sufficiently depressing, even news tidbits about Bush administration officials with ample opportunity to be comic gold are starting to come up cheap, tacky trifles. Take the publication this week by The Smoking Gun of Dick Cheney's "diva list" of requirements for outfitting his hotel suites.

Did it include any exotic, maniacally specific or ethically questionable food items? Illicit reading materials or entertainment paraphernalia? A medicine cabinet stocked with Ambien and a mini fridge full of premixed, fruity girlie drinks? Portable defibrillators? Ammo?

No such luck. The only one that's even marginally interesting or unnerving is the "All televisions tuned to FOX News" item. Is he just too lazy to change the channel himself lest he perform enough physical activity to jostle loose some congealing arterial plaque and avoid a fifth heart attack? Or is he just that determined to remain uncorrupted by any sources of information out in the "reality-based community," even for the moment it takes to punch a few buttons?

Either one is disturbing, but still–rich, old war-mongering Republicans, even their supposed evil masterminds, seem to be painfully dull in their quirky demands.

Is the possibility of someone getting tossed into Gitmo for bringing his Veepness Cheese Nips instead of Cheez-Its really so much to ask?