University of Wyoming should build Cheney Bunker on campus

A brouhaha has arisen on the University of Wyoming campus about the name of the new Cheney International Center. That’s "Cheney" as in "Dick," the UW grad and outgoing V.P. Two students, Fred Vanden Heede and Suzy Pelican, have stoked opposition to the center’s name with letters in UW’s Branding Iron and newspapers across the state. Here’s an excerpt:

"For a long time to come, many Wyoming residents and millions more people across the U.S. and beyond will seriously doubt the legitimacy of an international center named after Dick Cheney."

They’re being a bit hard on the Veep. He’s traveled widely during his time in politics, meeting world leaders such as Saddam Hussein (remember him?) and other assorted dictators who used to be our friends. He’s also been the impetus behind our country’s many international peace-keeping efforts, such as bombing Iraq back to the Stone Age. This guy knows his international. It’s odd, though, because during his student years of many draft deferments he said he "had better things to do" than visit Vietnam. He missed out on a grand adventure!

But I think UW is missing the boat on the Cheney naming rights thing. I think the U should construct an entire mini-campus dedicated to Cheney. His many international accomplishments could be represented in a grand assemblage of buildings. Here are a few suggestions for the Cheney International Center:

We gotta have art. The center's centerpiece should be a gigantic statue of Dick Cheney, something like that big likeness of Saddam Hussein that was pulled down when U.S. troops got to Baghdad in 2003. Big Soviet-style statues would suit Cheney's Soviet-style tactics in his role as the All-Powerful Oz of Veeps. It might be fun to designate a "Topple Dick Cheney Day" each year on campus, when the students can haul down the statue in celebration of democracy's return on Jan. 20, 2009. I suggest the statue be fitted with a spring-loaded pedestal so it can snap back into place once the celebration is over. This is so we don't have to keep building more statues. Whadda ya think, Dick's made of money? By the way, no government funds should go to the monument, as Lynne Cheney spent most of her professional career lobbying against gubment funding for statues.

What of the buildings? A big fort modeled after the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad would be nice. But it has to have a moat. And a big huge concrete blast barrier around it, which would make the structure a fort within a fort. Maybe two big concrete walls, with would make it a fort within a fort within a fort. And a drawbridge, too. And...

Now I'm sounding like Cheney. A few deep breaths. I'm not Dick Cheney! I'm not Dick Cheney! I'm not Dick Cheney! That's better.

The building should be modeled after other buildings on the UW campus. Nothing grandiose. Nothing fat-headed. It should match the sandstone facades of the other structures, such as the student center and the English Department HQ. I'm not sure there's any room for a new structure like this.

But I have a great idea. Since the Veep has spent most of the past eight years in an underground bunker, why not build the center underground? Below Prexy's Pasture? Halliburton crews could dig out a huge cavern and there's no limit to what you could do with it. So much space. You could even put the Dick Cheney Vice Presidential Library inside. You could nuke-proof it, and Dick might even want to include a living space for his visits to campus. The Veep Lair. "To the batmobile, Lynne. All of us at the Dick Cheney International Center have countries to ruin!"