get your story straight, Dick

Our senile schizophrenic glad-handing Vice Pacemaker visited Kazakhstan this week and found a way to send even more mixed messages in our recently-strained diplomatic efforts with a disappointingly-regressing Russia:

Cheney Switches From Scowls to Smiles A day after scolding Russia for retreating on democracy, Vice President Cheney flew to oil-rich Kazakhstan yesterday and lavished praise on the autocratic leader of a former Soviet republic where opposition parties have been banned, newspapers shut down and advocacy groups intimidated. ~

Asked about Kazakhstan's human rights record, he expressed "admiration for all that's been accomplished here in Kazakhstan" and confidence that it will continue.

Kazakhstan, however, remains a repressive nation, ruled by a former Communist apparatchik who has maintained a tight grip over its 15 million people since Soviet days and parlayed its massive energy reserves into a place on the international stage. Those reserves, human rights advocates say, have earned the country a pass from the Bush administration on human rights.

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The opposition party Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan was liquidated last year, and authorities refused to register two other opposition parties. Two opposition leaders died from gunshot wounds -- the circumstances are contested -- in recent months. The government has closed newspapers and seized print runs while using tax, immigration and other investigations to harass nongovernmental organizations. It is illegal to insult Nazarbayev or to report on his health, finances or private life.

"During the year almost all media outlets willing to criticize the president directly were subjected to intimidation, often in the form of law enforcement actions or civil suits," the State Department's annual human rights report stated in March.

Nazarbayev has been accused of massive corruption. His own prime minister revealed in 2002 that Nazarbayev had stashed $1 billion in oil money in a secret Swiss bank account. Aides called it a legitimate "special reserve account." U.S. prosecutors have also charged American businessman James H. Giffen with laundering tens of millions of dollars in oil company bribes to Nazarbayev and his family, allegations the Kazakh president denies.

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But human rights groups that hailed Cheney's comments on Russia said Kazakhstan deserved the same. "It is hardly consistent," said Curt Goering, deputy executive director of Amnesty International. "He made some important remarks [on Russia]. He said some of the right things that needed to be said. But he should have said some similar things in Kazakhstan.