Meet Dr. Marble

Meet Dr. Ben Marble, a.k.a. "The Guy Who Told Dick Cheney to Go Fuck Himself."

When footage of this incident first aired last week, I figured the person behind it must be one of Mississippi's famous "outside agitators." In fact, Marble is a Gulfport resident whose home was destroyed by the hurricane. He's also an emergency room physician who moonlights as an artist and punk rock musician.

After the f-bomb, Marble was briefly handcuffed and detained by authorities, but they let him go after about 20 minutes. "I had no intention of harming anyone but merely wanted to echo Mr. Cheney's infamous words back at him," he said.

Naturally, the good doctor is trying to capitalize on the slogan with a Cafe Press online merch store.

While proffering the veep an invitation to monogenesis isn't going to change a damn thing, it still warmed my prankish heart to hear someone interrupt a carefully staged photo-op to voice such sentiment. Anyone suggesting this language is unbecoming for civil discourse is probably right, but Cheney's own use of the phrase on the Senate floor made it fair game to hurl it right back at him like a wad of wet toilet paper.

To borrow a phrase from National Lampoon's Animal House, "I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part."

Praise be to Kent B. for the link.