You Must Remember This

Before my mom died and before we knew she had dementia, she lived with my sister and my sister's daughter. One evening the three of them were out to dinner. When Mom needed to use the bathroom, she wondered aloud whether this restaurant had a well-maintained one or a nasty, foul one.

"Oh, they have a nice bathroom here, Gramma," my niece said, "you've used it before."
"I have never been in the bathroom here," Mom assured her.
"Yes you have, Gramma."
"I should know if I'd been in the bathroom or not."
My niece was hurt by this contradiction but she is persistent when she knows she is right.
"You always tell us how you forget things, Gramma. You probably just forgot that you've used it."
Mom stiffened her spine and sternly replied, "I may not remember the things I've done, but I never forget the things I haven't done."

We have savored that little statement among the family legends and for all these years thought it was a unique item of somewhat tortured logic. Well, speaking of torture, Dick Cheney is either channeling Mom or a victim of incipient dementia himself.

To 72 questions about ways he had been involved in the Valerie Plame affair - things he had done or said - Cheney responded that he could not recall.

"Expressing uncertainty on many areas he was being questioned about and refusing to discuss another area altogether, Cheney was emphatic on at least one basic point.

According to the FBI summary, Cheney said there was no discussion of using Plame’s employment with the CIA to counter her husband’s criticism that the Bush administration had manipulated prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

"You didn't expose Ms. Plame CIA status as punishment for their charges that you lied about Iraq."
"I ought to know if I outed a CIA agent for political reasons."
"You have repeatedly told us that you forget things, sir. Maybe you just forgot putting her life in danger for revenge."
Cheney stiffened his spine and sternly replied, "I may not remember the things I've done, but I never forget the things I haven't done."