On the couch Everything I know I learned from Dick Cheney BY CAITLIN SHETTERLY

1. How To Lie and Still Get Your Way: Keep lying (just ask my ex-boyfriend).

2. The More You Lie, Get Nastier: Sideways out of your mouth if possible, without ever really looking at the person you’re being nasty to.

3. If Your Daughter is Gay Never Talk About It: By not mentioning the unmentionable (your daughter is GAAAAAYYYYY, your daughter is GAAAAAYYYYY) it goes away. Sort of.

Last week was stellar for TV watching, which was good because I wanted to believe I had nothing better to do. We had the bristling (that’s the mass media word, not mine) Edwards-Cheney debate and then, the very next night, for our added enjoyment, The Bachelor followed by Wife Swap, the new ABC reality venture where women are traded for two weeks and have to live with each other’s families and messy houses and lives.

Despite the fact that some might not be astute enough see the relationship between Wife Swap and the Edwards-Cheney debate, I think they were almost the same show. On Wife Swap this week — and I’m sure it was no accident — an overweight wife from a gun-toting South Carolina family with a Confederate flag flying out front alongside Old Glory, and a husband who had maybe two marbles in his head, was swapped with a high-strung "tree-hugging" (again, their words, not mine) blond, toothy, slightly smarter environmentalist who had no idea how to clean her house and really didn’t care.

This, clearly, was a recipe for disaster. The husband of the Tree Hugger had dreadlocks; the husband of the Confederate had a beer gut and burps to match.

Although the Tree Hugger did her best to snivel through one week, when it came time for week two, when the Rules could be changed, she seemed almost hopeful that order could be restored to her little universe and that her wishes would be respected — after all, everyone’s getting paid and the rules of the show are that the guest wife gets to change the house, right? I mean, the producers told me so.

Not so easy. She, like many Tree Huggers — or myself, really — had never gone up against a Southern, flag-flying, Jesus-loves-me-because-the-Bible-told-me-so type. The Confederate, on the other hand, never cried or even worried, she just kept a constant smirk on her face and looked with disdain at the filthy house she was visiting. When rule-changing day came, big surprise, the dreadlocked husband followed the rules and flew her American Flag — most likely purchased at Wal-Mart — even though it pained him to do so ("Who knows? He might make some new friends," she said). Once, the show discovered with glee, he dissolved into tears when the Confederate Nazi made him wash out a moldy flower vase.

On the other hand, Beer Gut, the baseball-hat-wearing, hunting, All-American Male refused to follow the Tree Hugger’s rules. He would not take down the Confederate flag. He would not do dishes. He would not eat the dinner she cooked. He told her "this whole thing sucks" (no shit, buddy). This, of course, AFTER he told National TV that he would rather she be his wife because she was thin and cute — if toothy.

But what really makes me want to stay in bed all day (watching Wife Swap or The Bachelor or reading The Lovely Bones or Night Mother just so that I might, as my friend Erica pointed out the other day, have a total and complete nervous breakdown before November 2 even arrives) is that the Confederates have more power. They are more stubborn in what they believe. They don’t see shades of gray. They don’t want to. They don’t see when they are being numb or cruel. They see right and wrong. And it’s clear. Goddammit, it’s American.

Dick Cheney, while too smart to be a Redneck, clearly learned this lesson a long time ago. He uses people like Beer Burpy because they are too stupid to know he’s lying to them and they endorse his policy with such fervent zeal that they have no idea that it is taking money out of their pockets, stealing health care from their children, and sending their nephews to Iraq without proper body gear.

Edwards, on the other hand, in a way, was sort of more like the Tree Hugger: Super Earnest. As he worked against the lean, repugnant evil of the Cheney machine, it was almost like he couldn’t fathom that people wouldn’t see he was right. He came out of the gate with the Bush Administration’s LIES and he held on like a terrier.

What was made to look pathetic by ABC — but was also the sort of touching thing on Wife Swap — was the way Tree Hugger and her husband held on to decency even in the face of nastiness. Just before the Confederate obliterates him, Dreadlocky brings her some flowers as a way of making amends after the blowout over Old Glory. It’s just a gesture — a way of saying, "I know this is all a show and I know somewhere in there you are a decent person." And, she ridicules him for having a green furry vase — even makes him get down and clean it. Rubs his face in it.

This is what I fear for the coming election. The unspeakable will happen and then they’ll smear our faces in our own All-American Filth as we choke down what we’ve known since grade school: Mean is always stronger than nice.

Caitlin Shetterly can be reached at bramhallsquare@yahoo.com