Big Dick Cheney

Dana Goldstein points me to a Politico article in which Dick Cheney is quoted as saying such Freudian things as "big stick" and "long pole" and perhaps it's no surprise that he has a few odd things bouncing around in his subconscious.

What's also no surprise is that Politico scored an interview with the vice president and used the opportunity to rigorously question allow him to sound off unchecked for 40 minutes or so. Here's the closest the piece's three authors come to challenging the tripe Cheney spews:

Cheney offered an upbeat assessment of the Iraq war, predicting that when he and Bush leave office in January 2009 a self-governing democracy would be firmly established in Iraq.

Few military experts in either party share his optimism. But Cheney said much more work needs to be done.

Instead, the piece is written in an almost self-parodying "Cheney says mean things about Democrats who respond with slightly-less-mean things about Dick Cheney" style, which I suppose is the standard most journalist reflexively resort to when confronted by anybody powerful, even when those people are deeply unpopular, dangerous, and on their way out of office. Still!

I guess the one actual surprise is that Cheney doesn't sound particularly vicious when he says that the NIE won't effect the administration's Iran policy in any way. But that's about it.

Update: Also, Dana, Dick Cheney is not the Prince of Darkness. That honor goes to Robert Novak. Dick Cheney is Darth Vader. It's a cutthroat business and you must get your right-wing caricatures straight!

Update 2: I think this thing about needing three reporters on hand for a 40 minute softball fest really shows just how much stuff like this is about sycophancy and access for journalists and not at all about, you know, helping to inform readers about important events in the world.