Dick Cheney never went to war.  Dick Cheney was never interrogated.  Dick Cheney has been a bureaucrat and desk jockey his whole life.  Dick Cheney is not a member — trained or otherwise — of the military.  In short, Dick Cheney doesn’t know anything about war, prisoners of war or interrogations, except what he has read from the Gestapo and Maoist rule books.  I bet he really likes war games.

I don’t know anything about war either.  But I know that only a sadistic fool rushes into war where young people die and lives of so many are forever destroyed.  And I believe that only a sadistic fool goes straight to torture — yes, torture, and NO, there are not “enhanced interrogation techniques” — when there is at least a preponderance of credible information and analyses that show that a person subjected to these techniques will say anything to make the torture stop.  So, the information is no more value than a coin flip.

Cheney’s unprincipled approach to all of this is appalling, but not surprising.  Under the Bush Administration, his venal attacks on the government’s readiness to safeguard our nation would make him “unpatriotic,” “unAmerican,” and might subject him or his loved ones to attack in planted articles and leaks.  (Valerie Plame comes to mind.) 

He showed his true colors when he said that Bush would not bend to Cheney’s will in the second administration and that Bush showed an independent streak.  Dick, no one elected you president.  Ever.