It’s been a theme of “moonbats” for years: Vice President Dick Cheney is nuts, a bitter old man with a hair trigger temper, frustrated at seeing his plans to control the world not come to full fruition. Now, it’s entering the mainstream. From the Seattle Post Intelligencer: Cheney’s out of the shadows but still an enigma .

A group of Republican lawmakers was waiting for an elevator on Capitol Hill when one of them said in frustration to his colleagues, “What’s with Cheney? Anybody know?”

One colleague muttered, “The guy’s getting a little strange, seems to me. Big chip on his shoulder.”

Vice President Dick Cheney has re-emerged from the shadows, causing a new ripple of speculation about whether his pit-bull attitude serves the president well, whether he’s the one dictating Iraq policy, whether he’s even thinking clearly.

Cheney, who was in charge of vetting potential running mates for George W. Bush in 2000 and ended up taking the job himself, is an enigma to many. Whether swearing at a Democrat on the Senate floor or calling former defense chief Donald Rumsfeld the best secretary of defense in U.S. history, Cheney’s conduct makes even some Republicans nervous.

…

In an interview with a Capitol Hill newspaper, McCain said of Cheney, “The president listens too much to the vice president. Of course, the president bears the ultimate responsibility, but he’s been very badly served by both the vice president and, most of all, the secretary of defense (Rumsfeld).”

When asked about that by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Cheney responded laconically, “So?”

…

Cheney told Blitzer that any accusation that he’s lost credibility is “hogwash.”

It’s delightful to talk to the sitting vice president about trout fishing in Wyoming. On any other subject, listening to him is unnerving.

Well, I like the fact that Cheney is unnerving columnists for the Seattle Post Intelligencer, by sticking to his guns and failing to roll around in a state of abject apology. (We’re also supposed to believe that he is unnerving Republicans in congress, based on the columnist’s impossible-to-verify quotes from nameless “colleagues” waiting for an elevator.) I like his attitude a whole lot, but then I always have. Nowadays, there are also certain questions which he just no longer has the patience to answer with long, drawn out niceties. Some examples from the Wolf Blitzer interview the other day:

BLITZER: Do you think Hillary Clinton would make a good president?
VICE PRESIDENT: No, I don’t.
BLITZER: Why?
VICE PRESIDENT: Because she’s a Democrat. I don’t agree with her philosophically and from a policy standpoint.
BLITZER: Do you think she will be president?
VICE PRESIDENT: I don’t.

Why should he waste time with dancing around such stuff? He’s got bigger things to worry about, and he’s never going to run for re-election again. Likewise:

BLITZER: … Nancy Pelosi. What was it like sitting with her last
night as opposed to Dennis Hastert?
VICE PRESIDENT: I prefer Dennis Hastert, obviously. I like having a fellow Republican in the
Speaker’s chair. Nancy’s now the speaker of the House. We had a very pleasant evening.

And I’m sure they did. Big time.

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