Classsic exchange here from Cheney's self-serving exit interview with PBS's Jim Lehrer.
MR. LEHRER: So it doesn't trouble you at all to be leaving office next week with the overwhelming disapproval of the majority of the people, as measured by the polls? It doesn't bother you, personally?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don't buy that. No, first of all - I don't buy that. And I find, when I get out and talk with people, that that's not the unanimous view, as you would have it. Things that count for me, in terms of the people I want to make certain are with us are, for example, the American military - young men and women who serve, the folks who go out and put their lives on the line to carry out the policies we've decided upon.
Cheney's best defense is that he is not unanimously disliked? That must be a first. And then we get the novel argument that as long as the military supports him he doesn't care what anyone else thinks. Sounds more like something you'd hear from a tinpot dictator in aviator shades and ill-fitting uniform, not the duly elected* vice president of the United States.
*In 2004, at least!
--Michael Crowley