Political Skullduggery

Vice President Cheney has carefully cultivated a reputation as the "strong, silent type." He may have missed his true calling. Cheney should have been a comedian.

The vice president rejected critics, including Republicans, who said the incident should have been announced promptly by the White House, rather than by the ranch owner calling a friendly local reporter the next day. "I thought that made good sense because you get as accurate a story as possible from somebody who knew and understood hunting," he said, adding: "And I thought that was the right call. . . . I still do."

A master of ironic humor at work.

His (nominal) boss may not be too happy with the recent developments:

In a sign of the extraordinary tension inside the White House -- evidently even between Bush and Cheney -- McClellan noted that when he said at a Monday briefing that he would have handled disclosure of the shooting differently, he was "speaking on behalf of the White House and the president."

Cheney's victim is not your typical gooper:

Whittington's politics, according to friends, have not always conformed with the conservative ideology of many Texas Republicans. One Texas Republican described Whittington's politics as that of a Rockefeller Republican, not a Reagan Republican. Others cited Whittington's opposition to the death penalty as an example of his ideological independence.

It is no secret why Cheney chose the compliant Brit Hume for the exclusive interview, he is an apologist tool for the administration:

Hume has questioned the recent behavior of the White House press corps, telling viewers Tuesday: "It doesn't seem to me, from what I can tell, from what I'm reading from the public, that the public much cares about whether they found out about this on Saturday night or Sunday afternoon or Monday morning."

Cheney was not eager to discuss another big liability, his role in "Plamegate":

Vice President Cheney yesterday praised his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and said the indicted ex-aide deserves to be considered not guilty until proved otherwise. But the vice president declined to say whether he authorized Libby to disclose classified information...

In the interview, Cheney said he had the power under a presidential executive order to declassify information. "I've certainly advocated declassification and participated in declassification decisions," he said, but he would not say whether he had done so unilaterally.

Cheney was referring to an executive order on classification of information first signed by President Bill Clinton in 1995. In March 2003, just days after ordering U.S. troops into Iraq, President Bush amended order to, among other things, give the vice president the same classification power as the president.

Cheney is juggling so many crises now that his poor ticker must be under a heck of a strain. His cardiologist must be hating life right about now