Getting? How about already gone!!

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.

Presidential contender Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Cheney have butted heads over U.S. torture policy, with McCain, a Vietnam POW for five years, demanding the White House forbid it. 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 also told Blitzer that the problem with the situation in Iraq is that America may not have “the stomach to fight.” When asked about the possibility that Iraq may refuse to be a U.S. ally, Cheney insisted that won’t happen and retorted, “That we don’t have the stomach for the fight. That’s the biggest threat.”

Cheney’s statement is amazing. Americans have given the administration a virtual blank check for four years in Iraq. The price tag has included the loss of 3,000 sons and daughters, the disabling of thousands more, the deaths of thousands of Iraqis, the spending of hundreds of billions of dollars and lost prestige around the globe.

Read more here