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Vice President Dick Cheney and Hannibal Lecter share one thing in common: their heart rates are reptile-like. Despite being exposed to stressful situations that would tax any man's ticker, both men keep cool under pressure.
Give media bonus points to CNN's Wolf Blitzer who blitzkrieged Cheney from all directions during their recent interview. He was relentless and tough, bringing up Iraq, Iran, Bush's falling unpopularity, Scooter Libby's trial, and Mary, his lesbian daughter who's about to become a mother.
Wolf clamped down hard on what is a red meat issue for social conservatives: gay pregnancy.
At first, Cheney sounded like Grandpa Walton: "I'm delighted I'm about to have a sixth grandchild." But Wolf remained being a wolf in wolf's clothing. He continued pressing about the perceived hypocrisy. Despite his flat, affectless tone, Cheney balked before snapping, "Frankly, you're out of line with that question."
At least, Cheney didn't tell Blitzer to "go fuck himself," like he did when he was confronted by Sen. Patrick Leahy in the Capitol.
Perhaps Cheney is mellowing in his dotage. The worst he could come up with was "hogwash" in response to Sen. Jim Webb's comment that "the President took us into the war recklessly."
Unlike his smiling frat boy cheerleader-in-chief, Cheney affects the no-nonsense manner of a card shark. He doesn't need sunglasses at the poker table. His gaze is unflinching, cold, calculating. He exudes the warmth of Pluto.
But, after reading the CNN interview transcript--it contains terrific dramatic moments, bristling with the energy of a Mamet play--it's obvious that Cheney is both smart and obdurate. He's not the tongue-tied dunce that W. is who strings together sentences as if he's still reading to first graders. (The President's cringe-worthy performance on 60 Minutes almost seemed like a parody, a Saturday Night Live skit about a clueless leader.)
On the other hand, Cheney can ably defend the administration's war-on-terror policies. He sticks to a tight narrative that blends wishful thinking with blatant disregard of facts on the ground. For example, he insists that Iraq is a democracy because it had several elections. But he misses a fundamental point. Democracies work when there is a functional government and popular civic support that transcends sectarian fault lines, not when the Shiites are in control and Moqtada's 60,000 strong militia is making a bloody mess of the country.
Cheney had similar fallback positions on Al Qaeda and Afghanistan. America is winning the war--at least in his mind, despite a Taliban troop surge.
All in all, it's been a hellish week for Cheney. He's had to deal with Scooter, Nancy, and Wolf. Surely, there must have been a spike in his blood pressure. Only his doctor would know for sure.
