Dick Cheney, "Most Happy Fella''

President George W. Bush's tenure in office has delivered so much grief that it's about time it delivered something else. It did -- inadvertently.

Toothbrush in hand, I burst out laughing this morning when I heard Bush say this to NPR's Juan Williams, who asked about chipper White House assessments of the state of affairs in Iraq, specifically Dick Cheney's: "I think the vice president is a person reflecting a half glass full mentality,'' Bush said.

It wasn't the mangled syntax that made me laugh. That's old schtick by now.

It was the image: Dick Cheney, "Most Happy Fella.''

Who knew that Dick Cheney is the West Wing Pollyanna? That's not a smirk or a sneer, it's just a lopsided happy face! Dick Cheney, reading the casualty reports, the foreign intelligence assessments, the political polls, is managing, like Pollyanna of the 1913 Eleanor Porter novel, to find something to be glad about in every bit of bleak news.

A lot of Americans understand that perfectly -- the glad news about this dismal administration is that it won't be around for a third term.