Dick Cheney

If it's possible for the left (and the world, for that matter) to detest someone more than President George W. Bush, that person would be Vice President Richard B. Cheney.

Many consider him the evil puppetmaster behind all that has occurred during the Bush presidency, insisting that the President wasn't smart enough coordinate his socks and that the sheer villainy the last eight years had to come from a warped and wicked heart more sinister than Bush's. I saw a bumper sticker that read "Satan/Cheney in '08. Vote for the father/son ticket." Charming. Hillary Clinton compared him to Darth Vader. Everyone had a hey-day with that one.

by Mike Luckovich

"The most amazing part of the (Cheney-Edwards '04) debate was when Dick Cheney told John Edwards in his Darth Vader voice, 'John I am your father.'"

- Jay Leno

Needless to say, Dick Cheney, while dispensing a bit of buckshot these past eight years (remember his greeting to Pat Leahy on the Senate floor? I still chuckle.), has absorbed more flak than any other political figure over the long term than I can recollect (Sarah Palin holds the short-term barrage record). But who is Dick Cheney?

Outside his life as a Wyoming Senator, I knew very little of the man. Jay Nordlinger had the opportunity to sit down with the Vice President and a few other reporters over an extended lunch to pulse the outgoing Veep. It reveals a side of the man few of us have had the opportunity to hear and might not get to hear considering the wheels of objective historical analysis tend to turn slowly.

If you know little about the man outside what the media has spun, you'll find the article here...it's three pages but a delightful and refreshing reading.

A quick excerpt, then I'll leave you be. He joked about the Darth Vader references and then told the reporters that he had asked his family if they were offended by the onslaught of Vader references. "They said, "No, it humanizes you.""