Ask The Blogger: Cheney's Intentions

Reader DT:

Do you think Cheney is doing this stuff for legacy purposes or maybe 
because he's thinking of running for Prez in 2012?  He did briefly try 
in 1996.

Despite Bob Woodward's endless provocations, I think Dick Cheney's political career is over.  His re-emergence as the chief defender of the Bush realm is fairly easy to explain: if the American people become convinced that he authorized torture, if historians interpret the present in such an unfavorable way, Cheney will be irredeemable.  The flip side: Cheney takes his views very seriously. He believes that Obama's policies are making the country less safe. No one else -- certainly not that former boss of his -- has the giblits to make the case, and so Cheney will.  I think Cheney is speaking out because he worries about history, he worries about becoming entangled in future legal cases, and because, from his point of view, Obama's policies are troubling.