Darth Cheney

(AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

Starting yesterday, the Washington Post is running an impressive four part series on Dick Cheney. The guy is a sociopath - from today's chapter:

From that moment, well before previous accounts have suggested, Cheney turned his attention to the practical business of crushing a captive's will to resist. The vice president's office played a central role in shattering limits on coercion in U.S. custody, commissioning and defending legal opinions that the Bush administration has since portrayed as the initiatives, months later, of lower-ranking officials. {emphasis mine}

This passage in yesterday's piece about Cheney on September 11, 2001 caught my eye:

Cheney made no sound. "I remember turning my head and looking at the vice president, and his expression never changed," said the witness, reading from a notebook of observations written that day. Cheney closed his eyes against the image for one long, slow blink.

Three people who were present, not all of them admirers, said they saw no sign then or later of the profound psychological transformation that has often been imputed to Cheney. What they saw, they said, was extraordinary self-containment and a rapid shift of focus to the machinery of power. While others assessed casualties and the work of "first responders," Cheney began planning for a conflict that would call upon lawyers as often as soldiers and spies. {emphasis mine}

It is almost like Cheney wasn't surprised about the attacks...