In a rare recent interview with a news outlet not owned by Rupert Murdoch, Vice President Dick Cheney revealed just how indifferent he is to the will of the people. Here's a little piece of Cheney's interview with ABC's Martha Raddatz..

CHENEY: "On the security front, I think there's a general consensus that we've made major progress, that the surge has worked. That's been a major success."

RADDATZ: "Two-third of Americans say it's not worth fighting."

CHENEY: "So?"

RADDATZ "So? You don't care what the American people think?"

CHENEY: "No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls."

That little film clip will not be seen very often, and most Americans will probably never see it at all. It won't be played and replayed thousands of times, as was the little clip of Barack Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright, in which he called down hell and damnation for our nation's sins.

But, a man who actually is complicit in committing some of those sins will be largely ignored by the news media when he expresses arrogant indifference to the majority opinion of the people of this nation. True patriots should be appalled by such disdain for democracy, such imperial indifference to popular opinion. We are not vassals or serfs, and we are not the subjects of kings. Still, we sit quiet while Cheney behaves as though he had the infallibility once claimed by popes, and the power once wielded by Machiaevellian princes. Wearing his characteristic reptilian smirk, Vice President Cheney showed once again that he considers himself answerable to no one.

In a democracy, Cheney's reply to Martha Raddatz's question reveals a degree of arrogance that would have made a Caesar look humble, that would have made a Czar seem sensitive.

Cheney cavalierly waves off the opinion of two-thirds of the nation. He does so on the fifth anniversary of an invasion he predicted would be greeted by cheering Iraqis who would hail us as liberators. Just before the invasion, Cheney also said that the war would be brief, that we would be out in no time. He was wrong about that.

"So?"

After he finished his interview with ABC News, Cheney took off fishing on a yacht loaned to him by the Sultan of Oman, one of the VP's old oil pals. Some people thought it a little inappropriate of him to observe the fifth anniversary of the war that has taken the lives of 4,000 young Americans in this manner, and that going out to play on the yacht of a wealthy Arab oil baron might be a little unseemly in view of the suspicions that the war in Iraq was all about oil profits in the first place.

"So?"

Some people might think Cheney's fondness for war is a little odd considering how persistent he was in avoiding service back when he was young. Some will even remember that when asked why, if he supported that old war back when he was eligible to wear a uniform, he didn't serve. Cheney said he had "other priorities." If that seems a little high handed or hypocritical to you, Cheney has an answer for that, too.

"So?" is his answer.   

Eight thousand U.S. parents of slain military men and women lost their children unnecessarily to the current war in Iraq, a loss from which they will never recover.

"So?" Cheney says.

Uncounted Iraqis died during and after our invasion, people who had committed no offense against the U.S., most of them merely having the great misfortune of being under roofs where the bombs fell. They died without ever knowing why.

"So?" says Cheney.

The invasion was launched, we were told, because Saddam was part of an axis of evil. Evildoers could not be permitted to have weapons of mass destruction. Iraq had such weapons, we were told, and the possibility that Iraq would use those weapons against us was imminent, we were told, and so an invasion was imperative. No such weapons were ever found.

"So," Cheney says.

Dick Cheney doesn't care what you think. If you're one of the baying pack of right wingers who still support the Bush administration, Dick Cheney doesn't much care what you think, any more than he cares what the limp-wristed liberals think. He doesn't have to care what you think. It is a matter of no concern to him whatsoever.

"So?"  

Many Americans still resent the obscene profits made by Halliburton, Cheney's old company, and a chief beneficiary of the war in Iraq. Halliburton has garnered billions in no-bid contracts for doing jobs in Iraq the military used to do for itself. Additional billions have turned out to be overcharges, and still other billions have been unaccounted for entirely.

"So?"

Cheney and his titular boss took over the executive branch in one of the most clouded elections in the nation's history. They continued to hold office after a second election gave them a razor-thin margin of victory, and yet they've governed as though they were riding a wave of popular acclaim, snatching unprecedented powers for the office of the presidency in ways that have compromised our system of checks and balances. If you don't like it, Cheney has an answer for you.

"So?" he says.

In the first two months of the Bush administration, Cheney met with executives of the major oil companies and energy corporations to discuss an energy policy that would be acceptable to those titans of power. What was decided in those meetings, and who attended those meetings has never been made public. The public had no right to know. It was none of our business, and if you don't like it, Cheney has a response for you.

"So?" he says, a verbal middle finger to the people of America.
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