Dick doesn't play that

As members of the media go, Tim Russert is less irritating than most, but this week on Meet the Press, even he tried to get the dasterdly Dick Cheney to admit to leftist criticisms of the Bush administration's handling of Iraq, domestic anti-terror programs, and the GWOT as a whole by parroting the Democrats talking points concerning the Administration, but Cheney wasn't having any of it and clearly set Tim straight...

MR. RUSSERT: Three hundred billion dollars spent so far. The Congressional Budget Office says if we stay in Iraq through the end of 2009, it’ll be a half trillion dollars. Could that $300 billion have not been better spent securing our nation against terrorists rather than in Iraq?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, Tim, I think we’ve done a pretty good job of securing the nation against terrorists. You know, we’re here on the fifth anniversary, and there has not been another attack on the United States. And that’s not an accident, because we’ve done a hell of a job here at home, in terms of homeland security, in terms of the terrorist surveillance program we’ve put in place, in terms of the financial tracking program we put in place, and because of our detainee policy, where we, in fact, were able to interrogate captured terrorists to get the kind of intelligence that has allowed us to disrupt...

MR. RUSSERT: But could it have been better spent?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I’m not sure that it could have been. I don’t know how much better you can do than no, no attacks for the last five years.

He's exactly right Tim. How much better can you do than %100?

Not to be disuaded by the facts, Russert persists...

MR. RUSSERT: But the Commission on 9/11 says that we get D’s and F’s.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: We have spent billions on homeland security. I don’t know how you can explain five years of no attacks, five years of successful disruption of attacks, five years of, of defeating the efforts of al-Qaeda to come back and kill more Americans. You’ve got to give some credence to the notion that maybe somebody did something right.

I admire Cheney's no-nonsense, straight talk when it comes to dealing with members of the hostile media who relentlessly pursue a predetermined conclusion. Unlike most politicians, he couldn't care less whether they like him or not. To Cheney, the only person he has to please is George Bush.