Dick Cheney's Shrug

After the torrent of words over the arrogance of America's self-selected, unelected Vice President, a former Republican colleague and friend boils it all down to one word in today's Washington Post.

Ex-Congressman Mickey Edwards explains what changed his mind about defending Cheney, his "all-too-revealing conversation this week with ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz. On Wednesday, reminded of the public's disapproval of the war in Iraq, now five years old, the vice president shrugged off that fact (and thus, the people themselves) with a one-word answer: 'So?'"

Into that one word is compressed more than seven years of secrecy, usurping of power and stealing traditional American freedoms.

Skewing intelligence to lie us into a war costing almost 4,000 American lives and half a trillion dollars and counting? So?

Outing a CIA operative to get revenge against criticism and hanging his own Chief of Staff out on a limb and sawing it off? So?

Pressuring Bush, against the opposition of his own Secretaries of State and Defense, to go to war against Iran before they leave office? So?

In the interview that finally tipped the scales, Edwards says: "Cheney told Raddatz that American war policy should not be affected by the views of the people. But that is precisely whose views should matter: It is the people who should decide whether the nation shall go to war. That is not a radical, or liberal, or unpatriotic idea. It is the very heart of America's constitutional system."

For millions of Americans, that won't come as news, but they may want to keep it in mind as John McCain tries to sell them a continuation of what Bush and Cheney have stolen from them and labeling it victory in Iraq.

Now it's up to them to stop it. So?