What the Weather's Like on Planet Cheney

OTTUMWA, Iowa, Sept. 13 -- Vice President Cheney suggested Monday that the Sept. 2 terrorist strike at a Russian school may signal a shift in how the Putin government and others in Europe view the fight against terrorism: They will become more aggressive.

Right -- the Putin government has been really soft on the Chechen terrorists. When will those Russian wimps wake up and realize that nice guys finish last? All over Chechnya there are smoking heaps of rubble going, "That didn't hurt!"

This is so head-bangingly, mouth-wateringly, eye-rollingly crazy it's worth quoting at length:

"There's been in some circles . . . in Europe, for example, a lot of our European friends have been somewhat ambivalent about this whole proposition with respect to how we deal with these terrorist attacks," Cheney said. He had been asked at a town hall meeting here in southeast Iowa whether he believed the siege would prompt Russia to be more forthcoming in assisting the United States in fighting terrorism.

Yes, Dick. They've been ambivalent about you using the terrorist attacks as an excuse to go off and invade a country that had nothing to do with the perpetrators. "This whole proposition." There is no "whole proposition"; there's the war on al-Qaida, and there's the war in Iraq. Apparently you think there's enough suckers in southeast Iowa that you're not going to get called on that. (And it terrifies me that you may be right.)

The vice president did not directly mention any foreign governments that have refused to support the war in Iraq. But he said, "I think some of them hoped that if they kept their heads down and stayed out of the line of fire that they wouldn't get hit."

"The line of fire." What line of fire? The line of fire from Washington to Baghdad? Russia hasn't exactly stayed out of the line of fire between Moscow and Grozny. Does anyone even bother to ask Dick Cheney what he's talking about anymore?

The attack on the school in Beslan, which killed at least 328 people, cannot help but prompt many governments to rethink their isolationism, Cheney said, noting that Russia, for example, "of course did not support us in Iraq."

Well, Russia "of course did not support us in Nicaragua" either, nor did it support us in Kosovo. But what does that have to do with anything? It's like he's asking us to say, "I got mugged last night by some random thugs. I guess that means I should go beat up my brother Bob."

Don't beat up Bob, Dick Cheney.