“Cheney’s is the speech of a grownup, of a chief executive, of a statesman. He’s sober, realistic and concrete, stands up for his country and its public officials, and has an acute awareness of the consequences of the choices one makes as a public official and a willingness to take responsibility for those choices.”
— Bill Kristol, covering for his old PNAC pal at The Weekly Standard, May 21, 2009.

‘Willingness to take responsibility’ — you mean like blaming the enlisted ratings at Abu Ghraib for conducting exactly the sorts of tortures Dick Cheney authorized? Cheney may well have an ‘acute awareness of the consequences of the choices’ he made as a public official, but he’s shown no inclination to apologize for lying to the American people for starting and prolonging an unnecessary war, nor to go under oath before Congress to defend those ‘choices,’ nor even to subject himself to the ‘harsh interrogation’ of an interview with a reporter who might ask him hard questions. He certainly hasn’t appeared in any open forum to answer questions from the general public. You also have to wonder how much Dick would ‘stand up for his country’ if those no-bid Halliburton/KBR contracts in Iraq weren’t earning him millions of dollars in retirement money. Like Bill Kristol, Cheney’s patriotism doesn’t extend to actually risking his pampered behind in any war he supports, but rather involves sitting behind a safe desk in Washington issuing empty ‘tough guy’ proclamations as others die in the field, types presently known colloquially as ‘chickenhawks,’ and in another era of US history as ‘cowards.’