Remember that Cheney was first an appointed official (rose to chief of staff for Ford, on Rumsfeld's recommendation), and then a Congressman from Wyoming, the least-populated state in the Union.

He never had to use political polling for its purpose -- he didn't help Ford get elected ( cuz, um, that never happened), and Wyoming was never a place where professional public opinion research was required.

The notion of polling that he has is to SUPPORT positions/candidates that have already been decided -- sorta like the way he chose himself as VP candidate.

A simpler explanation is that he doesn't give a fuck what the interviewer thinks, what the public thinks, or, most disturbingly, what's good for the country. This is just the lie he tells reporters who ask about this.

There's absolutely no reason to think he answers these questions honestly or thoughtfully.

One thing we've learned about Cheney is that he can manipulate and destroy just about anything.

From now on he shouldn't have to be concerned about anyone's opinion except that of his parole board.

I have no idea why we lost fans this year, but what you need to know is that we made courageous decisions based on far more information than those drunken buffoons had. I suppose some thought we should have thrown on fourth down more often, but thirty years from now, I think people will say we did a pretty good job.

Governing by polls is exactly why Cheney et al trumped up all the WMD-Saddam-AlQaeda crap prior to invading Iraq. Cheney lied until the polls were high enough.

But the question to Cheney is not "should a leader make decisions based on polls?" The question is "Now that Americans, even those who supported you wholeheartedly at first, have had time to evaluate your decisions, why do they agree so wholeheartedly that you were dead wrong?"

If he had a positive public opinion going for him,(impossible as that is to conceive)he'd be all about promoting that. I agree with Steve. The "tough decision" b.s. is his rationalization of, ultimately, a very low place in history. 50 plus one percent of the '04 election was, in his terms, a "mandate". If that's true, this poll is a mandate that he never show his face in public again.

I've come around to the opinion that they're all scorched-earthers. Sociopaths who actually get off on destruction, and wanted to see an America in tatters. No patriots, they. No heroes. They knew 9/11 was coming and did nothing. They took the goodwill of the world and squandered it on a personal vendetta. They enriched the wealthiest 1% at the expense of everyone else. Nothing about their reign indicates people who thought they were doing what was best for the nation. Ask a pyromaniac who only wants to see the flame get bigger and brighter and engulf more and destroy more. Ask Charles Manson what it's like to convince people to commit murder. Talk to the Nazis who carried horrendous "experiments" as to how much punishment the human body can withstand. If that's the way your brain is hardwired - if you can get off on inflicting suffering upon others - being a part of this Administration was like going to an orgy with an 8-year supply of Viagra and a get-out-of-AIDS free card.

Among the many things I won't miss from this administration is the incessant use of strawman arguments. As insulting as they are, I have to admit that the Republicans really must be on to something since reporters never call Bush/Cheney/Rove on their logical fallacies:

Cheney says:
"My experience has been over the years that if you govern based upon poll numbers, upon trying to improve your overall poll ratings, people I've encountered who do that are people who won't make tough decisions."

Okay, now tell me, who has ever governed based on polls--purely on polls, as Cheney implies. All politicians, Bush/Cheney/Rove included, use polls as part of their decision-making process. But this absurd way of characterizing "people" as doing the most inconceivable things is nothing more than a way for Cheney to defend his indefensible record by making the putative alternative seem even more ridiculous.

"Governing by polls is exactly why Cheney ...lied until the polls were high enough" (to get public support for invading Iraq).

Not exactly -- or at least, that's not what he meant when he said he didn't believe in governing by polls, by which he meant a bad thing.

And most people DO think it's a bad thing, the idea that a leader has to follow public opinion. If Lincoln had followed public opinion, he'd never have issued the Emancipation Proclamation, etc. We want leaders willing to tell us, now and then, that WE are wrong.

In fact, Bush and Cheney did the opposite: they decided they wanted to invade Iraq, and then "led" (if that's the right word) the public into supporting the war they chose, as if America didn't have a choice.

Sure, they did it by manipulating intelligence and so on, orchestrating a massive disinformation campaign -- but the point is, WHEN THEY INVADED, it was popular. They decided it was good for the public (and the Congress) to have an opinion, so they issued 'em one.

That's what he meant by "you can get just about any result you want out of a poll", which comes straight of his experience as the chief of staff for the only President who was never elected to the job, and as a Congressman representing fewer than half the constituents of any of his other colleagues in the House.

Public opinion research in politics is not about manipulating public opinion, it's about MEASURING it -- from different angles, with different samples, about different questions or, sometimes, the same question framed differently.

Wyoming is not a politically diverse place, by the standards of the rest of the country: Cheney never learned how polls work for measuring what a vast and complex country thinks, and what it is prepared to accept, with often wildly conflicting sets of emotions and facts: should we torture people to avoid another 9-11? Do we have to invade Iraq to keep Al-Qaeda from getting nukes? There are basic questions of facts there (torture doesn't work, Iraq and Al-Qaeda weren't close, Saddam didn't have nukes), but what's directly relevant is how Bush and Cheney approached public opinion as clay to be molded, then fired, instead of as a measure (and only a partial one) of what their employers hired 'em to do.

The electorate doesn't hire Presidents (or VPs) to do only what we want, but we don't hire 'em to tell us what we want, either.

His idea is that the purpose of public opinion research in these issues is to generate support for policies he'd already decided on: he governed more by polling than he claims, and by his own standard, failed far worse.

His quote:
"First and foremost among those is to defend the nation"

Funny, I thought that the oath was to uphold the Constitution, something he thinks that he can weasle his way out of by his defintion of "defend."

This Lying, criminal, murderous, torturing bastard should be treated as his peers were. His peers being folks like the Japanese who waterboarded Americans, or Americans like Tim McVeigh or Ted Bundy. I know it's an unfair comparison because the peers mentioned caused far less human damage than Cheney has.

I think Cheney believes that a) polls are uninformative and b) those who are polled are poorly informed, relative to insiders like Cheney. Cheney clearly has no intention of responding to public concerns, since he knows more about what the nation truly needs than "the public" ever will.

Such judgements probably represent a reasonable perspective on modest or incremental changes in polling results. But that's not the sort of polling information we've been seeing for a long time with respect to Bush, Cheney or the issues that the Bush/Cheney folks have bollocked so badly.

I'm with slappy part way: yes, there's no doubt that Cheney is a sociopath. What kind of human being goes on national television and smirkingly boasts about torturing people? A very sick individual. On the other hand, Cheney has spent nearly his entire adult life in politics. Whether in electoral positions or appointed positions, your faction/party only gets to hold onto the reins of power so long as a majority or plurality of the electorate approves of what you're doing. To see your administration held in such low regard HAS to be disturbing for Cheney. Let's not forget, he went to Capitol hill a couple weeks back to plead with the nihilists in the senate to get behind the auto bailout. For all of his faults/crimes/shortcomings, Cheney at least recognizes that the costs to the GOP of insane fiscal/monetary stances will be extremely negative at the ballot box. Just wait till the wingnuts bring down the state of California - which is scheduled to collapse in about eight weeks. These idiots have been listening to Grover Norquist and Rush Limbaugh tell them that destroying the government is a popular stance for so long that they've come to believe it. Cheney's evil, but he's no idiot.

A simpler explanation is that he doesn't give a fuck what the interviewer thinks, what the public thinks, or, most disturbingly, what's good for the country. This is just the lie he tells reporters who ask about this.

Indeed. One of the hardest things to come to terms with about this administration is that there will be no reckoning, ever. Bush will go to his grave believing that he was a great man. Cheney will go to his grave not caring. They got everything they personally wanted out of eight years of power, and they see no reason to provide us with a cathartic moment of reflection or regret.

Can you say "false dichotomy?"

So, you can either ignore polls completely, or be a complete slave to them, changing course with every new set of numbers. Riiiight.

Because it's completely impossible to make tough decisions while having a sense of what people want? Real men can do that, Dick. What's your problem?

"First and foremost among those is to defend the nation"

"...make tough decisions."

Having "other priorities" during the Vietnam War must have been a tough decision among those who see defending the nation as "first and foremost."

Go fuck yourself Cheney.

Why do so-called reporters ask such marshmellow questions? "Mr Cheney, why do you think the American people have so thoroughly rejected you and your autocratic, secrtive approach to being Vice President?"

A British reporter would ask such a question, but American interviewers cower before power, and that's why we've had such a diasterous eight years. One would hope that Cheney will be shunned in all polite company from now on since that's about the only punishment that will ever happen to him.

Rich is correct. What's with the unusually deferential questioning of Dick Cheney from every journalist who ever gets the chance?

Uh, yes, Mr. Cheney, sir...of course...I certainly will not follow up with a difficult question...heaven forbid...please continue to mouth stupid platitudes...I will never call you on it...sir...

He's chicken to apply his one percent doctrine to himself: "If there's a 1% chance ..., we have to treat it as a certainty.... "

That's the mark of a gut-less creep.

Talk on, Cheney.

But you can't lie about one fact: for the last few years, your own heart has tried to kick itself out of your chest.

And you can't deny you've had the most excellent health care. You would be dead and buried today, if you were one of the many Americans who couldn't afford health care. Dead and buried.

And just one more tid-bit you can't lie about: health care is just one of those issues you never felt the need to make any "hard decisions" on. Funny that, because a hard decision is exactly what our health care system could have used. So wasn't your "hard decision" to just ignore a vital American issue, really? How hard was that exactly?

I wonder if you realize that most Americans have always been able to see right through you and that you didn't garner any larger a chunk of intelligence than the rest of humanity.

So talk on, Cheney, but your self-aggrandizement about those "hard decisions" of yours is about as authentic as the arrogance you have used for years to cover your own intrinsic cowardice. It is interesting to note that you and Bush are quite fundamentally alike in your character flaws.

Yes, I know. F*uck off. :)

"you can get just about any result you want out of a poll."

Kind of like WMD intelligence from Iraq, eh Dick?

Maybe his health problems make him hateful and envious toward people.

I like how he clearly articulates his image of the people as infantile: he can't explain to the people why the tough decisions are necessary, he just has to make them and people have to accept them because we live under his roof, or something.

Rationalizing himself into some kind of tragic figure is such a strain, I am positive he doesn't believe it himself. If he were that crazy, he'd be jumping around with his pants around his ankles.

No, sir, a real tragic hero would present his records to the government rather than seek to shred them, identifying classified records that have justifiable reasons for being kept from the public but can still be inspected by, say, a bipartisan Senate committee, and accept whatever consequences follow.

THAT is what a tragic hero does: accepts responsibility for their dramatic action, even when doing so assures his destruction.

Flesh eating bacteria- still more popular than Dick Cheney.

Pull his passport now.

"And the job the president has..."

I like how almost lets slip how obviously he views himself as Commander In Chief.

I've come around to the opinion that they're all scorched-earthers. Sociopaths who actually get off on destruction, and wanted to see an America in tatters.

I don't think that's the case at all. Bush/Cheney don't wish ill for America/Americans, or want to raise America to the ground. I do believe Bush/Cheney think they are above other Americans. They are bourgeoisie. Not all men are created equal in Bush/Cheney America. It gives them carte blanche to make "tough decisions" and carve up the world just a bit more in favor of themselves and those they consider equals. They aren't destroyers, they are narcissists, incapable of feeling any level of compassion to sacrifice an inch for their fellow man. By their own perspective, they did everything right. This is what happens when you elect Primadonas into office.

We, who love America, are thankful that we had President Bush and VP Cheney in charge instead of some metrosexual leftists.

Cheney: I don't follow the polls.

Translation: I'm a pathological liar.

It's not MAKING the tough decisions that made him unpopular. It's that when the tough decision came along, he made the WRONG choice. Making a tough decision when it faces you is easy enough although a normal person would have pangs of uncertainty afterwards about whether or not it was the right decision. It is choosing correctly when faced with a tough decision that matters, and neither Bush nor Cheney has an adequate record of making the correct decisions.