A CHENEY MOMENT FROM BUSH?

A number of bloggers (Kathy, Jed L, Steve Benen) have noted Dick Cheney's bizarre response yesterday when asked by Fox's Chris Wallace to name his "[h]ighest moment the last eight years":

CHENEY: Hmmm. Highest moment in the last eight years? Well, I think the most important, the most compelling, was 9/11 itself, and what that entailed, what we had to deal with. The way in which that changed the nation, and set the agenda for what we had to deal with as an administration.

WALLACE: Can I add, sir, (ph) that's also your lowest moment?

CHENEY: Sure. Yes.

Well, Cheney's boss had a moment that seemed a little bit like that at Walter Reed Army Medical Center today. While visiting injured servicemembers, he said:

You know, I oftentimes say being the Commander-in-Chief of the military is the thing I'll miss the most, and coming here to Walter Reed is a reminder of why I'll miss it.

If you're a normal person, you probably think being commander in chief is a duty. You think it's hard work, and hard work Bush hasn't done particularly well; you think it would be agonizing to be a commander in chief in wartime even when the wars are going in the country's favor, and that it would be almost unbearable if you'd had significant failures.

But for Bush? Nahhh. It's pleasurable. He digs it. It's what he'll miss the most.

Look, I don't think this is just an overgrown child playing toy soldiers. Bush wants to be loved -- that's why he stays in a bubble where the only people he meets are people who think he's a hell of a president and a terrific guy.

Well, the troops essentially have to treat Bush as if he's terrific. And many of them still legitimately believe he is -- in greater percentages than the general population.

So when Bush says that being commander in chief is what he'll miss the most, that's what he'll miss -- people who have a deep and profound respect for him, or at least know they have to carry themselves as if they do. Being looked up to that way -- even by a young person whose wounds are Bush's fault -- is one of the great pleasures of Bush's life.