NOT BREAKING HIS NON-SILENCE

I don't know how we arrived at the notion that Dick Cheney is "press shy" or "press averse," but it's central to the myth of himself he's trying to build right now -- namely that he's dragging himself into battle with extreme reluctance, out of nothing more than a sense of duty, and he's to be commended, whether or not you agree with him, because there's nothing he hates more than talking to the press.

That's a load of crap. Dick Cheney has done a hell of a lot of talking to the press -- or at least to certain elements of the press.

Cheney's Fox News interviews? Let's see: 3/2/04, 2/7/05, 6/14/05, 1/11/06, 1/19/06, 2/15/06, 10/30/06, 1/14/07, 10/12/07, 7/13/08, 12/21/08 ... that's just from the first six pages of Google results. Cheney gave seven interviews to Rush Limbaugh while in office. He was interviewed by Sean Hannity for Hannity's radio show on 8/31/04, 6/15/06, 10/24/06, 4/10/08, and 1/12/09. Juan Williams? 12/18/03, 1/14/04, and 10/25/06. Larry Kudlow? 1/19/06, 10/30/06, and 10/26/07.

Maybe Cheney didn't do much of this in the early Bush years, but what we're seeing him do right now is a continuation of what he did while he and Bush were in office after the going started to get a little rough. By now, I think it's safe to assume that he kinda digs it.