Why Is Dick Cheney Still Talking?

Yesterday, during an appearance on John King's new CNN show State of the Union, former vice-president Dick Cheney said that President Barack Obama has "made some choices that in my mind raise the risk to the American people of another attack." Cheney argued that, by repealing some of the broad policies that Bush enacted to give the government unprecedented power and independence to secretly arrest, interrogate, and imprison suspects, Obama is treating terrorism as a "law-enforcement problem" as opposed to a war. (The new president has banned waterboarding, plans to require CIA interrogators to follow Army rules, and ordered the closure of Guantanamo and other secret intelligence interrogation sites.) Cheney called the Bush administration's policies "absolutely essential" to foiling post–September 11 attacks.

Here's what we're wondering:

1. For how long are newscasters going to allow Dick Cheney to cite these foiled attacks as evidence that the policies were necessary, when nobody will say what they were or when they happened? It's not that we don't believe there were attacks, but it's not an argument to say that you're right but you can't tell anybody why.
2. Why is Dick Cheney still talking? Wasn't the 2008 election a resounding referendum on why America doesn't want to hear from him anymore? Even George Bush, whose actual reputation is what we're talking about, isn't giving interviews like these.

Okay, okay. You know we don't really care about Dick Cheney and terrorism policy. You're probably wondering why we're really salty this morning. Here's why: The Times story about Cheney's statements was basically just a recap of the State of the Union episode. Who was it written by? A.G. Sulzberger, our most recent objet d'envy. Now he's writing TV recaps? That just hits too close to home!