Worst vice president ever

A few snippets from a Dick Cheney interview with Fox News (Neil Cavuto) today.

1. Iraqi terrorists and militias are following the US election coverage --

Q Do you suspect that these insurgent attacks are timed to influence our midterm elections?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's my belief. I think they are, very, very cognizant of our schedule, if you will ...

Q Do you think, though, that the insurgents are better at these polls than even we are, that they are reading them and seeing frustration growing with the war, and regardless of the good economy, saying, let's keep up the attacks, let's keep up the pressure?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's my belief that they're very sensitive of the fact that we've got an election scheduled, and they can get on the websites like anybody else. There isn't anything that's on the Internet that's not accessible to them. They're on it all the time. They're very sophisticated users of it. And I do believe that that's a part of it.

2. Americans don't perceive a good economy because it's been so good for so long --

Q So why aren't they whooping it up? Why aren't they partying? Why aren't they saying, hey, another record, let's go for it?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I don't know -- maybe they've gotten used to it.

3. Not quite the scale of the gaffe regarding waterboarding from last week, but he left the door open again --

Q So there would be never a moment or a time when you think it is appropriate to go above and beyond traditional ways we treat detainees in order to get information?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I am a strong supporter of having the CIA have authorization to run a special program, which we have done, and which the House has now passed legislation to continue, as has the Senate, that gives them the authority to operate a program that allows us to interrogate people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, for example, the man who put together the attack on 9/11. I think we need to be able to do that. I think we can do it appropriately. I think we can do it without resorting to torture. But at the same time, it's one of the most valuable sources of information and intelligence we have on the enemy, finding out who they are, where they train, what their plans are.

UPDATE 31 OCTOBER: As bad as Cheney is, he gets topped by his boss --

However they put it, the Democrat approach comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses.

FINAL UPDATE 2 NOVEMBER -- the line is gone from Bush's rally speech in Montana, indicating perhaps some sensitivity to the criticism it received.