Is Cheney the crazy uncle in the attic?

There is reason to think that Vice President Dick Cheney has drifted away from the Bush party line on Iraq and is wandering somewhere out in Dreamland. One can draw that conclusion from his remarks in an interview with Wolf Blitzer of CNN on 1/24/07, the day after Bush’s State of the Union address to Congress. In his earlier televised address to the nation--in which he told of the "surge" of troops he plans to send into Iraq--Bush admitted that “mistakes have been made” (note the passive “have been made”), for which he has to be held ultimately accountable.

Notwithstanding Bush’s belated, grudging recognition of the disastrous situation in Iraq, Cheney says:

The reality on the ground is, we’ve made major progress…there’s been a lot of success.

In response to Blitzer’s comment “…some of your good Republican friends in the Senate and the House are now seriously questioning your credibility, because of the blunders and the failures.”

Cheney responded:

Wolf, Wolf, I simply don’t accept the premise of your question. I just think its hogwash.

Referring to these comments by Cheney, David Brooks, the New York Times columnist, called him “delusional” (on the Jim Lehrer News Hour on PBS on 1/26/07). It should be noted that Brooks is no “left wing liberal” but is usually around Center or a bit to the right of it.

Or an alternative conclusion about Cheney’s role might be that it is a clever ploy by the Bush administration (perhaps concocted by Karl Rove) to have him (Cheney) out there saying things that Bush would like to say, but knows that he would look even worse if he did so.