Maureen Dowd in today's NY Times takes the noisy Cheney to task. The GOP is in total disarray with lots of blame-game infighting, and the talk-show circuit keeps lining up Cheney to argue the usefulness of torture against Obama's resolve to end such tactics in interrogations. Will somebody send Cheney back to Wyoming where he can rage at the wilderness and let history have its say with his so-called leadership style?

?Toward the end, 43 was just as confused as anybody about what makes Cheney tick,? said a Bush family loyalist.

Cheney?s numskull ideas ? he still loves torture (dubbed ?13th-century? stuff by Bob Woodward), Gitmo and scaring the bejesus out of Americans ? are not only fixed, they?re jejune.

He has no coherent foreign policy viewpoint. He still doesn?t fathom that his brutish invasion of Iraq unbalanced that part of the world, empowered Iran and was a force multiplier for Muslims who hate America. He left our ports unsecured, our food supply unsafe, the Taliban rising and Osama on the loose. No matter if or when terrorists attack here ? and they?re on their own timetable, not a partisan red/blue state timetable ? Cheney will be deemed the primary one who made America more vulnerable.

W.?s dark surrogate father is trying to pull the G.O.P. into a black hole of zealotry, just as the sensible brother who lost his future to the scamp brother is trying to get his career back on track.

Maureen Dowd
NY Times 5-13-09