If you thought Bush’s last press conference was defensive (in fact it was only partly defensive: this was a Sibyl-like performance by a man who eschews therapy and self-reflection that was defensive, slightly apologetic, maudlin and occasionally bizarre) you should have seen Dick Cheney’s farewell interview with Jim Lehrer on PBS’s News Hour this evening. 

Dick has been going out swinging, as you may have heard. Where his partner has at least allowed that some things might have gone better, and said that the Mission Accomplished banner and “some of my rhetoric” didn’t help, at least on the PR front, Cheney refuted Lehrer’s premise when the anchor said he was the most powerful vice-president in the least successful modern presidency. 

The invasion or Iraq and Afghanistan were, it seems, smashing successes. Hussein’s was one of the “worst regimes in the 20th century” he said (certainly within the borders of Iraq) and the Taliban had been routed. (This will come as news to General Petraeus and the US troops that remain fighting the resurgent Taliban there.) 

But my favorite rewriting of history, if not the definition of success, came when Lehrer asked the VP about the economy. Shouldn’t someone have seen the tsunami coming? “Isn’t that part of the stewardship of the president, of the vice-president and his administration,” he asked, “to see these things coming and try to prevent them from coming, rather than to act after they’ve happened?”

 “Did you see it coming, Jim?” Cheney countered with his trademark smirk. “You’re an expert.”

Talk about blaming the media! It turns out that the failure of the economy is Jim Lehrer’s fault. Why did they even allow him to run for office?