It is absolutely staggering what a maniac that guy was..... indeed, what he freely admits to. An absolutely brilliant political operator, to be sure. A savvy manipulator whose chief expertise appears to have been quietly amassing power for himself.
The scary bit is that he so vigorously defends the use of 'any means at our disposal' to obtain intelligence, and thinks it would be irresponsible not to out of concerns of appearing to not be a 'nice guy'. Yes, that's it....... people object to torture because it makes us look bad. Not because it's ILLEGAL, or anything. It's the optics.
Brought back a lot of memories of just how terrible the Bush administration was, and brought into focus how the current administration isn't really that much better.... and in some measures is actually worse. Altho it did do a pretty good job of painting Bush himself as a sympathetic character. It seems he selected Cheney because of a very deep insecurity about his own competence on international affairs and inner Washington politicking. So between that and 9/11 it basically provided Cheney with a perfect storm to become, for all intents and purposes, the most powerful man in the world. All quietly and behind the scenes.
Spoiler:
