The Politico scores 40 minutes with the reclusive Prince of Darkness, and he does not disappoint. The article opens with Cheney dissing senior Democratic congressmen John Murtha and John Dingell for not being men enough to stand up to Nancy Pelosi. He assumes they disagree with her leadership. “I’m trying to think how to say all of this in a gentlemanly fashion, but [in] the Congress I served in, that wouldn’t have happened,” the Vice President said, adding, “They are not carrying the big sticks I would have expected.”

Come on, Cheney. Stop fixating on the size of Democrats’ sticks.

And here’s a real doozy: Cheney predicts Iraq would be self-governing by the time he and president Bush leave office. Okay, I’m making a note of that. We’ll check back later.

—Dana Goldstein

Dana Goldstein, a former associate editor and writer at the Prospect, comes from a family of public-school educators. She received the Spencer Fellowship in Education Journalism, a Schwarz Fellowship at the New America Foundation, and a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellowship at the Nation Institute. Her journalism is regularly featured in Slate, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Beast, and other publications, and she is a staff writer at the Marshall Project.