The World According to Dick Cheney

If you lived through this achingly awful time in our country's history, you will already be familiar with where the battle is joined on many of the issues presented in this film. Personally, I did not find one single thing that was new to me. It seems that, instead of choosing to do a thorough, in-depth analysis of the many things Dick Cheney did and said, the makers of this documentary chose to go the "College Freshman's Introduction to Dick Cheney" route: Keep it simple, keep it matter-of- fact, let the audience connect the dots (if they can), and by all means, don't ruffle any feathers. So many important details were left out, like the remarkable time Mr. Cheney averred that, if America voted for John Kerry for President, that would be a win for Al Qaida -- a completely irresponsible, hugely, gapingly un-American thing for any politician to say. And that's just one of many. And nowhere was the question ever posed, "Do you feel responsible for all those unnecessary deaths of American soldiers in Iraq?" To treat this man as anything other than a murderer gives him a modicum of dignity he doesn't deserve. The producer and director were clearly scared to death to get down to the real nitty-gritty. Don't misunderstand me: There's nothing terribly wrong with this film -- just a failure of nerve.