This is normally not a phrase I use, even with the most annoying members of my family, but I think that for Dick Cheney, it is very clear that his complaints about George W. Bush remove any doubt about the fact, and furthermore it places his comments about the repudiation of his Manichean, and quite frankly delusional, view of the world by the voters in the proper context.

We need to call him a bitch, because to call him anything else grants him a credibility and gravitas that he simply does not deserve.^*

The man, who has an uninterrupted record of failure in his life, recommending that Ford dump Rockefeller as VP, moving to contractors in the military, invading Iraq, etc., is now saying that George W. Bush was not hard line enough for him:

“In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him,” said a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney’s reply. “He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney’s advice. He’d showed an independence that Cheney didn’t see coming. It was clear that Cheney’s doctrine was cast-iron strength at all times — never apologize, never explain — and Bush moved toward the conciliatory.”

Truth be told, I really think that this is really all about two words, “Scooter Libby,” and Cheney is upset, because he believes that without a full pardon, Libby may some day roll over on his flabby, lily-white ass.

He knows that Omertà means less in politics than it does in the Mafia, which means that it means nothing at all, and it terrifies him.

^*Yes, I understand that the social dynamics of the situation, where in order to diminish a man you essentially call him a woman, and in order to diminish a woman, you essentially call her a man,^† but you go to war with Dick Cheney with the societal norms you have—not the societal norms you might want or wish to have at a later time.
^†See Clinton, Hillary and Pelosi, Nancy.