The XX Factor: What women really think.

Outgoing Cheney Cheer

When I was a child, I was a huge fan of a series of books that featured small, soft, furry white creatures known as Moomins. Of course, not everything in Moominvalley was as nice as the Moomins. There was another character who came along every once in a while, the Groke. Wherever she went, she left behind a trail of frozen ground that killed all living things. Dick Cheney has always remind me of the Groke.

In a new interview with Politico, Cheney pronounces the United States should expect a catastrophic nuclear or biological terrorist attack in the near future—and the Obama administration increases the likelihood it will happen. Cheney's penchant for practices like water-boarding, he claims, kept more 9/11-style attacks at bay during the Bush administration.

[Cheney] asserted that President Obama will either backtrack on his stated intentions to end those policies or put the country at risk in ways more severe than most Americans—and, he charged, many members of Obama’s own team—understand ...

He expressed confidence that files will someday be publicly accessible offering specific evidence that waterboarding and other policies he promoted—over sharp internal dissent from colleagues and harsh public criticism—were directly responsible for averting new Sept. 11-style attacks. ...

“If it hadn’t been for what we did—with respect to the terrorist surveillance program, or enhanced interrogation techniques for high-value detainees, the Patriot Act, and so forth—then we would have been attacked again," he said.