Cheney is the kind of guy who represents to me the hard case. He's not going to go negotiate with anybody. Is it fair to say that Cheney would take the position, you don't deal with Ahmadinejad, for whatever reason, you don't deal with Castro, you don't deal with Kim Jong il or any of these guys. You stiff them. Is that the Cheney view?

Cheney certainly doesn't have a problem meeting with other unsavory characters:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/photoessays/gd/fahd/images/v080505db-0306-398h.jpg

http://www.presidency.gov.eg/assets/images/13-Mar2002_1.jpg

http://photos.state.gov/libraries/usinfo-photo/39/week_3_0507/051507-usjordan-200.jpg

Spanish royal sex cartoon banned:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6909047.stm

Cartoonist faces Greek jail for Jesus cartoon:

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,11711,1443908,00.html

Glenn,

I suggest you read what I had to say about the issue in my reply to Roger Cohen:

www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/15/12110/9204/94/437234

Hey Glenn,

I suggest you do some reading into the FBI's surveillance operations against the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador in the 1980s:

www.southendpress.org/2004/items/Breakins

www.publiceye.org/huntred/Hunt_For_Red_Menace-12.html

It's very similar to what could possibly be going on today.

I've seen Victor Davis Hanson argue that the "Clintonite" policy of firing cruise missiles at countries and the civilian deaths it caused somehow justifiesd the Bushist strategy of long, drawn-out occupations.

Glenn, this story from 2005 may be of some interest to you:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/03/news/gitmo.php

www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/010457.php