Regardless of what may have happened in "private," the telling point is that Cheney cared enough about helping Scooter to "go public" against the president but did not care enough to do so against TARP, a far more important issue for future generations.
You claim to "know something" about our system of "constitutional government." If so, I can only ask why are defending a man who has no problem with shredding the eighth amendment by loudly supporting torture ("Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted)" and giving the president the power to suspend the most ancient right of habeas corpus.
If your retort is that these rights only apply to citizens, please note that the constitution more often uses the word persons not citizens when laying out our rights.
I never could understand why allegedly "small government conservatives" would want to defend a man who wants to give our new president more arbitary power on these issues. What gives with that?! I thought conservatives were supposed to be suspcious of centralized power!
All the evidence is that Cheney cares far more about finding ways to increase the excecutive power of the president (now Obama) than he does about defending the personal liberty and property rights of ordinary citizens.
I am sorry, I do not believe in empowering our enemies during a war, we just differ in this area.
And exactly which law is it that grants constitutional rights to terrorists who may be shot on sight under the Geneva Convention and aren't even Americans, or on American soil.
How did that come to pass?
Moreover, waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques", while they might be unpleasant as hell, shouldn't be confused with torture.
We wouldn't torture our own troops, now, would we?