Cheney's Law

Midway through the Frontline documentary Cheney's Law, which aired last Tuesday on PBS, a reporter summarizes a judgment the vice president conveyed to listeners in hiding in the hours after the bombings of September 11. "We will probably," he said, "have to be a country ruled by men rather than laws, in this period." The period, he implied, would last a long time; so the conclusion had all the Cheney markings: cool, complete, defying contradiction. What is astounding is how quickly he arrived at it.