There’s no real reason to be following the Washington Post’s tedious rehash of a rehash on Dick Cheney. (The last piece in the four-part series published today).

But after reading the claim for the umpteenth time, I wonder what historians would make of the idea that “Dick Cheney is the most influential and powerful man ever to hold the office of vice president.” (So quoted from the tag-line of the graphic up at the WashPo’s website.)

It seems a dubious claim to me, the moreso because of that pesky definitive article: Is Dick Cheney really more powerful than any of his 45 predecessors?

I also note the first and second articles relate Cheney’s views on war powers as if they’re scandalous utterances. I’d like to think even strong critics of Bush would, in intellectually honest moments, concede that the theory of a strong and unitary executive (especially when the president acts as commander-in-chief) is at least an intellectually defensible one. But the WashPo instead gives us obscure prose about “translat[ing] muscular theories, from [then deputy chief of the DoJ’s Office of Legal Counsel] Yoo and others, into the operational language of government,” absent any real explanation of the large and growing body of legal scholarship that provide moorings to that method of executive-branch management.

Perhaps some kind soul should send a copy of Prof. Yoo’s latest to the WashPo, Attn: Cheney Beat…