Yesterday, James Wolcott likened Vice President Cheney to the broken-down Ed McMahon of Jerry Lewis telethons and Larry King appearances. Today, Richard Cohen offers this less amusing, though equally valid, comparison:

Let's play a political word-association game. You say "blue" and I say "red." You say "swift" and I say "boat." You say "Cheney" and I say "Welch" and you ask me what in the world do I mean. And I say that when Dick Cheney warned that the election of John Kerry would increase the risk of a terrorist attack, I immediately thought of Joseph Welch, the patrician Boston attorney who confronted Sen. Joseph McCarthy back in 1954 and asked, "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" The answer in McCarthy's case was no. It is no different with Cheney.

Tough stuff, and more than richly deserved. The rest is here.

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