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From today's "Face the Nation" with Bob Schieffer, Dick Cheney provides the lasted installment for our ongoing series, Great Moments in Vice Presidenting (Part XVIII):

SCHIEFFER: I know Secretary Rumsfeld once offered to resign. Have you ever thought of that? Or would you think that would be something that would be helpful to the president?

CHENEY: Well, I made sure both in 2000 and 2004 that the president had other options. I mean, I didn't ask for this job. I didn't campaign for it. I got drafted. And delighted to serve. And it's been the highlight of my career, to be part of this administration. I've now been elected to a second term; I'll serve out my term.

And that's absolutely true! Because, you see, he didn't ask for the job. He got drafted. By himself.

In the spring of 2000, Cheney’s two worlds—commerce and politics— merged. Halliburton allowed its C.E.O. to serve simultaneously as the head of George W. Bush’s Vice-Presidential search committee. At the time, Bush said that his main criterion for a running mate was “somebody who’s not going to hurt you.” Cheney demanded reams of documents from the candidates he considered. In the end, he picked himself—a move that his longtime friend Stuart Spencer recently described, with admiration, as “the most Machiavellian fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”

POSTCRIPT: I wasn't sure I heard this right, but turns out I did. Earlier in the interview, Cheney had this to say about our allies in the Middle East:

We'll use our intelligence and our military services very aggressively. And we have. We did it in Afghanistan, we've done it in Pakistan, we're working with the Paks, we captured or killed hundred of Al Qaida.

We're working with the "Paks"? The Paks? It may not be as bad as, say, "Paki" but still, holey freakin' moley.