Yes, there’s something unseemly about someone in this day and age defending the use of torture. Perhaps even grotesque.

Officially sanctioned torture, after all, is closely associated with the Spanish Inquisition, and with activities by regimes headed by Stalin and Hitler. The efforts of former Vice-President Dick Cheney to justify its use by a country that has always officially damned the practice may thus appear to be rather…rather…alright, I’ll say the word, rather disgusting.

Still, Mr. Cheney’s very public defense of torture in the present context might also be viewed in another way. As the heroic last gasp service of a faithful old retainer.

As a long-time associate of the Bush clan, someone put on the George W. Bush ticket to guide an inexperienced new president through the turbulent waters of the Potomac, he performed this task with great diligence. Wildly inappropriate, massively hurtful, costly almost beyond measure as his advice may have been from the perspective of this country’s well-being, it served the president, whose care he was given, quite well. It helped get him reelected and popular enough for at least his first six years in office to fundamentally change the course of this nation’s history and standing in the world.

Cheney thus proved himself the faithful old retainer he was delegated to be during President Bush’s tenure. And now, in the wake of the fast-growing torture scandal, he continues to serve in that capacity.

Dick Cheney is not ultimately responsible for America’s post-9/11 torture policies. The buck didn’t stop at his office. President Bush is ultimately responsible. In recent days, however, you would be hard-pressed to find the guy really at the top of the ordering chain taking the heat for torture carried on during his watch and almost certainly with his total knowledge.

Dick Cheney has come forward to take the heat. To absorb the public’s distaste. To be the still faithful, faithful old retainer. What a guy. When will we ever see his like again?