Over the last several years, I have heard people accuse Cheney of being the architect of 9/11. It has been said that Bush was nothing more than his (dumb) puppet on a string, and that VP Cheney was the author of the Iraq policy, the administrations economic policy, etc. He has been roundly despised by many Democrats and defended by many Republicans. Yeah....I'd say he is polarizing.

Cheney is a douche! Wait, stop, don't shoot. Probably one of the worse politician ever. I don't understand how he was ever Secretary of Defense without serving in the military?

For Cheney to be polarizing, there would actually have to have some people left in this country believing that he's anything other than the selfishly-motivated, arrogant example of self-delusion that he has proven himself to be. I haven't met anyone like that, lately, have you? He blatantly oversteps his authority and has a vested (literally) interest in perpetuating the war in Iraq.

Yay, vocabulary from the 5th grade is HARD!

eesh. maybe next I'll go rate Alec Baldwin :P

Some times, I have him mistaken for a blood sucking vampire.

Dr. Strangelove, I presume?

Bibliophile you really need to lay off the 3 a.m. anchovy and dog poop pizza binges. Cheney is a politician, not the big bad wolf. He's tough and he's got his mind made up. Which is way more than I can say about his competition - Monsieur Flip Flop and Little Lord Limp Noodle.

Dick Cheney is a mainstream neo-con. The fact that all these liberal morons have bought into these looney conspiracy theories and held Cheney up as a boogieman doesn't make him so. The guy literally upon accepting the nomination for VP deferred all his salary owed him from Haliburton, and put all his stock options in a trust fund out of which any profit made will go directly to charity. This is just a case of liberals needing someone to demonize to justify their radical agenda.

Reminds me of someone in the horror films who works in the lab as an evil assistant...and I don't think I'm far off.

He doesn't have a political persona that's very polarizing. He speaks in a strong, but reassuring and calm tone, which lends him a reputation as a moderate. His record however puts him up as a solid neo-conservative idealist. That's the trick to understanding his persona--I do think that their agenda is rather radical, although I will say that such a tradition has long roots going back to Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. You'd expect the man to be a solid realist coming from the tradition he comes from, however, the man has a very activist agenda that a little too far-sighted for my taste.

So, anyone who rates Cheney a 5, is in the political know. Listen, bibliophile, take the gloves off and really let us know how much hatred you harbor for this guy, who is a heartbeat away from the presidency. CEO's of huge corporations are not usually quite given to skulking in the shadows, wreaking havoc and peddling influence. He headed one of the most reliable, innovative defense corporations that has ever existed, enormously trusted by the Clinton Administration (8 years) for contract after contract, and I don't remember reading any news accounts of his responsibilities as shadow skulker. His background with Halliburton is polarizing but let's try not to over-villainize.

Dick Cheney is the epitome of a polarizing politician! However, he is most polarizing for those who are in the political know. It takes some research to begin to understand how much there is to disrespect about this petty, cunning, shrewd and vile individual. This man has spent virtually his entire political career skulking about in the shadows, silently wreaking havoc, peddling influence, waxing in power. He is like a virus that causes only occasional symptoms but is quite lethal all the same. He knows more dirty tricks than most politicians in this country will ever learn.