11:20 AM ... Cheney starts things off classy with some snide comments about Obama's speech length.

11:24 AM ... Transcript of Cheney's speech. So far basically 9/11, 9/11, 9/11 sort of echoes of Rudyism.

11:27 AM ... Still trying. Cheney hinting at the Iraq/al Qaida tie ... "We had the training camps of Afghanistan, and dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists."

11:28 AM ... Cheney now seems to be arguing he was psychologically traumatized by the experience of watching the 9/11 attacks like the rest of us did.

11:30 AM ... Shorter Cheney: If you don't agree with my torture policies, you don't take 9/11 seriously.

11:31 AM ... Now discussing how New York Times put American lives in danger.

11:33 AM ... In many ways, it's obvious. But listening to Cheney, you get such a rich sense of the difference between these two men. Cheney, grizzly, paranoid and feeling and more than anything harshly partisan.

11:39 AM ... Calling torture 'torture' is libel.

11:42 AM ... I think the truest read on Cheney is his cutting and snide anger contrasted with his history of personal cowardice, ducking service in the Vietnam war he himself vociferously supported. Fear and anger are his defining emotions.

11:45 AM ... Wondering how long it took Bill Kristol to write this speech.

11:46 AM ... Looking forward to the usual special pleading and kid glove treatment Cheney gets from the Washington press corps.