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You heard it here first: my friend Gladys said that the reason Cheney acted so awful is that he is old and sick (link). Now, turn the mike over to Jim Hoaglund at the Washington Post:

Is the vice president losing his influence, or perhaps his mind? That question, even if it is phrased more delicately, is creeping through foreign ministries and presidential offices abroad and has become a factor in the Bush administration's relations with the world.

"What has happened to Dick Cheney?" That solicitous but direct question came from a European statesman who has known the vice president for many years. He put it to me a few days ago -- even before the discovery of a blood clot in Cheney's leg and the perjury conviction of Scooter Libby, his former chief of staff, brought headline attention to the volatile state of the vice president's physical, emotional and political health. It is not new for Americans to question whether their leaders have become delusional. Editors at The Post directed reporters to find out if Jimmy Carter had suffered a nervous breakdown when he retreated to Camp David for 10 days in 1979 and abruptly fired five Cabinet officers. Remember the hubbub over Al Haig's "I am in control here" and other Captain Queegish remarks, or Richard Nixon's talking to portraits?

What is unusual is for foreigners to think about a vice president at all and to question what effect the VP's moods and internal policy defeats have on America's standing in the world.

But what goes up must come down. In the first term, Cheney was styled as the most influential vice president in history -- in more lurid versions, an evil puppeteer pulling George W. Bush's strings. So now his irascibility in television interviews triggers diplomatic cables analyzing his equilibrium -- as well as inspiring a booming industry of scathing cartoons and television one-liners here at home.

Lefties have been saying for months that Cheney will resign someday soon "for health reasons," and be replaced by, oh, I don't know, Condi. They say it as if it is a bad thing. But the Cheney influence has become so terminally awful that I'd be willing to consider almost any alternative, and on almost any terms.