On the heels of Martha Raddatz’s exclusive interview with Dick, when asked about how 2/3rds of the American people hate this war and Dick said “So?”, comes this gem from Dick noting the death of the 4,000th American soldier in Iraq. It’s even worse than “So?”

“I want to start with the milestone today of 4,000 dead in Iraq. Americans. And just what effect do you think it has on the country?” asked ABC News’ White House correspondent, Martha Raddatz, who traveled with the vice president on a nine-day overseas trip to Iraq and other countries in the Middle East.”It obviously brings home I think for a lot of people the cost that’s involved in the global war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Cheney said in the interview, conducted in Turkey. “It places a special burden obviously on the families, and we recognize, I think - it’s a reminder of the extent to which we are blessed with families who’ve sacrificed as they have.”

“The president carries the biggest burden, obviously,” Cheney said. “He’s the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans, but we are fortunate to have a group of men and women, the all-volunteer force, who voluntarily put on the uniform and go in harm’s way for the rest of us.”

Yes, the Iraquagmire has been so hard on poor li’l George W. Bush. It’s not easy telling lies with a straight face for five years. But the rest of you soldiers? Hey, you volunteered, remember? So it really doesn’t matter that your civilian leadership SNAFUed this war from the beginning, when you signed the line, you volunteered to be used and misused in any way the Commander-In-Chief sees fit. And if your parents back home don’t like the war, well, “So?”

Raddatz noted that some soldiers, Air Force members, and Marines have been on multiple deployments and have been sent back to Iraq because of the stop-loss policy - an involuntary extension of a service member’s enlistment contract. The Army alone says 58,000 US soldiers have been redeployed to war because of the stop-loss policy.”When you talk about an all-volunteer force, some of these soldiers, airmen, Marines have been on two, three, four, some of them more than that, deployments,” Raddatz said. “Do you think when they volunteered they had any idea that there would be so many deployments or stop-loss? Some of those who want to get out can’t because of stop-loss?”

“A lot of men and women sign up because sometimes they will see developments,” Cheney said. “For example, 9/11 stimulated a lot of folks to volunteer for the military because they wanted to be involved in defending the country.”

“…too bad for them they volunteered,” Dick continued, “so that we could send them somewhere that wasn’t involved in 9/11 and a mission that has nothing to do with defending the country.”

Nice of Dick to talk about stimulation, though. Not “motivated”, “stimulated”. Is that a slip? Because I think it’s Freudian… you’re “motivated” from within, you’re “stimulated” from without. It’s almost as if Dick was talking about using a prod on cattle to get the herd to move.