THE "SO?" HEARD ROUND THE WORLD

Tomorrow morning's Washington Post carries a guest column by prominent Republican leader and ex-Congressman Mickey Edwards (R-OK), basically severing his recently strained ties with the Bush Regime. Last week, testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, Edwards roundly chastised GOP rubber stamps who have sold out to the siren song of the Regime. In tomorrow's Post he says his frustration has been building for quite some time.

For at least six years, as I've become increasingly frustrated by the Bush administration's repeated betrayal of constitutional -- and conservative -- principles, I have defended Vice President Cheney, a man I've known for decades and with whom I served and made common cause in Congress. No longer.

I do not blame Dick Cheney for George W. Bush's transgressions; the president needs no prompting to wrap himself in the cloak of a modern-day king. Nor do I believe that the vice president so enthusiastically supports the Iraq war out of a loyalty to the oil industry that his former employer serves. By all accounts, Cheney's belief in "the military option" and the principle of president-as-decider predates his affiliation with Halliburton.

What, then, is the straw that causes me to finally consign a man I served with in the House Republican leadership to the category of "those about whom we should be greatly concerned"?

It is Cheney's all-too-revealing conversation this week with ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz. On Wednesday, reminded of the public's disapproval of the war in Iraq, now five years old, the vice president shrugged off that fact (and thus, the people themselves) with a one-word answer: "So?"

That was the last straw for the old Republican warhorse. "So?" was the wrong answer. "Cheney," continues Edwards, "told Raddatz that American war policy should not be affected by the views of the people. But that is precisely whose views should matter: It is the people who should decide whether the nation shall go to war. That is not a radical, or liberal, or unpatriotic idea. It is the very heart of America's constitutional system... When the vice president dismisses public opposition to war with a simple "So?" he violates the single most important element in the American system of government: Here, the people rule."

I suppose we'll have to wait until Monday to hear the attack the Regime cooks up against Mr. Edwards. In his home state he is very well-regarded across party lines. State Senator Andrew Rice, the Democrat running for the use Senate seat currently controlled by fringe rubber stamp loon James Inhofe-- exactly the kind of cavalier and heedless senator that Edwards was decrying last week-- called Edwards a reasonable and principled Republican, which mirrors what most Oklahomans think of him.