OPINION: Full speed ahead with Dick Cheney: The misguided mentoring of a president.

Byline: Michael Douglas

Apr. 15--On election eve last fall, Dick Cheney delivered one of those defining performances of the Bush the younger years. The vice president famously suggested to an interviewer that the results wouldn't matter. He promised that the White House would proceed "full speed ahead" with its strategy in Iraq. "We're not running for office," he explained. "We're doing what we think is right." The words carried an unsettling echo. In his book, Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward recorded Cheney offering a similar assessment in the aftermath of the 2000 election. Never mind Al Gore winning the popular vote by 540,000 ballots, or Bush prevailing in the Electoral College by four votes, after the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 ruling in his favor. A "delighted" Cheney relayed: "From the very day we walked in the building, a notion of a restrained presidency because it was such …