Dick Cheney in Nixonland

Dick Cheney came to the Nixon Library this week to talk about his new book, Heart—it’s about his five heart attacks and his heart transplant. When our most hated vice president visits the library of our most disgraced president, you look forward to a good night. So my friend Howard and I went to Yorba Linda, expecting a festive evening of Obama-bashing and a twisted trip back through the glories of the Bush years.

It turned out to be mostly a book event. Signed copies were for sale; Cheney did a Q&A about his book and took a few friendly questions. But the evening ended up as it had to: with Obamacare.

The only question that got a big, excited response from the audience was, “Can you comment on Obamacare?” What was most significant in Cheney’s answer was what he did not say—the things said by right-wing media at the time of his transplant. The New York Post for example had run the headline, “Beware Obamacare: It might’ve killed Cheney.” The argument was that those dreaded “death panels” would have ruled that Cheney was too old—he was 71—and he would, therefore, have been denied a transplant. Breitbart.com said Obamacare required looking at cases like Cheney’s “as an avenue toward survival of the fittest.” The blog RedState declared, “A Poorer Man Than Dick Cheney Might’ve Died if ObamaCare was in Full Effect”—because of those death panels.

But as Gawker.com pointed out, pre-Obamacare transplant ethics already required that the age and future health of potential recipients be considered.

Cheney’s answer to the question about Obamacare was limited to a criticism about the tax on medical devices: “It really worries me,” he said, since stents had kept him alive for years. “I can’t think of a worse notion. If you want less of something, tax it”—an argument that the device tax will stifle innovation. Obama replies that all the industries that gain a windfall from the expansion of medical coverage should be taxed to help offset the cost of that expansion. But thirty Senate Democrats have called for the repeal of the device tax, including Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota, which happens to be the home of Medtronic, one of the country’s largest device manufacturers....