DAVID REMNICK, seated at his cluttered desk, chomps a large cigar and glowers at a back issue of USNews and World Report. A beat, then he pounds his intercom.

REMNICK: Get me Hertzberg!

INTERCOM: He's been in the library all day, Mr. R -- trying to find a copy of The American Commonwealth.

REMNICK: Liar! We've got a copy of that in the lobby, he's at the track again! Get in here.

NICK PAUMGARTEN, steno pad in hand, enters.

REMNICK: Take a memo.

PAUMGARTEN: Yes, D.R.

REMNICK: To Mayer. USNews found another secret power behind the throne -- where the hell were we? I need 10,000 words on David Addington on my desk yesterday, dammit! Lotsa color, too -- guy keeps the constitution in his pocket, that's golden! Call him Cheney's Cheney or something. Get Schlesinger, he's good for a couple grafs. And dammit, I want three more quiet, publicity-averse brilliant-but-evil legal minds pitched to me this week! You got all that, Paumgarten?

PAUMGARTEN: Yes, D.R.

REMNICK: Great. Now have that memo fact-checked, throw one of those little small-town newspaper clippings on there, and send it off right away. We need this out there before Foer's Joel Kaplan piece runs.

PAUMGARTEN: Right away, D.R.

REMNICK: Now get outta here!

Cheney's Cheney [New Yorker]

Earlier:Clearly the Most Evil Member of the Administration. He Has a Beard!