Fly Fishing with Darth Vader

Leave it to The Weekly Standard's Matt Labash to earn the trust and access to the likes of Marion Berry, Kinky Friedman, Al Sharpton and Dick Cheney to serve up his first-hand, personal experiences in his new book, Fly Fishing with Darth Vader: And Other Adventures with Evangelical Wrestlers, Political Hitmen, and Jewish Cowboys.

As reported in the WSJ:

"Telling trout purists you're chasing lowly catfish with a fly rod is tantamount to telling Heidi Klum that what you're really attracted to is bearded women with no teeth," Mr. Labash writes in a collection of his magazine pieces called "Fly-Fishing With Darth Vader." (D.V. would be Mr. Cheney.) To Mr. Labash's surprise, the vice president seemed interested in his venture into fly-rod debasement. "Perhaps he sensed a kindred spirit," the writer muses. "Remaking the Middle East as a Western democracy versus chasing catfish on a fly—each of us is addicted to some pet implausibility.

The two men eventually get together on the South Fork of the Snake River near Mr. Cheney's Wyoming home.  The vice president is revealed as a gifted mimic of Washington figures (impressions that are quickly put off the record), a wry witness to the trappings of high office (divers are on hand for the excursion, he explains, "in case I fall out of the boat"), and an appealing companion. Mr. Labash ends up thoroughly liking the warmonger: "Don't get me wrong," he writes. "I feel sick about it.

P.S.  Labash's Weekly Standard column Down with Facebook last March was a classic.  The best line was a relevant quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Crack-Up": "It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory."