The former vice president, through years of public statements and internal deliberations during the Bush administration, fashioned a distinctly different school of thought about how to operate in the midst of a Washington storm.

That philosophy, in a word: defiance.

Don’t feed bodies to the Washington wolves through resignations and firings. The pack will just get hungrier. After Obama announced the IRS’s acting director was resigning Wednesday, various Republicans called Thursday for a broader IRS probe, a special prosecutor and criminal charges to be filed.

Don’t accept the premise of partisan critics and commentators that some controversy or another is genuinely a big deal. That projects weakness, demoralizes supporters and suggests the opposition is on the level, rather than driven by self-interest and hypocrisy.

Don’t show transparency by turning over internal documents and e-mails to the news media and Congress. It’s none of their business and weakens the constitutional prerogatives of the presidency. Note that the release of emails about Benghazi talking points only generated GOP calls for additional records from the aftermath of the attack.

What would Cheney do is not a question, to put it mildly, that Democrats are prone to asking.