Dick Cheney, once again demon­strat­ing that he’s a man who will not be cowed by the reality-​based community:

Tony Fratto, Mr. Bush’s deputy press sec­re­tary, said Mr. Cheney and others hoped to reas­sure the crit­ics that the pro­posal is an emer­gency response to a crit­i­cal prob­lem, and not an “aban­don­ment of the belief that our mar­kets work and our free market system works.’’