This Just In: Dick Cheney is a secretive so-and-so intent on exploding the Constitution in order to do whatever it is he – er, sorry, the President – wants.

That’s the bulletin issued from tonight’s “Frontline” report, “Cheney’s Law,” from producer/writer/director Michael Kirk and producer/reporter Jim Gilmore. And if any of this is a shock to your system, then you just haven’t been paying any attention for the past six years. Of course, you have plenty of company.

In essence, “Cheney’s Law” issues as much of a scoop as Stephen Colbert’s proclamation last week that “Dick Cheney’s fondest pipe dream is driving a bulldozer into The New York Times while drinking crude oil out of Keith Olbermann’s skull.”

Which is not to say that “Cheney’s Law” is not useful: It provides something of a narrative throughline of White House antics over the past few years, connecting the dots from a series of reports that have trickled out over the years. It’s just that the report would’ve been more compelling had it included actual revelations, say, of Cheney’s secret robot army being developed in Paraguay or notes on how the fireballs that shoot out of his eyes have been upgraded to include the Ebola virus or something.

Kirk and Gilmore have explored Nexis/Lexis and Google sufficiently to find links to the Vice President to show how the White House circumvented Congress to enact America’s giddy new doctrines of torturing anyone that might look at an NSA official cross-eyed, to OK wire-tapping any American who might’ve dialed a wrong number to someone the government decides, rightly or wrongly, might have vague ties to a terrorist organization and to perpetuate the recently glossed-over scandal in which former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales politicized the Justice Department in order to perpetuate Republican rule forever and ever, amen. And, if they’re asked about any of this, to simply invoke executive privilege to get out of answering any question that might reveal any unseemly aspects of this operation.

They provide a historical timeline demonstrating Cheney’s – as well as his key aide and consigliore, David Addington’s – belief that whoever is Supreme Leader shouldn’t have to answer to anybody, which was Stalin’s philosophy too, if memory serves.

Anyway, so clearly the “Frontline” guys are not down with Cheney – they even got someone to wade through years of archival photographs to locate a bunch of photos of Cheney scowling that you may not have seen before. (They missed this classic, however.)

But the question remains: Who was doing this reportage before the country turned on the war in Iraq? Who brought these issues to light when the patriotism of those who questioned the Administration was challenged? Who with a sizable bully pulpit dared call shenanigans on all of this when it might’ve reversed public opinion when it mattered?

And who’s doing it effectively now? The New York Times’ Frank Rich, in his Sunday column, decided that the time was past for giving We The People a pass on overlooking key facts regarding Iraq:

“I have always maintained that the American public was the least culpable of the players during the run-up to Iraq. The war was sold by a brilliant and fear-fueled White House propaganda campaign designed to stampede a nation still shellshocked by 9/11. Both Congress and the press — the powerful institutions that should have provided the checks, balances and due diligence of the administration’s case — failed to do their job. Had they done so, more Americans might have raised more objections. This perfect storm of democratic failure began at the top.

“As the war has dragged on, it is hard to give Americans en masse a pass. We are too slow to notice, let alone protest, the calamities that have followed the original sin. …

“Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those “good Germans” who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo. It’s up to us to wake up our somnambulant Congress to challenge administration policy every day. Let the war’s last supporters filibuster all night if they want to. There is nothing left to lose except whatever remains of our country’s good name.”

- “Frontline: Cheney’s Law:” 9 tonight, KCET Channel 28.