WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday vigorously defended the White House’s use of broad executive powers during the last eight years, saying he believed that historians would ultimately look favorably on the Bush administration’s efforts to keep the nation safe. Mr. Cheney said the Bush White House had been justified in expanding executive authority across a broad range of policy, including the war in Iraq, treatment of terrorism suspects and the domestic wiretapping program. And he said the president ‘doesn’t have to check with anybody – not Congress, not the courts – before launching a nuclear attack to defend the nation ‘because of the nature of the world we live in since the terrorist strikes of Sept. 11, 2001. The vice president also sharply criticized Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., offering a pointed response when asked about Mr. Biden’s plans to operate differently from him as vice president and about Mr. Biden’s remark during the Oct. 2 vice-presidential debate with Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska that Mr. Cheney had been ‘the most dangerous vice president we’ve had in American history. ‘If he wants to diminish the office of vice president, that’s obviously his call, […]