Through the marvel of television — and the remote button — a debate of sorts was available on last Sunday morning's interview shows between the departing vice president and the man soon to succeed him.

On the Fox News show, Dick Cheney spent most of an hour defending his eight-year tenure, in which he has been seen as such an influential incumbent that he has often been cast as the real power behind President Bush.

Then, on the next hour on ABC News' "This Week," Vice President-elect Joe Biden repeated earlier attacks on Cheney's tenure, not backing off his campaign characterization of him as possibly "the most dangerous" man ever to hold the office.

Biden based much of his allegation on what he said was Cheney's advocacy of the "unitary executive" theory — essentially that, especially in time of war, the president has virtually unlimited constitutional power as "commander in chief."

Cheney and the Bush administration have regularly used it to justify domestic surveillance without warrants and detainee interrogation methods, and Cheney stoutly defended it in his Fox interview. Biden on the ABC show called the theory "dead wrong" and "inconsistent with our Constitution."

Article II specifically refers to the president only as "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States." Biden, without citing the distinction, said Cheney was "mistaken" in applying the broader interpretation.

But Cheney cited the president's unilateral authority to launch a nuclear war by putting in effect the secret codes that his military aide carries with him at all times. The president, he said, "could launch the kind of devastating attack the world has never seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody. He doesn't have to call the Congress. He doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in."

Cheney on an earlier ABC News show had said "those who have accused the administration of condoning torture or violating the Constitution with the terrorist surveillance program don't know what they're talking about," but Biden stood his ground.

The advice in this area Cheney reportedly has given to President Bush, Biden said, "has not been healthy for our foreign policy, not healthy for our national security, and it has not been consistent with our Constitution, in my view. . . . I think that it caused this administration in adopting that notion to overstep its constitutional bounds, but at a minimum to weaken our standing the world and weaken our security."

As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who was thoroughly briefed about the threat the nation faced from the detainees, Biden said, "I have learned nothing thus far that would change my view . . . that Guantanamo should close, number one, that, number two, the way in which we have conducted our policy, in terms of both surveillance as well as the detainees, has hurt our reputation around the world."

Biden cited a recent report from the intelligence community, saying "we have created, not dissuaded, more terrorists as a consequence of this policy." But Cheney continued to take credit for the Bush administration for the fact there has not been another attack on American soil since 9/11.

Seemingly with Cheney's influential role in mind, Biden said it was his intent as vice president "to restore the balance" in the office. Cheney in his separate interview on Fox remarked: "If he wants to diminish the office of the vice president, that's his call."

Obama, Cheney said, "will decide what he wants in a vice president and, apparently from the way they're talking about it, he does not expect him (Biden) to have as consequential role as I have had during my time."

That seems to be fine with Biden, who said he will be happy giving Obama his best advice, and overseeing the new administration's focus on looking out for the concerns of the middle class. In any event, it was probably a good thing this particular "debate" took place in separate television studios, rather than face to face.

Jules Witcover's latest book, on the Nixon-Agnew relationship, "Very Strange Bedfellows," has just been published by Public Affairs Press. Reach him at juleswitcover@earthlink.net.