As per this earlier MobyLIves report, former vice president Dick Cheney and his cronies must have gotten their stories straght: Cheney yesterday inked a book deal with Simon & Schuster for a memoir due out in the spring of 2011, for an advance said to be in the area of “at least $2 million,” according to an Associated Press report by Hillel Italie. The deal prompted the most tolerant public comments ever uttered by Cheney — according to Italie, he “said he hopes readers of all ideologies will be interested in his story.”

The deal, struck with conservative S&S imprint Threshold Editions, which is run by longtime arch-conservative insider Mary Matalin, also seems to have inspired one of the longer, more detailed reports on a book deal to cross the AP wires in a while. Still, it fails to note some of the more pertinent details that make this story so surprising: For example, it never mentions that Cheney is one of the most unpopular figures in American political history, or that recent polls indicate most Americans wish he’d step out of the limelight now that he’s out of office, or that he’s facing calls for investigation on several fronts — all things that make it seem likely the book won’t sell enough copies to make back its huge advance. Torture, war profiteering, and the death of innocent civilians doesn’t come up, either. The report even leaves out the detail that should make this particularly notable to book reporters: that Simon & Schuster is paying such a whopping fee at a time when it’s laying people off.

Instead, the report claims that Cheney is “widely considered the most powerful vice president in history.” And while it does note in passing that ”Cheney has consistently had low approval ratings, sometimes under 30 percent,” it quickly adds “but he is deeply admired by those that stand by him.”

Indeed, that the AP feels the need to point that out, and to be so defensive of Cheney’s reputation in the first place, may be the most important news in this story.