Washington, Jan 8 : US Vice President Dick Cheney has said that his image has gotten a bad rap in the press, and added that he is in fact "a warm, lovable sort."

Cheney conceded in an interview with CBS radio that he sometimes expresses himself "rather forcefully toward some of my compatriots, like Pat Leahy from Vermont", but dismissed as a caricature the idea that he is a "Darth Vader-type personality."

"I think all of that's been pretty dramatically overdone," Politico. com quoted the vice president, as saying. "I'm actually a warm, lovable sort," he added.

Cheney also insisted that his influence within the Bush Administration was overstated throughout the past eight years.

"The notion that somehow I was pulling strings or making presidential-level decisions. I was not," he said.

"There was never any question about who was in charge. It was George Bush. And that's the way we operated. This whole notion that somehow I exceeded my authority here, was usurping his authority, is simply not true. It's an urban legend, never happened," Cheney said. (ANI)