On the other hand, this is Dick Cheney we're talking about; an empathetic human response isn't something he's otherwise demonstrated in his business or political dealings.

That's not "on the other hand", that's literally the point of the observation.

Eh, these people are human though. Different people care about different things, and these change based on personal experience.

Empathy is something you feel, rather than something you calculate.

You don't know the human. You only know a character on TV. That character is intermediated for you by many hands. Maybe the character acts in reality as you think, or maybe they are literally acting to gain your approval. We don't know anything about the people presented to us.

I would argue that this is how you become a top leader. It's really discouraging to realize that only a certain type of people even want to win a popularity contest. Even dictators are winning the "more popular than the alternatives" contest, though the alternative might just be death.

Also that might be the stated responsibility, but the implicit one is to improve the outcomes relative to perceived alternatives. Many times the alternatives area manufactured.