Cheney’s exit interview
In his final days, the vice president opens up
Vice President Dick Cheney: What's his legacy?
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Dick Cheney is leaving office “in character,” said Mike Lupica in the New York Daily News. But as he reminded us on Fox News Sunday (watch excerpt), his character is “as weird and unhinged as Jack Nicholson’s in ‘A Few Good Men.’” Cheney has “tried to hijack the Constitution,” pushed us into a needless war with Iraq, and approved of torture—and he still says “he and George W. Bush were right about everything.” Maybe that’s why the Bush team has a 29 percent popularity rating.
Hey, “popularity isn’t everything,” said William Kristol in The New York Times. “Cheney isn’t, I’m afraid, always wise,” and sure, he’s “the nation’s most unpopular Republican,” but at least he (and, for that matter, our “most unpopular Democrat, Gov. Rod Blagojevich”) tell it like they see it. “No spin. No doubletalk.” Surely we can celebrate that.
It’s true, “he says what he thinks,” said Andrew Sullivan in The Atlantic online, but what he thinks is truly frightening. On Fox, Cheney suggested that the president has the right to do basically anything—dissolve the Constitution, “commit war crimes,” singlehandedly “destroy all civilization” with nukes—with impunity. We should have impeached this “would-be dictator” long ago.
His detractors try to make him into a “silly caricature,” said Don Suber in the West Virginia Daily Mail online, but “Cheney has a job to do and he gets it done.” As the guy “riding shotgun in the Bush administration,” his job is to cover “the president’s back.” He does that well, and he’s not about to apologize for it.
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Posted by Bruc Anderson, Monday, December 22, 2008, 4:26 pm I wonders sometimes what things would have been like had Bush not selected Chaney. I suspect it would have been very different. Bush, despite his bravado, has been a weak president in terms of ideas and certainly in terms of holding others accountable. Chaney has has huge influence on much of the Bush presidency and it has not been good for all the reasons stated. As a conservative, his policies are the reason I voted for Obama.
Posted by Aaron, Monday, December 22, 2008, 5:39 pm The last 8 years have shown how destructive the altered minds in the left-wing press can be. They were up in arms against Cheney long before 9/11 occured. My guess is that they hated the fact that he was not a meaningless figurehead like Al Gore, who was their boy in 2000. Well, they got their boy now, and I would like to see him step up as his own man and not simply be another Big Democrat. Only time will tell... And the libs in the mainstream media won't.
Posted by Kam, Monday, December 22, 2008, 6:51 pm The dems began 1/20/01 with the intent to impeach the Bush/Cheney adm as pay-back for Clinton. They never could get the goods on Bush/Cheney and they really, really tried..... Instead the dems spent the next 8 years spewing hatred and telling lies (ie: no WMDs/Truth: the last of the 300 million tons of Iraqi yellow cake uranium was shipped to Canada in September of this year). Let's see if the BO/Biden adm is 1/10th as good as Bush/Cheney. We already see the first lie: Biden will be an integral advisor and will advise on foreign actions........Now we hear and see that Biden will be nothing but a token with little to no adm interaction. It was Biden's experience that was used to overlook BO's total lack of experience and now we get BO without the Biden. It will be an interesting 4 years.
Posted by Brett, Monday, December 22, 2008, 9:52 pm Cheney is a dangerous madman who has tried and partially succeeded in bringing medieval thinking into the United States government. I'm sure that he wouldn't see it that way, but what else would you say about someone who tried to re-create government with an unaccountable and absolute ruler, make torture and throwing people into a dungeon without charges or trial commonplace, and otherwise undermine the rule of law by attempting to eradicate habeas corpus and other cornerstones of democracy? I agree that popularity isn't everything, but sometimes people are unpopular for good reasons. Remember that the Bush administration had the highest ratings of any administration in history at one point. How did he and Cheney get so unpopular? By completely botching the job that they were entrusted with by the American people. His world view is completely unrealistic and has been the foundation of many of the disasters of the Bush presidency. "Cheney has a job to do and gets it done..."?!? What reality is someone who would say that about Cheney living in?!?!?! Are they talking about the great job that was done in Iraq? No, Iraq has been a study in mismanagement in every way. How about accomplishing the mission in Afghanistan? No, Cheney/Bush ignored Afghanistan after making a token effort there and now the Taliban is resurgent and we look weak. How about the fantastic domestic policy? No, Cheney and his figurehead Bush stood by as New Orleans washed away, yet they actively increased the gap between the haves and the have-nots. The only thing that Cheney seems to have done effectively, with the help of some of his right-wing brethren, is to brainwash a segment of the American population into going with his twisted version of reality, which is how some people can still explain all of the Cheney/Bush failures away on some vague "liberal conspiracy" that has no substance in reality no matter how much time passes.
Posted by Kam, Tuesday, December 23, 2008, 1:15 am It always fascinates me how little real history liberals know. Somehow with the libs' focus on dumbing down education and the lack of libs' desire to be held accountable, the skewing of reality is viewed by libs as fact when it is merely opinion. I don't think libs are really limited in brain power, just that they are fed opinions as facts and they repeat these opinions like parrots. Remember everyone has a right to their own opinions, you just can't have your own facts. Cheney as a medival thinker...I'm still laughing my head off. Libs need to go worship BO's body (ooh what a 6-pack) and leave analogy to realists.
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