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Cheney emerges from cave to attack Obama

[21 Comment(s)]

By Sean Illing

The worst vice president in the history of the United States emerged from his Wyoming cocoon last week, taking shots in several media interviews at President Obama. In addition to his customary snarling, Dick Cheney accused the current commander-in-chief of making the country "less safe." The thrust of his argument was that basically by not torturing prisoners and rejecting the false choice between liberty and security, Obama has willfully placed the country in the crosshairs of terrorists.

For all his highfalutin' rhetoric about keeping us safe from evil-doers, it seems not to have occurred to Dick that under his and Bush's stewardship the nation suffered more at the hands of international terrorists than under any other administration. Listening to his blather, however, one gets the impression that he took office the day after 9/11, not eight months prior.

Let's consider, for a moment, the results of the actions he and Bush pursued in response to the terrorist attacks: We have not yet won either of the two wars we started (due in large part to the fact that one of which was unnecessary); we have not yet killed or captured Osama bin Laden; we have not yet defeated Al Qaeda; we have not yet dismantled the Taliban; we eliminated Iran's counterbalance in the region, thereby paving the way for its emergence as a regional hegemon; we ignored the Israeli/Palestinian issue, to which virtually everything in the Middle East is related; we allowed North Korea and Iran to become greater proliferation threats than ever before; and owing to the hemorrhaging economy they left us, our ability to neutralize future threats is severely limited.

No serious person can argue that we are safer as a consequence of these measures. That Mr. Cheney even thinks himself an authority on national security matters boggles the mind. He is a vile war criminal whose boiling contempt for the constitution and the American public is unparalleled in recent memory. And despite his revisionist history and relentless propaganda campaign, he will be remembered primarily for sullying America's reputation abroad, subverting the constitution and authorizing torture - and most likely for shooting his good friend in the face.

As for the Republicans, most of them are quietly wishing Cheney would return to his lair and stay out of the public's eye. Every time the former vice president emerges, he hurts his party and helps the Democrats. The GOP is desperately trying to rebrand itself, hoping to move beyond the calamitous Bush-Cheney years.

The presence of his bloated and sneering face on television serves only to remind the electorate of why they voted Democrat in the previous election. Cheney knows this, and his surfacing suggests he is acutely aware of the trouble he and his legacy are in.

Originally Published: Issue 760 - April 1, 2009

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Comments

  1. God, I hate Cheney.

    tiger | 2009-04-01 - 06:34:44 PM (CDT)

  2. Tell us how you really feel, Mr. Illing...

    :) | 2009-04-01 - 11:05:05 PM (CDT)

  3. Cheney’s attempting to hold on to any glimmer of power he held over Bush and the rest of us. He enjoys disseminating his pent up anger stemming from his inability to control Bush’s decision to let the Scooter conviction stand.
    FB

    F.B. | 2009-04-02 - 12:32:15 PM (CDT)

  4. It boggles my mind, Sean, that you think you are at all qualified to comment on Vice President Cheney... I guess you think the world’s problems began the day Bush/Cheney were elected... why don’t you use the few remaining brain cells you have and go back and study the Clinton and Carter administrations, and try to convince us that they are as much, or more, to blame than anyone!! First and last time I read your bunch of nonsense.

    r putman | 2009-04-02 - 12:37:36 PM (CDT)

  5. I think there were some other administrations between Carter’s short tenure and Clinton’s that was rift with the "Contract with America" Congress! Facts are hard to come to terms with, so it’s easier to call them
    "nonsense"! Once again, the perpetual mantra: "It’s everybodys fault but ours"! Give us a break!

    JR | 2009-04-02 - 02:07:09 PM (CDT)

  6. "why don’t you use the few remaining brain cells you have and go back and study the Clinton and Carter administrations, and try to convince us that they are as much, or more, to blame than anyone"

    Last time I checked, jackass, neither Clinton nor Carter were going around the country accusing other people and administrations of making the country "less safe." Put the kool aid down and respond to the actual facts.

    Tim | 2009-04-02 - 03:15:49 PM (CDT)

  7. Never really thought about the end results of all of the Bush/Cheney anti-terror measures before. Thanks for cataloging them like that.

    Kudos | 2009-04-02 - 06:23:50 PM (CDT)

  8. Definitly should have mentioned that Cheney was picking on Obama for abusing and expanding Presidential Power now that made me laugh. The pot calling the kettle black.

    Sharkey | 2009-04-02 - 07:51:21 PM (CDT)

  9. You simple-minded socialist bastards prove your infantile intellects consistently with your regurgitation of the MSNBC talking points.

    Meanwhile, your lame-ass excuse for a POTUS spends our progeny into poverty for the next 2 generations and dismantles the free-enterprise system...

    This country is headed for a revolution and after we send you socialists packing - maybe there will be a chance to repeat the success that our founders and fore-fathers fought and struggled to achieve...

    But one things certain - socialists will have no place in that society...

    Patrick Henry | 2009-04-02 - 09:05:34 PM (CDT)

  10. If they had an asshole contest the winner of this article would take 1st,2nd and 3rd place!!!!!

    ray | 2009-04-02 - 09:25:39 PM (CDT)

  11. Dear right-wing lunatics,

    Your sophistication and intellectual prowess is really on display here. Keep it coming, please.

    Tim | 2009-04-02 - 09:34:52 PM (CDT)

  12. Patrick Henry, this economic crisis began before President Obama was elected. How did Obama dismantle the free enterprise system?

    prinze | 2009-04-03 - 04:52:12 AM (CDT)

  13. Patrick Henry,

    What the hell are you talking about?

    Confused | 2009-04-03 - 10:29:40 AM (CDT)

  14. Right on, Sean! Cheney was finished before he even started and he should stay in the background; waaaaaaaaaay back even more so now! It’s absurd for him to even speak at this point forward.

    opensky | 2009-04-03 - 01:21:17 PM (CDT)

  15. Notice how none of the Cheney-lovers here dispute any of the abovestated facts. Well done, author.

    Jupiter | 2009-04-03 - 04:03:36 PM (CDT)

  16. i think bush and cheny sucksbig time

    john hebert | 2009-04-07 - 02:35:59 AM (CDT)

  17. I heart Sean! You are my favorite TW writer...LOL!

    Che’ | 2009-04-09 - 09:05:45 PM (CDT)

  18. It’s funny that you label Cheney as an enemy of the constitution when Barack Obama is the one violating and shredding it at every possibility. I wouldn’t exactly label a sitting president assuming the power to fire executives and take over free market enterprise via Tim Geitner as "constitutional."

    Nor would I refer to the funneling of six billion of our tax dollars to an organization like ACORN (which is guilty of voter fraud) being used to intimidate CEO’s and their families, and disrupt Americans Right to Assemble and Freedom of Speech as constitutional. (I am referring the tea party infiltration.) Now I hear that Obama wants presidential authority to redraw the census lines, and guess who he’s slating? That’s right: ACORN.

    People always cut the candidate of their choice more slack than the opposition, but at some point we must be honest with ourselves and make an objective observation over the facts at hand.

    Under the Obama administration the government is assuming control over multiple sectors of the free market industry, and after his administration we will be 11 TRILLION dollars in debt. The yearly interest from the loans will run a trillion. In order to attempt to pay this astronomical sum off, taxes will have to be raised to unprecedented amounts and a changing of administrations or even government will not change anything because we will still owe the debt. So the end result of the Obama administration: government control of the largest sections of the private sector and a progressive tax rate which will take close to 50% of the middle classes paycheck.

    Obama is promising more troops and carrying out the war in Afghanistan. He is keeping the Patriot Act. I guess under your reasoning this would also make him an enemy of the constitution and a "war criminal" also. Here’s another newsflash: enemy combatants are not guaranteed constitutional rights. It is unconstitutional for Barack Obama to grant the prisoners of Guantanamo privileges of citizens.

    So to be honest, yes the Bush Administration did make some major mistakes, chiefly the decision to implement the bailout and open the door for Barack Obama to go on an unprecedented spending spree while increasing government control of the free market. But whether you acknowledge it or not, we were not attacked again under his policies. I have to doubt if Obama’s UN sanctioned policies will keep us any safer.

    SMG | 2009-04-15 - 06:10:48 PM (CDT)

  19. AMEN SMG!!!!! Couldn’t have said it better myself.

    Joy | 2009-04-29 - 05:50:52 PM (CDT)

  20. SMG,
    i love the arguement that we were never attacked again under george bush......awesome! (mostly dumb but awesome)
    To bad that before bush we hadn’t been attacked since pearl harbour (and there was a massive war going on when that happened)

    prs | 2009-06-12 - 01:58:44 AM (CDT)

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    edhardy | 2010-02-03 - 05:01:41 AM (CDT)
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