Cheney Emerges as Defender-in-Chief for Bush Years, Says He Won't 'Roll Over'

[rushmc 23]

billvon, I know exatly how he feels.

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Cheney Emerges as Defender-in-Chief for Bush Years, Says He Won't 'Roll Over'
Former Vice President Dick Cheney has taken an aggressive approach to his post-administration life, holding on to the spotlight in order to defend the Bush administration against criticism from the party in power.

FOXNews.com

Tuesday, May 12, 2009



The former vice president defended his decision to stay in the public eye during an interview Tuesday on FOX News, his latest appearance in a media blitz since leaving office.

Cheney, who has taken heat for remaining so vocal, told FOX News that the Obama administration is "dismantling" the national security policies that kept the country safe since the Sept. 11 attacks. He said he continues to speak out to combat the mounting criticism of Bush-era interrogation policies and weigh in on what he called the "outrageous" debate over whether to punish the officials involved with designing those policies.

"I don't think we should just roll over when the new administration ... accuses us of committing torture, which we did not, or somehow violating the law, which we did not," Cheney said. "I think you need to stand up and respond to that, and that's what I've done."

The former vice president has over the past several weeks suddenly has become aggressively outspoken in defending the Bush administration and criticizing Obama's policies despite President Bush's decision to lay low during the transition to post-White House life.

Cheney's comments Tuesday to FOX News were just the latest in a string of appearances in which he has accused the new administration of putting the country at a greater risk of terrorist attack by rolling back policies from the Bush administration.

With his prominence, Cheney has effectively switched places with former President George W. Bush, who quietly left behind his eight tumultuous years in office and returned to Texas, moving into a new home in Dallas. Bush said in March that he would not spend his post-White House days criticizing President Obama, and he declared at an event in Canada that Obama "deserves my silence."

Cheney, on the other hand, is emerging as the face and voice of the administration following two terms in which he influenced policy from behind the scenes and away from the cameras.

On Tuesday, he dismissed what he called "the notion that I should remain silent while they go public."

"The bottom line is we successfully defended the nation for seven and a half years against a follow-on attack to 9/11. That was a remarkable achievement," he told FOX News. "I think that we are stripping ourselves of some of the capabilities that we used in order to block, if you will, or disrupt activities by Al Qaeda that would have led to additional attacks."

But in staying visible, Cheney has been drawing fire from critics who say he just can't let go.

"I've been struck in watching the former president and the former vice president take markedly different views to their lives post ... administration. I think many have," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday, when asked about an interview Cheney gave Sunday. Gibbs accused the Republican Party of "essentially going forward by looking backward."

Cheney made headlines Sunday by claiming Bush-era intelligence operations -- including enhanced interrogation techniques -- potentially saved "hundreds of thousands of lives."

In a wide-ranging interview on CBS' "Face the Nation," Cheney cited such benefits to national security and said he has "no regrets" about the administration's actions.

He also accused former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who endorsed Barack Obama for president, of abandoning the Republican Party, and he continued to call on the Obama administration to release classified memos that he says show the valuable, life-saving information gleaned through using controversial interrogation tactics like waterboarding.

Gibbs suggested Tuesday that the administration was reviewing Cheney's memo request. "I'm trying to find out where all that lays and, hopefully, can clear that up in the next few hours," he said in mid-afternoon.

Cheney first made that call on FOX News in April, when the debate over the interrogation tactics was heating up. He spoke after the Obama administration made public a string of memos detailing the justification for tough interrogation tactics and argued that the administration should release additional documents so as to have an "honest debate."

In response, Democrats have taken to mocking Cheney.

"Why is he still here?" the Democratic National Committee asked in a fundraising e-mail sent out last month. The pitch asked contributors to donate enough money so the party could buy Cheney a $202, "one-way" bus ticket to Jackson, Wyo.

"Given how polarizing and unpopular he is, I'd think Eric Cantor, John Boehner and Michael Steele would want to chip in to send Cheney out of town," DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan said in an e-mail to FOXNews.com, suggesting Cheney is hurting Republican party leaders by solidifying the GOP as the "party of the past."

"Can't we send Dick Cheney back to Wyoming?" liberal Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson wrote Tuesday.

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, said Cheney's prominent presence is hurting the GOP by hindering young, fresh voices from taking the reins and redefining the party.

But he said there's no edict that says former officials must remain silent, and Cheney has the right to defend himself.

"At his age and position, he has no further ambitions and he has a lifetime of experience in American politics ... So why not?" Sabato said. "Cheney's not one to sit there and be pummeled. He's going to respond. You punch him. He's going to punch back."

Cheney's daughter, Liz, told FOX News on Tuesday that her father is merely speaking out against Obama administration actions, such as opening up former Bush officials to potential prosecution, that she called "inexplicable and inexcusable." She said she's not surprised by her father's willingness to stick his neck out on these issues.

"He feels so strongly about the importance of defending the nation and the importance of the policies that they've put in place, and feels so strongly about making sure that there's a full debate before the American people about these polices," she said.

Though a few other Bush officials have drifted in and out of the limelight since Jan. 20, Cheney suggested Sunday that he feels he is the most able spokesman to defend the policies that are under attack by Democrats in Washington.

"If I don't speak out, then where do we find ourselves?" Cheney said. "Then the critics have free run, and there isn't anybody there on the other side to tell the truth. So it's important."

Asked whether Bush had approved of her father's on-air campaign to defend the administration, Liz Cheney said: "One of the nice things about my dad being out of office is that he doesn't need sign-off."

FOXNews.com's Judson Berger contributed to this report.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[TomAiello 26]

Honestly, I think Cheney needs to shut up and let some other people get out in front of his party. We genuinely need more than one party, and his efforts appear to be aimed at discrediting the Republicans further, to keep a (stronger) democratic majority in power for as long as possible.

I'd like to see a resurgent Republican party to balance the Democrats, and I think that there are numerous better options (John McCain, for example, or Charlie Crist, or Colin Powell) for a national leadership that will be much more likely to create that.

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[rushmc 23]

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Honestly, I think Cheney needs to shut up and let some other people get out in front of his party. We genuinely need more than one party, and his efforts appear to be aimed at discrediting the Republicans further, to keep a (stronger) democratic majority in power for as long as possible.

I'd like to see a resurgent Republican party to balance the Democrats, and I think that there are numerous better options (John McCain, for example, or Charlie Crist, or Colin Powell) for a national leadership that will be much more likely to create that.

Why?

Clinton, Gore, Cater et al cant keep thier mouths shut!!

Bush should have done this durning his term but he chose not to.

Cheney is doing the right thing. He has my respect for doing it.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[1969912 0]

Good interview video (except for the tech screweup at the beginning):

http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=4991764&maven_referralPlaylistId=&sRevUrl=http://www.foxnews.com/

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[Gawain 0]

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Honestly, I think Cheney needs to shut up and let some other people get out in front of his party. We genuinely need more than one party, and his efforts appear to be aimed at discrediting the Republicans further, to keep a (stronger) democratic majority in power for as long as possible.

I'd like to see a resurgent Republican party to balance the Democrats, and I think that there are numerous better options (John McCain, for example, or Charlie Crist, or Colin Powell) for a national leadership that will be much more likely to create that.

Senator McCain isn't much of a Republican, and Colin Powell has abandoned the party. Gov. Crist isn't it. Gov. Palin isn't it, even though she was the single revitalizing element of the McCain campaign, Gov. Jindal isn't it, Rep. Ryan isn't it (though I'm digging the gentleman from Wisconsin) et al. None of these people have been able to strike a new match.

The Republican party, the conservative movement, is divided by different conservative values. The fiscal conservative does not see the issues of the social conservative, who does not see the issues of the libertarian conservative, who does not see the issues of the constitutional conservative, etc.

For a liberal, the different values don't matter because they all agree in the idea that more government is better. The rest is part of the journey. They see the ends, without concern for the means.

Conservatives seem to consider the journey which distracts from the goal, and now the party is fragmented because each of the "veins" have been corroded. The social conservative has made the abortion issue toxic. The fiscal conservative has no more leverage with the tax-cut issue. The libertarian conservative has its own issues. The only part of the conservative movement I'm seeing personal agreement with is the constructional element, getting back to the basics of the Constitution. The common vein of the "Reagan Republican" of less government, is no longer a catch-all net.

Senator DeMint said it well recently, paraphrase loosely as, "I'd rather have 30 reliable conservatives than 60 big-tent moderates".

1980, 1994 specifically, it was not the "all inclusive" party for everyone that one these political battles.

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[kelpdiver 2]

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Senator DeMint said it well recently, paraphrase loosely as, "I'd rather have 30 reliable conservatives than 60 big-tent moderates".

Well, that's basically what he has. Why he would want that though is unclear. Those 30 are impotent, irrelevant.

Chaney's crying feels very much like Greenspan's attempt over the past year to preserve a legacy. It doesn't change the minds of the detractors, and to everyone else, it seems a bit sad.

while Chaney might feel a natural urge to respond to all of the attacks, he should be thinking about his party. Right now the GOP is not well served by continuing to discuss how badly his administration fucked things up. They should be focused 100% on how Obama and Pelosi and Reid are not getting it done, or at the least trying to convince us all that this is the case.

[Gawain 0]

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Right now the GOP is not well served by continuing to discuss how badly his administration fucked things up. They should be focused 100% on how Obama and Pelosi and Reid are not getting it done, or at the least trying to convince us all that this is the case.

Unfortunately, it is not the GOP setting this agenda. Cheney is doing what President Bush refused to do when getting punched for eight straight years.

In that environment, the "nobility" of turning the cheek won't work, it will embolden the political perception of the liberal elements. What I find more disturbing is that there is no one else on the right getting involved in this discourse, especially in the wake of the missteps of "no prosecution" "well it's up to the AG" etc...they are so afraid of being associated with the previous administration that they are throwing the baby out with the bath water.

In the end, this will hurt everyone. The only benefit it has for the conservatives is that it might distract from some crazy initiatives that are brewing in the administration.

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[kelpdiver 2]

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In that environment, the "nobility" of turning the cheek won't work, it will embolden the political perception of the liberal elements.

When you're in office, yes, it doesn't benefit you to always turn the cheek. This was a failing of Clinton. He should have fought the fillibusters harder.

But Bush-Chaney is history. Time to move on. The Obama Administration can only effectively blame them for a short window of time and past that, it will hurt them.

[idrankwhat 0]

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Cheney is doing the right thing. He has my respect for doing it.

Is waterboarding torture? Simple question.

[rushmc 23]

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Cheney is doing the right thing. He has my respect for doing it.

Is waterboarding torture? Simple question.

Not that simple but, i feel the application applied in our case, no

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[pirana 0]

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Cheney is doing the right thing. He has my respect for doing it.

Is waterboarding torture? Simple question.

No, they have a nice clean sounding euphimism for it now. It is referred to as "enhanced interogation techniques."

This administration has lied so badly, so many times, and been caught covering it up to boot; that any post-admin attempts to justify or explain just looks like more of the same.

I was watching some raw footage the other evening of Rice getting grilled about waterboarding. She was very careful not to outright lie, but her responses were so incredibly deceptive, vague, manipulative, evasive, etc.

That such nasty people end up in the highest offices of our country is a very sad statement about our state of affairs. Truly pathetic.

I mean, I don't expect anybody to always be right, but I expect leadership to have certain qualities; among them being honesty, being principle driven, being open to new ideas, etc. That adminstration was the antithesis of what we should expect from leaders. Cheney's current behavior just keeps reminding people of how dishonest, self-serving, and unprincipled they were.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[pirana 0]

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Cheney is doing the right thing. He has my respect for doing it.

Is waterboarding torture? Simple question.

Not that simple but, i feel the application applied in our case, no

I liked the quote the other day from Jesse Ventura:

"Give me a waterboard and thirty minutes and I'll have him confessing to the Sharon Tate murders."

Yeah, Jesse is a goof a lot of the time; but that one is gold.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[idrankwhat 0]

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Is waterboarding torture? Simple question.

Not that simple but, i feel the application applied in our case, no

[rhys 0]

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The bottom line is we successfully defended the nation for seven and a half years against a follow-on attack to 9/11. That was a remarkable achievement,"

Ha fucking ha, so an hour after a hijacked plane hits one of the largest buildings in the world,those morons allow another to hit the second buliding, and then another to hit the pentagon.


Billions of dollars spent on 'defence', most of that is used for offence, and when an offensive is made against 'your team' and a goal is scored against you, your defence failed.

Those idiots let that happen beacuse thier game plan was all wrong and many people died because of it.

They made knee jerk ammendments to allow them more power to do more corrupt things, they did not make the USA or the world any safer, they made the problem worse.

those cunts deserve to fry!

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then the world will see peace." - 'Jimi' Hendrix

[Darius11 12]

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Cheney is doing the right thing. He has my respect for doing it.

I am sorry man but respect is the last thing I have for him.
He never answered questions when he was one of the people in charge, and most of the administration answered most questions with I don’t recall.

When he speaks of what the government needs to do now I think we should all listen and do the opposite. I mean is there anyone who can be proud of the past administration?
I can understand not agreeing on some points but can you really sit there and say Bush and Cheney were a good administration?


As for keeping us safe, I can understand that because there has not been a robbery or theft in my neighborhood sense I moved there 6 years ago. I think its all my doing. Oh and if there is a robbery or theft some times soon it had nothing to do with me.

Love that logic, the I am always right and great mindset.

Hey who was in power when we were attacked on 9-11?

I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." - Kurt Cobain

[rushmc 23]

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Is waterboarding torture? Simple question.

Not that simple but, i feel the application applied in our case, no

That's what I thought. And it clarifies your support for Cheney's argument.
But honestly, thank you for giving me a direct answer.

[idrankwhat 0]

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The bottom line is we successfully defended the nation for seven and a half years against a follow-on attack to 9/11. That was a remarkable achievement,"

You know the weird thing about that quote?

CDIF

[rushmc 23]

the rationalization you use here is funny. scarry too, but funny none the less........

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[dreamdancer 0]

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Is waterboarding torture? Simple question.

Not that simple but, i feel the application applied in our case, no

That's what I thought. And it clarifies your support for Cheney's argument.
But honestly, thank you for giving me a direct answer.

Legal advice was given to the Bush admin
Congress was briefed multiple times specifically on what was going on.

Just because Obama NOW says he will not use the technique does not make it torture or illegal.

The debate that is going on today is a political circus show to satisfy the loony left fringe to keep Obama’s like-o-meter numbers high, period.

Nothing will come of this except a dangerous president of political criminalization tactics to bully the other side into submission (by both sides).

It needs to stop

[jakee 1,493]

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Just because Obama NOW says he will not use the technique does not make it torture or illegal.

The debate that is going on today is a political circus show to satisfy the loony left fringe to keep Obama’s like-o-meter numbers high, period.

Right, because no-one ever said that waterboarding was torture and therefore illegal before Obama came along. No, that didn't happen at all, it's totally a new thing that's happened since Obama took office to make him look like the good guy and that's, like, definitely the only reason people are talking about it.

Right.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[idrankwhat 0]

So, you're honestly going to go with the "Bush administration was given bad advice/intel" defense, again? I don't know if the or emoticon is most appropriate.

And Obama had nothing to do with the determination of waterboarding as torture. We did that long before he was around. The only difference is who was doing it and what it was called and Cheney was intimately involved in both aspects.

[dreamdancer 0]

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Just because Obama NOW says he will not use the technique does not make it torture or illegal.

The debate that is going on today is a political circus show to satisfy the loony left fringe to keep Obama’s like-o-meter numbers high, period.

Right, because no-one ever said that waterboarding was torture and therefore illegal before Obama came along. No, that didn't happen at all, it's totally a new thing that's happened since Obama took office to make him look like the good guy and that's, like, definitely the only reason people are talking about it.

Right.

it's all an obama tinhat conspiracy
(the un will have something to do with it as well)

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[rushmc 23]

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Is waterboarding torture? Simple question.

Not that simple but, i feel the application applied in our case, no

That's what I thought. And it clarifies your support for Cheney's argument.
But honestly, thank you for giving me a direct answer.

Legal advice was given to the Bush admin
Congress was briefed multiple times specifically on what was going on.

Just because Obama NOW says he will not use the technique does not make it torture or illegal.

The debate that is going on today is a political circus show to satisfy the loony left fringe to keep Obama’s like-o-meter numbers high, period.

Nothing will come of this except a dangerous president of political criminalization tactics to bully the other side into submission (by both sides).

It needs to stop

meanwhile, the paranoid right wing continue to deny torture is torture.



No, torture is torture. YOU just need to redefine what it is to keep the side show going

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 23]

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So, you're honestly going to go with the "Bush administration was given bad advice/intel" defense, again? I don't know if the or emoticon is most appropriate.

And Obama had nothing to do with the determination of waterboarding as torture. We did that long before he was around. The only difference is who was doing it and what it was called and Cheney was intimately involved in both aspects.

Look, do some research. Some real research.


But if not, to those who are debating me here, I will use a tactic used against me just a short time ago.

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You all dont understand this whole thing! Cause if you did you would all agree with me! Look into it and you will come to the light!

***

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 23]

Not talking about the intel. I know you use that to cloud the bebate. Pleasd focus, I know you can. We are speaking only to waterboarding.

Legal advice and opinion is what is being discussed. Intell could be another thread if you want.


But I sure wish Kennedy,Schumer, Clinton, Dodd, Reid, Rangle et al, would not have told us all SH had wmd's before Bush was running for office

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln