Vice President Dick Cheney has now passed into a realm of popular culture that will surely make his many liberal detractors seethe with disdain.
The interviewer is James Rosen of FOX News, the outlet is Playboy Magazine:
Playboy Interview: Dick CheneyDick Cheney likes lattes. Seated in his favorite brown-leather chair in the sunlit study of his home in McLean, Virginia, the former vice president of the United States can toss back two of the warm java blasts in an hour…At different points, President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have suggested that racism is a factor in criticism of them. Is there any truth in that?I think they’re playing the race card, in my view. Certainly we haven’t given up—nor should we give up—the right to criticize an administration and public officials. To say that we criticize, or that I criticize, Barack Obama or Eric Holder because of race, I just think it’s obviously not true. My view of it is the criticism is merited because of performance—or lack of performance, because of incompetence. It hasn’t got anything to do with race.Do you feel Obama, either intentionally or inadvertently, has undone your and President Bush’s work?Oh absolutely. Where do you start? I think with respect to the situation in Iraq, his precipitous withdrawal and refusal to leave any stay-behind forces, to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqis, was a huge mistake; we are paying a price for it now. He’s having to go back in now, and the guy who campaigned on the basis of bring the boys home and get out of Iraq is now redeploying forces to Iraq. I think his apology tour, when he went to Cairo in the summer of 2009 and said the U.S. overreacted to the events of 9/11, was a huge mistake. I don’t think he ever bought into the notion that we’re at war, in terms of a war on terrorism; I think he always wanted to treat it as a law-enforcement problem.
For someone who’s been out of office for six years, Cheney has stayed remarkably relevant.
Randy DeCleene of The Hill recently wrote:
What today’s GOP can learn from Dick CheneyLast week, former Vice President Cheney visited Capitol Hill as a guest of Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and addressed the House Republican whip team. Contrary to conventional wisdom, both GOP majorities could learn a lot from Cheney — hopefully they listened carefully.Despite the unfair shake he gets from the media as well as Democrats — excuse the redundancy — Cheney is one the greatest statesmen of this generation. People with resumes like Cheney’s should be praised and have buildings named after them. He served as White House chief of staff, in the House of Representatives, as secretary of Defense and as vice president, all with distinction, dedicating most of his adult life to public service.
Liberals love to hate Dick Cheney but as far as I know, he never kept a personal kill list or housed a private email server in his home.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons.
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