Last night on Hannity, former VP Dick Cheney was on, and part of their discussion was about the decision to release the CIA memos about the enhanced interrogation techniques of detainees. Cheney’s saying if they’re going to release that, why don’t they release EVERYTHING, including the memos that detail EXACTLY what plans and plots were stopped by those very interrogations?
I don’t see why Obama shouldn’t, but I doubt he will. He can’t bring himself to do anything that might portray what Bush & Cheney in a positive light, so I won’t hold my breath on that one.
Friday night, Laura Ingraham was the fill-in host for Bill O’Reilly (always a good call), and she had former Clinton advisor, Nancy Soderberg, on the show to discuss Obama’s decision to close Gitmo. Also in the mix was the possible release of all the detainees.
Laura played Fmr. Vice President Cheney’s recent comments about the heightened threat to this country if the rules put in place by the Bush Administration are relaxed or done away with altogether, and asked Nancy what she thought. She said it was “unusual” for a departing VP or President to say these things, but does she not remember the non-stop bashing by Gore? Not only in this country, but abroad!!
She said he should just “retire and exit stage right,” but that it would be okay to come out later if he writes a book “or something.”
I truly feel sorry for Joy. Well, maybe not completely, but this is just painful to watch. Is Larry really living and/or awake? Is Joy really as engaged as she thinks she is? Does Larry remember who she is at times? Does Joy really think Larry thinks she’s funny, or is he just wondering to himself “what the hell was that”?
Well, only partial. I cut out the last segment, but this is the golden part. He talks about the high & low moments of his 40 years of public service, then answers the one pertinent question: Did he tell Patrick Leahy to do something to himself that’s not physicially possible? Dick says yeah, he did – and it was merited. LOVE it!
WALLACE: As we’ve mentioned, you are ending 40 years on and off in public service here in Washington. We’ve like to do a lightening round of quick questions and quick answers if we could with you. Washington, better or worse over these four decades?
CHENEY: Well, I think there’s some of both. I mean when I arrived here in 1968, we’d had Martin Luther King assassination, the Bobby Kennedy assassination, riots in the city of Washington. There were machine guns deployed on the steps of the Capitol in order to make certain that the rioters didn’t get close to the center of the city.
This town’s much bigger than that when you think about it. We’re about to have an inaugural ceremony down here that will inaugurate the first African-American as president of the United States. Millions of people will come to the city for a tremendous celebration. That’s major progress. So to say that it’s worse now than it used to be, I guess I wouldn’t buy that.
WALLACE: It’s a very good answer. I’m not saying you’re not quite observing the rules of the lightening round.
CHENEY: But these are important questions.
WALLACE: I understand that. Highest moment the last eight years?
CHENEY: Highest moment in the last eight years?
Well, I think that the most important, the most compelling, was 9/11 itself, and what that entailed, what we had to deal with, the way in which that changed the nation and set the agenda for what we’ve had to deal with as an administration.
WALLACE: Can I add, sir, (ph) that’s also your lowest moment?
CHENEY: Sure. Yes
WALLACE: Let’s talk about prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.
CHENEY: I’m going to pass on that.
WALLACE: What about the criticism that in the Blagojevich case, as in the Libby case, he doesn’t just stay within the four corners of the indictment, but he makes political comments?
CHENEY: I’m going to pass on that.
WALLACE: Did you really tell Senator Leahy, bleep yourself?
CHENEY: I did.
WALLACE: Any qualms or second thoughts or embarrassment?
CHENEY: No, I thought he merited it at the time. And we’ve since, I think, patched over that wound and we’re civil to one another now.
On today’s Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, Chris had an exclusive interview with V.P. Dick Cheney. This particular portion deals with what Biden has said in the past about Cheney being the most “dangerous” vice president in history. Heh. You know what’s coming next.
WALLACE: During the vice presidential debate in October, Joe Biden was asked about your interpretation of the powers of your office as vice president, and here’s what he said.
BIDEN: Vice President Cheney’s been the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history.
WALLACE: Transition officials say that Biden plans to shrink his office, that he is not going to meet with Senate Democrats the way you did every week with Senate Republicans, that he is not going to have his own, quote, “shadow government” in the White House.
Biden has said that he believes you have dangerously expansive views of executive power.
CHENEY: Well, I just fundamentally disagree with him. He also said that the — all the powers and responsibilities of the executive branch are laid out in Article 1 of the Constitution. Well, they’re not. Article 1 of the Constitution is the one on the legislative branch.
Joe’s been chairman of the Judiciary Committee, a member of the Judiciary Committee in the Senate, for 36 years, teaches constitutional law back in Delaware, and can’t keep straight which article of the Constitution provides for the legislature and which provides for the executive.
So I think — I write that off as campaign rhetoric. I don’t take it seriously. And if he wants to diminish the office of vice president, that’s obviously his call.
I think that President-elect Obama will decide what he wants in a vice president. And apparently, from the way they’re talking about it, he does not expect him to have as consequential a role as I’ve had during my time.
OUCH! That’s GOTTA leave a mark! I honestly think that if Cheney would have run for President, he would have had a really good shot. In fact, a long-held “political fantasy” of mine would have been a LYNN Cheney for President ticket! I DEFINITELY would have been behind that one.
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