Hey Vice-Precedence Fans! Well, there's been a lot of Cheney news recently. No big developments in the CIA investigation, or about his book, but general news. So I thought I would give you an overview of what he's been up to and whats been said about him.
First of all, Cheney was named #9 in GQ Magazine's "50 Most Powerful People in D.C."* (* And to eliminate the obvious, all people with the last name Obama or Biden have been stricken from the list).
Last Wed. VP Cheney won the "Keeper of the Flame" award from the Center for Security Policy in Washington-a national security think tank that says it is non-partisan but advocates neoconservative policies based on the philosophy of the late Democratic Senator from Washington State-Henry "Scoop" Jackson-which can be boiled down to the expression, "Peace through Strength". Previous winners of this award include Senator Joe Lieberman, Paul Wolfowitz, and extremely right-wing Senator James Inhofe from Oklahoma. Cheney used his acceptance speech to rip on President Obama and the present administration on their Afghanistan policy.
Among the former Vice-Presidents many charges against the administration, was that the President is "dithering" in his decision on whether or not to send more soldiers and marines to Afghanistan. Cheney's direct quote is:
"Having announced his Afghanistan strategy in March, President Obama now seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete the mission,"
Vice-President Biden and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel have responded to this charge by saying that they were left with a flawed Afghanistan policy and an undermanned military effort there. Mr. Emanuel says that the former Afghan commander, Gen. David McKiernan, had requested 30,000 more troops last year, a request the Bush administration failed to fulfill. "Everybody knows resources got moved to Iraq, and Afghanistan suffered for it," Mr. Emanuel says. Now, Vice-President Biden says, Mr. Obama is simply waiting to make sure to get the next steps right after an Afghan presidential election covered with charges of corruption.
It's true that Gen. McKiernan asked for troop increases amounting to 30,000 additional forces last fall, Pentagon officials say. The Bush Administration initially hoped that allied countries would step up to fill some of that need. When that didn't happen, the administration began sending small numbers of additional forces in its final months. Finally, President Obama dispatched 21,000 additional troops in March.
Cheney's most damning charge is that the Obama Administration is soft on national security and that by ceasing the "harsh interrogation techniques"-called "torture" by some-that resulted in some valuable information. By stopping these tactics, Cheney said the Obama Administration is giving in to "the angry left". To this, Chief of Staff Ehmanuel said:
"We just disrupted what was seen as the most serious homeland-security threat since 9/11,"
This is in reference to a plot by an Afghan citizen to detonate bombs in New York City after receiving al Qaeda training in Pakistan.
Mr. Cheney's remarks that night not only fired up the White House's attack dogs, but also radio commentators on the Left. Mike Malloy even went so far as to accuse the former Vice-President of cannibalism:
Cheney, by the way looks very ruddy; I couldn't get over that like he must have feasted on a Jewish baby, or a Muslim baby; he must have sent his people out to get one and bring it back so he could drink its blood, because that's what somebody like Cheney does to get that ruddy look.
It was scary to see. This was not makeup; and the weird part is there were no dribbles of blood down his tux. But it was very clear that he had been eating the blood of a Jewish or a Muslim baby. He wouldn't eat a Christian baby. If he ate the blood of a Christian baby, there's something in the old writings that said that instantly the trap door to Hell opens and you disappear into the smoke, so it's got to be a Muslim or a Jewish baby; and you drink the blood and you're healthy again if you're somebody like Dick Cheney.
I'm thinking, oh my God, he just won't away! There's no way to stop him, and now his spawn, his daughter, is picking up the cudgel, so to speak; and now they have this new organization, something to do with more right-wing warmongering, death and destruction. How do you stop Dick Cheney?
Wow. Baby eating. Wow.
Ronald P. Reagan son of the late former President, who has been pilloried by the Right for "betraying" his fathers party and what he stood for, also took his shots at his fathers former ally:
Politics over security? Would that be anything like ideology over truth? Private profit over patriotism? Hidden agendas over the precious lives of young American men and women who are willing to put service to country over personal safety, something that Dick Cheney by the way never had the guts to do in the days in when he chose to pursue, quote, ‘other priorities’?
Dick Cheney is a nose-blowing incompetent! When faced with the most important decisions any elected leader choice ever confront, choices about to send American citizens to war, he consistently, inevitably got it wrong, each and every time.
The former VP is by now, used to being called "The Dark Lord" and "Darth Cheney" and all, and has almost from the beginning of the Obama Administration, been unafraid to voice his concerns and level criticisms against the current Administration. His being a thorn in the Obama Administrations side is what earned him that #9 ranking from GQ. This has also opened him up to more criticism-as shown in a post by Lance Simmens on The Huffington Post where he compares Mr. Cheney to another not so illustrious VP:
"Not since Spiro T. Agnew have we been so publicly assaulted by an individual so bereft of integrity and decorum."
Simmens, for one, is tired of hearing the former Vice-Presidents blasts at the current White House occupants and their policy. As he makes clear with his closing comment:
"Write a book, go fishing, shoot something other than another human, read, travel, see a shrink, or just connect with your family. But for goodness sakes, work out your demons on your own time; do not force us to agonize over your tortured conscience. Don't go away mad, just go away."
Personally, I seriously doubt Mr.Cheney is going away at all. All his comments and the attention they get just lead to more anticipation of what he will say next and what he'll be saying in his book. Mr. Cheney has just as much right as any other American to voice his opinions, and his experience and knowledge of geo-politics and American politics and policy make him more qualified than most to talk about them. It may be true that people don't like what he's saying, but its my theory that Cheney doesn't care about that at all, and may in fact, enjoy the fact that he gets the Left so riled up and furious. In any case, Mr. Cheney seems to be determined to voice his opinions on whats going on, and I know that people posting on the Huffington Post or left wing radio pundits won't stop him. Even if they do call him a baby eater.
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