There’s nothing newsworthy about an interview in which Dick Cheney slams President Obama. Such stories have become almost like background noise, part of the daily routine.
In fact, it’s not even remarkable that Cheney essentially takes no responsibility for the mess in Afghanistan. After all, Cheney’s political strategy with respect to — well, everything — is to concede nothing. This paragraph in the Politico story is noteworthy, however:
“Cheney was asked if he thinks the Bush administration bears any responsibility for the disintegration of Afghanistan because of the attention and resources that were diverted to Iraq. ‘I basically don’t,’ he replied without elaborating.”
Well, perhaps Politico’s Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen, who conducted the interview, should have asked him to elaborate. If you aren’t going to ask politicians to clarify statements that lack plausibility or fly in the face everything we now know to be true, then why even conduct the interview in the first place?
Matthew Spieler
Matthew Spieler is a former policy analyst for Congressional Quarterly, where he covered health care, education, labor, and veterans’ affairs. A graduate of The George Washington University, he has also worked as a reporter for CQ covering ...
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George Bosh says:
Why would you even dignify that evil midget's comments by mentioning them? It's long past the time that everyone in this world should be giving a&&h0le cheney the cold shoulder.
Nathan Alderman says:
Cheney will never admit any culpability in the errors and crimes of the Bush administration. He is not a stupid man and knows that the administration's inattention to Afghanistan has led to the situation Obama now faces. What bothers me the most, though, are apologists for this guy. There's a whole culture bent around the idea everything was perfectly fine in this nation for eight years. Things didn't turn disasterous until January, 2009, when the scary black man came to power.