Cheney is Nuts

rimrocker · Jan 24, 2007

Lowlights from a transcript of the Wolf Blitzer interview...

Q Here's what the President said last night:

"We could expect an epic battle between Shia extremists backed by Iran and Sunni extremists aided by al Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill out across the country and, in time, the entire region could be drawn into the conflict. For America, this is a nightmare scenario."

He was talking about the consequences of failure in Iraq. How much responsibility do you have, though -- do you and the administration for this potential scenario?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, you know, this is a argument that there wouldn't be any problem if we hadn't gone into Iraq. Now --

Q Saddam Hussein would still be in power.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Saddam Hussein would still be in power. He would, at this point, be engaged in a nuclear arms race with Ahmadinejad, his blood enemy next door in Iran --

Q But he was being contained as we all know --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: He was not being contained. He was not being contained, Wolf.

Q -- by the no-fly zones in the north and the south.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Wolf, the entire sanctions regime had been undermined by Saddam Hussein. He had --

Q But he didn't have stockpiles of weapons of --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: -- corrupted the entire effort to try to keep him contained. He was bribing senior officials of other governments. The oil-for-food program had been totally undermined, and he had, in fact, produced and used weapons of mass destruction previously, and he retained the capability to produce that kind of stuff in the future.

Q But that was in the '80s.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: You can go back and argue the whole thing all over again, Wolf, but what we did in Iraq in taking down Saddam Hussein was exactly the right thing to do; the world is much safer today because of it. There have been three national elections in Iraq, there's a democracy established there, a constitution, a new democratically elected government, Saddam has been brought to justice and executed, his sons are dead, his government is gone and the world is better off for it.

Now, you can argue about that all you want, but that's history, that's what we did. And you and I can have this debate -- we've had it before -- but the fact of the matter is, in terms of threats to the United States from al Qaeda, for example, attacks on the United States, they didn't need an excuse. We weren't in Iraq when they hit us on 9/11.

Q But the current situation there is --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: But the fact of the matter was -- the fact of the matter was that al Qaeda was out to kill Americans before we ever went into Iraq.
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Q The current situation there is very unstable.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It is.

Q The President himself speaks about a nightmare scenario right now. He was contained, as you repeatedly said throughout the '90s, after the first Gulf War, in a box, Saddam Hussein.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, he was after the first Gulf War -- had managed -- he kicked out all the inspectors. He was providing payments to the families of suicide bombers. He was a safe haven for terror, was one of the prime state sponsors of terror, as designated by our State Department, for a long time. He'd started two wars. He had violated 16 U.N. Security Council resolutions. If he were still there today, we'd have a terrible situation. Today, instead --

Q But there is a terrible situation.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, there is not. There is not. There's problems, ongoing problems, but we have, in fact, accomplished our objectives of getting rid of the old regime, and there is a new regime in place that's been there for less than a year, far too soon for you guys to write them off. They have got a democratically written constitution, first ever in that part of the world. They've had three national elections. So there's been a lot of success.
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Q How worried are you of this nightmare scenario, that the U.S. is building up this Shiite-dominated Iraqi government with an enormous amount of military equipment, sophisticated training, and then in the end, they're going to turn against the United States?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Wolf, that's not going to happen. The problem that you've got --

Q Very -- very -- warming up to Iran and Syria right now.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Wolf, you can come up with all kinds of what-ifs. You've got to deal with the reality on the ground. The reality on the ground is, we've made major progress, we've still got a lot of work to do. There are a lot of provinces in Iraq that are relatively quiet. There's more and more authority transferred to the Iraqis all the time.

But the biggest problem we face right now is the danger that the United States will validate the terrorist strategy, that, in fact, what will happen here with all of the debate over whether or not we ought to stay in Iraq, with the pressures from some quarters to get out of Iraq, if we were to do that, we would simply validate the terrorists' strategy that says the Americans will not stay to complete the task --
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Q Here's what Jim Webb, senator from Virginia, said in his Democratic response last night. He said:

"The President took us into the war recklessly. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable and predicted disarray that has followed."

And it's not just Jim Webb, it's some of your good Republican friends in the Senate and the House, are now seriously questioning your credibility because of the blunders, of the failures. All right, Gordon Smith --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Wolf, Wolf, I simply don't accept the premise of your question. I just think it's hogwash. Remember --

Q What, that there were no blunders? The President himself says there were blunders --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Remember, remember me -- remember with me what happened in Afghanistan. The United States was actively involved in Afghanistan in the '80s supporting the effort against the Soviets. The Mujahideen prevailed, everybody walked away. And in Afghanistan, within relatively short order, the Taliban came to power, they created a safe haven for al Qaeda, training camps were established where some 20,000 terrorists trained in the late '90s. And out of that, out of Afghanistan, because we walked away and ignored it, we had the attack on the USS Cole, the attack on the embassies in East Africa, and 9/11, where the people trained and planned in Afghanistan for that attack and killed 3,000 Americans. That is what happens when we walk away from a situation like that in the Middle East.

Now you might have been able to do that before 9/11. But after 9/11, we learned that we have a vested interest in what happens on the ground in the Middle East. Now, if you are going to walk away from Iraq today and say, well, gee, it's too tough, we can't complete the task, we just are going to quit, you'll create exactly that same kind of situation again.

Now, the critics have not suggested a policy. They haven't put anything in place. All they want to do, all they've recommended is to redeploy or to withdraw our forces. The fact is, we can complete the task in Iraq. We're going to do it. We've got Petraeus -- General Petraeus taking over. It is a good strategy. It will work. But we have to have the stomach to finish the task.

Q What if the Senate passes a resolution saying, this is not a good idea. Will that stop you?

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: It won't stop us, and it would be, I think detrimental from the standpoint of the troops, as General Petraeus said yesterday. He was asked by Joe Lieberman, among others, in his testimony, about this notion that somehow the Senate could vote overwhelmingly for him, send him on his new assignment, and then pass a resolution at the same time and say, but we don't agree with the mission you've been given.

Q So you're moving forward no matter what the consequences?

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: We are moving forward. We are moving forward. The Congress has control over the purse strings. They have the right, obviously, if they want, to cut off funding. But in terms of this effort, the President has made his decision. We've consulted extensively with them. We'll continue to consult with the Congress. But the fact of the matter is, we need to get the job done. I think General Petraeus can do it. I think our troops can do it. And I think it's far too soon for the talking heads on television to conclude that it's impossible to do, it's not going to work, it can't possibly succeed.
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Q You've said that Iran as a nuclear power is unacceptable.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Right.

Q Are you ready to go to war to stop that --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Come on now, Wolf. You know I'm not going to speculate on something like that.

Q Well, how are you going to stop that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Wolf, we've got a policy in place that's I think producing results. We've gone to the United Nations. We've got a unanimous agreement to a sanctions resolution that's now in place with respect to the Iranian uranium program, and we're continuing to work the problem. We want -- we want to solve the problem diplomatically. We'll do everything we can to achieve that. But we've also made it clear that all options are on the table. Now, no administration in their right mind is going to answer the question you just asked.

Q Because you've heard Senator Biden, Senator Rockefeller say they think you need more congressional authorization if you're going to take any military steps against Iran. Do you?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I'm not going to speculate on military steps, Wolf. You can ask that question all day long.
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Q Do you think Hillary Clinton would make a good President?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I don't.

Q Why?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Because she's a Democrat. I don't agree with her philosophically and from a policy standpoint.

Q Do you think she will be President then?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't.

Q Who do you think will be?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I'm not going to speculate.

Q It won’t be you?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It won't be me.

Q John McCain.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I'm not going to speculate.

Q Been rather critical of you -- John McCain -- lately?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, John is a good man. He and I have known each other a long time, and we agree on many things and disagree on others.

Q He said the other day, he said, the President listened too much to the Vice President. Of course, the President bears the ultimate responsibility, but he was very badly served by both the Vice President and most of all the Secretary of Defense. That was John McCain.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: So.

Q Want to react?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I just disagree with him.

Q He said, about the former Defense Secretary, "Rumsfeld will go down in history along with McNamara as one of the worst Secretaries of Defense" --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I just fundamentally disagree. You heard my speech when Don retired. I think he's done a superb job.
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Q We're out of time, but a couple of issues I want to raise with you. Your daughter Mary, she's pregnant. All of us are happy. She's going to have a baby. You're going to have another grandchild. Some of the -- some critics, though, are suggesting, for example, a statement from someone representing Focus on the Family:

"Mary Cheney's pregnancy raises the question of what's best for children. Just because it's possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father, doesn't mean it's best for the child."

Do you want to respond to that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I don't.

Q She's obviously a good daughter --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I'm delighted -- I'm delighted I'm about to have a sixth grandchild, Wolf, and obviously think the world of both of my daughters and all of my grandchildren. And I think, frankly, you're out of line with that question.

Q I think all of us appreciate --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think you're out of -- I think you're out of line with that question.

Q -- your daughter. We like your daughters. Believe me, I'm very, very sympathetic to Liz and to Mary. I like them both. That was just a question that's come up and it's a responsible, fair question.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I just fundamentally disagree with your perspective.

Q I want to congratulate you on having another grandchild. Let's wind up on a soft note. Nancy Pelosi -- what was it like sitting up there with her last night as opposed to Dennis Hastert?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I prefer Denny Hastert, obviously. I liked having a fellow Republican in the Speaker's chair. Nancy is now the Speaker of the House. We had a very pleasant evening.
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http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002405.php

rimrocker · Jan 24, 2007

Ooops... I left this out... same source...

Q Is bin Laden still alive?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think so.
Q And do you think he's in Pakistan, Afghanistan, on the border someplace?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't want to be that precise.

Q Because this is so frustrating to so many people, more than five years after 9/11 -- not only that bin Laden is out there, but that his deputy pops up every now and then on television and makes these threats.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes, but look what we have done. We have not gotten Osama bin Laden, obviously, because he's very careful and, say, he doesn't communicate and he's not sort of in direct contact on a regular basis. But we've taken out several times that whole layer of leadership underneath Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri. One of the most dangerous jobs in the world is to be number three in the al Qaeda organization, because a lot of them are now dead or in custody. So we've done a lot of damage to that senior leadership, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and many others, as well, too.

Q The criticism is that you took your eye off the ball by going into Iraq and, in effect, reducing the focus of attention on al Qaeda and bin Laden.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's just not true. I've heard that charge; it's simply not true, Wolf. The fact of the matter is we can do more than one thing at a time, and we have. And we've been very successful with going after al Qaeda. They're still out there, they're still a formidable force, but they're not nearly as formidable as they once were in terms of numbers and so forth. We have successfully defended the country for over five years against any further attacks.

They've tried, we know, repeatedly -- the President talked about it last night in his speech -- we know they tried last summer to capture airliners coming out of the U.K. and to blow them up over the United States or over the Atlantic. There have been numerous attacks that have been disrupted. It's been a remarkable performance by the U.S. military, by our intelligence services and everything else.

If you had asked shortly after 9/11 what the odds were that we could go better than five years without another attack on the homeland, I don't think anybody would have been willing to take that bet. The fact is, we've been enormously successful in that regard. We still, obviously, want to get Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri, but we've had great success against al Qaeda.
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Ottomaton · Jan 24, 2007

Damn. I thought this was going to be a thread about The Vice President's testicles.

CBrownFanClub · Jan 24, 2007

They always look like landscape close up.

Deckard · Jan 24, 2007

Ottomaton said:

Damn. I thought this was going to be a thread about The Vice President's testicles.
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You're assuming he has a pair.

D&D. Nuts.

basso · Jan 24, 2007

Deckard said:

You're assuming he has a pair.

Cheney= Biggus Dickus/B]
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he certainly appears to.

Deckard · Jan 24, 2007

basso said:

he certainly appears to.

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Nah... photoshopped.

D&D. Nuts.

weslinder · Jan 24, 2007

Deckard said:

Nah... photoshopped.
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That's what I thought. The pic looks just like this one.

D&D. Socks.

mc mark · Jan 24, 2007

Soooo been done before!

glad to see you around basso

mc mark · Jan 24, 2007

Just watched the interview.

nuckin futs

Deckard · Jan 24, 2007

The first time I had a "date" with my future wife, I was wearing very old, very thin denim bellbottoms. They rode low, and I didn't bother with underwear in those hippie years. Later, I discovered that she'd been very turned on by my "Zappa effect." It wasn't intentional on my part, but I was leaving little to the imagination, lol!

D&D. Nuts.

mc mark · Jan 24, 2007

I do want to make one point though. Cheney says in the interview...

Q Do you think Hillary Clinton would make a good President?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I don't.

Q Why?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Because she's a Democrat. I don't agree with her philosophically and from a policy standpoint.
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This is one of the fundamental problems of the Republican party mindset. He can't acknowledge that she might be qualified to be president simply because she's from the other party? Pretty shallow no?

StupidMoniker · Jan 24, 2007

mc mark said:

This is one of the fundamental problems of the Republican party mindset. He can't acknowledge that she might be qualified to be president simply because she's from the other party? Pretty shallow no?
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Don't you think the Republican primary would have someone that meshes better with Cheney's political ideology than Clinton?

mc mark · Jan 24, 2007

StupidMoniker said:

Don't you think the Republican primary would have someone that meshes better with Cheney's political ideology than Clinton?
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Yes I do.

But I also won't dismiss Hagel as a candidate simply because he's a republican.

rockbox · Jan 24, 2007

Wow!!! We got a TARD and a LOON running our country.k

halfbreed · Jan 24, 2007

mc mark said:

I do want to make one point though. Cheney says in the interview...

This is one of the fundamental problems of the Republican party mindset. He can't acknowledge that she might be qualified to be president simply because she's from the other party? Pretty shallow no?
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Read the quote. He didn't say she's not qualified. He said she wouldn't make a good president.

I agree with Cheney that the whole questioning him about his daughter has gotten out of hand but most of the stuff he said in there is what makes people think all people who vote Republican are nutjobs.

mleahy999 · Jan 24, 2007

Can someone please kick him in the junk? People are so desensitized to the whole Iraq issue that they'll let this clown continue to spew his bs and think nothing of the rhetoric. Are we sure we caught the real Bagdad Bob?

rhadamanthus · Jan 26, 2007

Delusional Dick And His Audience Of One
Fri Jan 26, 3:00 AM ET

Dick Cheney just doesn't get it. He makes the president look like a model of contrition.

The situation in Iraq is either better than everyone else in the world thinks, or someone else's fault. His lesbian daughter's pregnancy is no one's business, even though he and his presidential partner have fought against efforts to protect women and children in precisely her situation. His former chief of staff is on trial for his role in an effort to squelch criticism of the ill-fated war, but does that have anything to do with Cheney? It must be nice, speaking personally, to be that self-confident, self-righteous and self-serving. But it's a disaster for the country.

John McCain (news, bio, voting record), the president's new best friend, recently came right out and said what many people have been thinking: that the president listened to Cheney too much and mishandled the conduct of the war as a result. Gerald Ford, in his posthumously published interview, was sharply critical of his former chief of staff. Walter Mondale, in a recent conference on the Carter presidency, suggested that even though it was Jimmy Carter who expanded the role and influence of the vice president, he would never have tolerated the way Cheney has conducted himself in this position.

Mere mortals might be chastened by the criticism, not to mention the disaster their policies have produced.

But Cheney is no mere mortal. He may be the most arrogant man to ever be elected to high office in America.

Cheney is in that position because he essentially picked himself. Asked to lead the process for selecting someone else to run as vice president with
George Bush, he managed it in such a way that he became the choice. At the time, many people hailed the result, saying the relatively inexperienced Bush needed the strong and experienced hand of a Dick Cheney. We should have known better. Having manipulated himself into the No. 2 job, what was there to stop him from trusting himself above all others? Too much praise is a bad thing.

Even apart from his role in the war, Cheney has been a model of arrogance from the start. The law is no limit for him. His secret meetings of the energy task force should have stirred a revolt, not simply a lawsuit. His ties to Halliburton, subsequently awarded billions of dollars in contracts to rebuild Iraq, should have made the result of that revolt inevitable. Instead, Cheney has simply pushed forward, unrepentant.

In 2005, Cheney assured Americans that the insurgency was in "its last throes." He was just plain wrong. But he has never acknowledged it, never admitted to any mistakes. He has taken the adage that the best defense is a good offense to a ludicrous extreme. Even as the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee was voting for a resolution opposing the latest escalation of the war, Cheney was busy making clear that he didn't care and it wouldn't stop him.

"There's problems" in Iraq, Cheney told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, but it is not a "terrible situation." Really? Only the day before, Bush's choice to lead the troops in Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, said the "situation in Iraq is dire." Is he wrong, too? Congressional opposition "won't stop us" from sending 21,500 more troops, but will only "validate the terrorists' strategy." That was just the sort of conclusion respected Republican Senator John Warner (news, bio, voting record) cautioned against, at Petraeus' confirmation hearing.

Cheney's own lesbian daughter may be having a child, but that presumably has nothing to do with the consistently anti-gay policies pursued by this administration, which leave other women and their children in the same situation with no protection of their fundamental rights. The personal is not political when Dick Cheney's blatant hypocrisy is at issue. If this administration were not so hostile to gay rights, no one would care about his daughter.

But Dick Cheney is smart like a fox. He would rather polarize the country than face his own mistakes. He would rather have Americans yelling at each other than accept legitimate criticism. He isn't running for anything, so what does he care?

The question is: Is the president listening? At some point, he needs to decide that he's heard enough from the man who has, more than any other, destroyed his presidency.

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20070126/cm_uc_crsesx/op_39378

halfbreed said:

I agree with Cheney that the whole questioning him about his daughter has gotten out of hand but most of the stuff he said in there is what makes people think all people who vote Republican are nutjobs.
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It's his own damn fault for being a bigotted *******.

If this administration were not so hostile to gay rights, no one would care about his daughter.
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Could not have said it better myself.

thegary · Jan 26, 2007

Mulder · Jan 26, 2007

My favorite part...

Q He said the other day, he said, the President listened too much to the Vice President. Of course, the President bears the ultimate responsibility, but he was very badly served by both the Vice President and most of all the Secretary of Defense. That was John McCain.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: So.

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