Newsweek’s Richard Wolffe got an exclusive interview with Dick Cheney and he asked some tough questions. Here is how the interview ended.
Wolffe: Bob Woodward reported that President Ford thought you had justified the war wrongly, and that Ford agreed with Colin Powell that you developed a fever about Saddam Hussein, about terrorism. Did you feel that was accurate?
Cheney: I’ve never heard that from anybody but Bob Woodward.
Wolffe: And other comments—criticism from [Brent] Scowcroft about not knowing you anymore. People have gotten quite personal, people you worked with before. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t have some reaction.
Cheney: Well, I’m vice president and they’re not.
Somehow, that seems to sum up what is wrong with our Vice-President. It’s also amazing how such a short exchange can conjure up so many memories of Chevy Chase’s career on Saturday Night Live.
‘I’m Dick Cheney and you’re not’.
Here’s Cheney’s opinion on Senators Joe Lieberman and Chuck Hagel.
Wolffe: Sen. [Chuck] Hagel said some pretty harsh things about the administration. He said there was no strategy. He said—It’s not the first time. He said it was a “Ping-Pong game with human beings.” Do you have a reaction to that?
Cheney: I thought that Joe Lieberman’s comments … were very important. Joe basically said the plan deserved an opportunity to succeed … that we’re sending Gen. [David] Petraeus out with probably a unanimous or near-unanimous [confirmation] vote, and that it didn’t make sense for Congress to simultaneously then pass a resolution disapproving of the strategy in Iraq.
Wolffe: So you don’t think Senator Hagel—I know you dodged completely responding to his comments, but they’re not helpful to the cause and to the mission?
Cheney: Let’s say I believe firmly in Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment: thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican. But it’s very hard sometimes to adhere to that where Chuck Hagel is involved.
Typical Cheney. He doesn’t even try to disguise or soften his asshole personality. I gotta admit that this is still a great country where I can call the Vice-President an asshole and he can tell a U.S. Senator to ‘go fuck themselves’ and no one gets hurt. I actually enjoy seeing Dick Cheney using Lieberman as a crutch. Over the weekend, Lieberman made it clear that he might consider supporting a Republican in the 2008 elections. At this point I think the Dems should seriously consider excluding Lieberman from strategy sessions. It appears that he is a security risk and that he spends more time on the phone with the Office of the Vice-President than Judith Miller, William Safire, Clifford May, and Robert Novak combined.
I guess Cliff May still has a job and Novak has his column (if not his sweet gig on CNN), but does it ever occur to Republicans that carrying water for this administration does nothing but discredit them and ruin their careers? I know it has occurred to Silvio Berlusconi and José María Aznar. Tony Blair has had plenty of time to consider it. Rick Santorum and George Allen are in the same boat, along with nearly three dozen former Republican congresspeople.
The country, the United States of America, has no interest in going down the same crapper as Blair, Aznar, Judy Miller, and all the rest. We are not as delusional and hubristic as our Vice-President.
