[sanjuro]

Cheney says Biden hasn't asked for any VP advice

Sunday, December 21, 2008

(12-21) 06:49 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --

Joe Biden soon will succeed Dick Cheney as vice president. So does Cheney have any advice for Biden?

Not really, it seems.

Cheney says Biden hasn't asked for any advice.

Biden has called Cheney "the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history." Biden also has said he couldn't name a single good thing that Cheney had done.

Cheney says he strongly disagrees with the idea that he dangerously expanded the powers of the executive branch. Cheney also says he doesn't think Barack Obama will give Biden as consequential a role as Cheney has had under President George W. Bush.

 

[Samirol]

Cheney says he strongly disagrees with the idea that he dangerously expanded the powers of the executive branch.

That's because Cheney isn't part of the executive branch, he is what we call the God King Destroyer of All Good branch

 

[sanjuro]

He was the All-Seeing-Eye from his tower in Morgul.

 

[Samirol]

Dick Cheney was the man that erased 18 minutes from the Nixon tapes

 

[rockwool]

He was the All-Seeing-Eye from his tower in Morgul.

Rep given!

Biden has called Cheney "the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history." Biden also has said he couldn't name a single good thing that Cheney had done.

Cheney says he strongly disagrees with the idea that he dangerously expanded the powers of the executive branch. Cheney also says he doesn't think Barack Obama will give Biden as consequential a role as Cheney has had under President George W. Bush.

Sounds like Biden, and not Michelle, is Obama's better half.

That's cus GWB didn't have a clue about one single ****ing thing and was a mere front figure for hiden powers.

 

[Defenestrated]

Cheney eats small orphan children. Not for sustenance, for fun.

 

[ska todd]

[fingers-crossed]Eagerly awaiting Cheney's Col. Jessep "You can't handle the truth!" moment before a Senate sub-committee[/fingers-crossed]

-ska todd

 

[sanjuro]

Cheney also says he doesn't think Barack Obama will give Biden as consequential a role as Cheney has had under President George W. Bush.

Well, Bush is such a boob, he had to let the Lord of the Nazgûl run things.

Obama is slightly more qualified than our current President, so he won't have to delegate as much.

Given that Biden was Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, his selection was not just ornamental, unlike the woman from Alaska.

 

[dante]

I'd prefer a "Squeal like a pig" moment...

 

[rockwool]

I just finished watching the movie Step Brothers and it got me wondering if the Bush's family-get-togethers are similar to those in the movie, Jeb and Jr playing the parts of Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly.

 

[ska todd]

I'd prefer a "Squeal like a pig" moment...

Questioning by Larry Craig & Barney Frank?

-ska todd

 

[sanjuro]

Biden and Cheney both interview this weekend: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/21/AR2008122100869.html

Cheney, Biden Spar In TV Appearances
Discord Centers on Scope of Executive Power

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 22, 2008; A02

Vice President Cheney and his successor, Joseph R. Biden Jr., exchanged insults yesterday in a pair of unusually critical television interviews, laying bare apparent animosity between the two as Cheney prepares to hand over power next month.

Cheney, offering no regrets or apologies for his aggressive role in guiding national security policies over the past eight years, openly mocked Biden for citing the wrong part of the Constitution during a campaign debate and for pledging to pursue a less expansive agenda than Cheney has.

"If he wants to diminish the office of the vice president, that's obviously his call," Cheney said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday." He added: "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 have had during my time."

Biden said in an interview on ABC's "This Week" that Cheney was "dead wrong" in his views about unfettered presidential powers during wartime and that the approach "has been not healthy for our foreign policy, not healthy for our national security, and it has not been consistent with our Constitution." He said he intended to "restore the balance" in power between the presidency and the vice presidency.

The sparring revealed lingering tensions between Cheney and Biden, who said during the election campaign that Cheney was probably the "most dangerous" vice president in U.S. history. The sharp rhetoric was particularly striking given the warm public relations between President-elect Barack Obama and President Bush, who has praised Obama's well-run campaign and has repeatedly said he wishes him well.

With less than a month left in office, Cheney was blunt and unapologetic about his central role in some of the most controversial issues of the past eight years, including the invasion of Iraq, warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens and harsh interrogation tactics. Cheney acknowledged that he had disagreed with Bush's decision to remove embattled Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in late 2006, saying that "the president doesn't always take my advice."

"I was a Rumsfeld man," Cheney said. "I'd helped recruit him, and I thought he did a good job for us."

Cheney even owned up to an incident in 2004 in which he directed an obscenity at Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) during a heated exchange on the Senate floor. "I thought he merited it at the time," Cheney said yesterday.

The interview was the second in less than a week for the normally reclusive vice president, and it comes as part of a broad effort by Bush and his aides to focus attention on what they consider to be their administration's major accomplishments.

In an interview with ABC News last week, Cheney suggested that the administration would have gone to war with Iraq even without erroneous intelligence showing that Saddam Hussein had developed weapons of mass destruction. Cheney also said in that interview that he approved of the administration's use of coercive interrogation tactics, including a type of simulated drowning known as waterboarding.

Elisa Massimino, executive director of Human Rights First, said in a statement yesterday that Cheney "persists in defending these disgraceful policies of abuse which have been rejected by senior retired military leaders and experienced interrogators as ineffective and counterproductive." Obama has criticized the Bush administration for condoning torture and has pledged to end interrogation practices barred under international law.

But Cheney expressed few regrets in yesterday's interview and said he was untroubled by opinion polls showing that he and Bush are among the most unpopular White House occupants in modern times. "Eventually you wear out your welcome in this business, but I'm very comfortable with where we are and what we've achieved substantively," he said.

In discussing his views of broad executive power, Cheney noted that the president is accompanied at all times by a military aide carrying a "football" that contains launch codes for nuclear weapons.

"He could launch the kind of devastating attack the world has never seen," Cheney said. "He doesn't have to check with anybody. He doesn't have to call the Congress; he doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in. It's unfortunate, but I think we're perfectly appropriate to take the steps we have."

Echoing remarks by Bush in recent weeks, Cheney said the lack of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001, "is a remarkable achievement." He also said the U.S. Supreme Court made a "bad decision" in 2006 when it struck down the administration's military commissions.

Cheney conceded he is disappointed that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden remains at large. "Capturing Osama bin Laden is something we clearly would love to do," he said. "There are 30 days left."

In his ABC interview, which was taped ahead of broadcast yesterday, Biden said Cheney was "mistaken" in his view of "a unitary executive, meaning that, in time of war, essentially all power goes to the executive." Biden said the view served "at a minimum to weaken our standing in the world and weaken our security. I stand by that judgment."

 

[ohio]

When I think of why I'm upset that Congressional Democrats have chosen to move on rather than impeach, I think of Dick Cheney. He is a truly evil man, and I would like to see him not just stripped of his power, but stripped of his assets, his dignity, and any claim to legitimacy.

*spit*

 

[sanjuro]

Last night I was on Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC at the top of the hour. But before I came on, through the earpiece I listened to the five minutes that Rachel sketched as a lead-in. Most of it was videotape from the last few days of former Vice President Dick Cheney extolling the virtues of harsh interrogation, torture, and his leadership. I had heard some of it earlier of course but not all of it and not in such a tightly-packed package.

Let's just say that five minutes of the Sith Lord was stunningly inaccurate.

This is not some intraweb troll with a funny, but Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, who is former chief of staff of the Department of State during the term of Secretary of State Colin Powell. Lawrence Wilkerson is also Pamela Harriman Visiting Professor at the College of William & Mary.

A guy who worked with Cheney is busting on him.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/05/the_truth_about/

 

[Silver]

When I think of why I'm upset that Congressional Democrats have chosen to move on rather than impeach, I think of Dick Cheney. He is a truly evil man, and I would like to see him not just stripped of his power, but stripped of his assets, his dignity, and any claim to legitimacy.

*spit*

He should be hanging on a meathook in the National Mall in front of the Washington Monument.

Anything less is a miscarriage of justice.

 

[X3pilot]

So, I assume that when the investigation of who knew what when is done, you'd expect to see Pelosi hanging right next to him?

 

[Silver]

So, I assume that when the investigation of who knew what when is done, you'd expect to see Pelosi hanging right next to him?

If she is as guilty as he is, sure.

Why would you ever assume that because I think Cheney is a war criminal, that I think Pelosi is the best thing since sliced bread? We're not cheering for football teams here...

 

[BurlyShirley]

If she is as guilty as he is, sure.

Why would you ever assume that because I think Cheney is a war criminal, that I think Pelosi is the best thing since sliced bread? We're not cheering for football teams here...

I find her hanging neck turkey waddle quite sexy.

 

[ohio]

I find her hanging neck turkey waddle quite sexy.

welcome back, friend. a void is refilled.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

a void is refilled.

That's what she said.