Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who will likely be treated unkindly by history despite his 100 percent self confidence that he has always been and will be right (in more ways than one), is now providing a classic example of a pot calling a pot a pot:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Saturday night that President Barack Obama has jeopardized U.S. national security by nominating substandard candidates for key cabinet posts and by degrading the U.S. military.
“The performance now of Barack Obama as he staffs up the national security team for the second term is dismal,” Cheney said in comments to about 300 members of the Wyoming Republican Party.
Cheney, a Wyoming native, said it was vital to the nation’s national security that “good folks” hold the positions of secretary of state, CIA director and secretary of defense.
“Frankly, what he has appointed are second-rate people,” he said.
What he actually means is that he’s alarmed that Obama seems to be putting in place people now who help Obama forge a larger break from the neocon foreign policy he and George W. Bush pursued — a neocon policy that will likely get thumbs down from historians, except those who are talking heads on Fox News.
Plus: a)Kerry ran against GWB and there is no love lost there (remember how they painted Kerry as far left and he was Swift Boated with the blessings of the Bush campaign,) and b)Hagel is considered a traitor by many GOPers for breaking with the Bush administration over the Iraq War and it is now payback time on several fronts.
…Cheney said Hagel, a former Nebraska U.S. senator, was chosen because Obama “wants to have a Republican that he can use to take the heat for what he plans to do to the Department of Defense.”
He said Obama’s plans are to allow severe cuts in U.S. defense spending, which would limit the capability of the U.S. military to respond to future foreign crises well after Obama has left office.
“He is today … establishing what limitations will be on future presidents,” Cheney said.
Mr. Cheney: if there had been some limitations on a certain past President, perhaps the United States would not have gotten into the Iraq War under what are now historically demonstrably false pretenses. Much of the media in recent years has finally gotten it right about Cheney. Expect more as academic historians detail the era.
UPDATE: Lest we forget, as Cheney blasts Obama’s weakness on national security, here’s a nice summary via National Confidential:
Under President Obama, several top Al Qaeda leaders have been killed or captured, most notably Osama Bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs. The 9-11 terror attacks occurred under George W. Bush, not long after he was given a national security memo that warned Bin Laden was determined to strike.
President Bush launched the invasion and occupation of Iraq, often at the prodding of Vice President Cheney. There were never any weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, and many national security experts criticized the war as distracting from the ongoing fight against Al Qaeda.
Both Bush and Cheney backed then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, despite repeated incompetence, sanctioned torture at Abu Ghraib, and insufficient armor and equipment for U.S. soldiers in combat.
For Bush’s entire presidency, Osama Bin Laden was a free man.
So it might be more than a tad wise if Mr. Obama uses his OWN judgment on national security and “good” people, rather than Mr. Cheney’s.
LEGAL NOTICE ON CARTOON: Thecopyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Reproduction elsewhere without licensing is strictly prohibited. See great cartoons by all the top political cartoonists at http://cagle.com. To license this cartoon for your own site, visit http://politicalcartoons.com
Note: The headline and graphic has changed on this post since it’s original publication.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.