The long-awaited, big “pushback” from the Obama administration against its most vocal Bush administration critic — former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has gone far beyond the criticisms made of administrations that followed them by other former Vice Presidents and Presidents throughout history — has finally come. It’s Pusher Back In Chief: Vice President Joe Biden:

Vice President Joe Biden hurtled a stinging critique at former Vice President Dick Cheney, rejecting his predecessor’s assertions that the Obama administration is soft on terrorism.

In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Biden said Cheney “either is misinformed or he is misinforming” and accused him of “trying to rewrite history.”

“Let me choose my words carefully here,” Biden said in an interview taped Saturday night from Vancouver. “Dick Cheney’s a fine fellow. He’s entitled to his own opinion. He’s not entitled to rewrite history. He’s not entitled to his own facts.”

[See UPDATE below on Cheney’s comments on ABC]

But, as the Political report notes, Biden didn’t stop there:

Addressing Cheney’s criticism of the Obama administration’s decision to offer alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad a civilian trail and to read the Christmas Day Bomber his Miranda rights, Biden argued that the Bush administration also tried accused terrorists in civilian court and Mirandized the shoe bomber.

Biden specifically challenged Cheney’s criticism that Obama is not treating the fight against terrorism as a war.

“I don’t think the Vice – the former Vice President Dick Cheney listens,” Biden said. “The President of the United States said in the State of the Union, ‘We’re at war with al Qaeda.’ He stated this – and by the way, we’re pursuing that war with a vigor like it’s never been seen before.”

Biden said while the Bush administration “did their best,” the Obama administration is waging a stronger fight against al Qaeda than its predecessor.

“There has never been as much emphasis and resources brought against Al Qaeda. The success rate exceeds anything that occurred in the last administration,” Biden said. “It’s simply not true that the President of the United States is not prosecuting the war against Al Qaeda with a vigor that’s never been seen before. It’s real. It’s deep. It’s successful.”

Biden said specifically that the Obama administration’s efforts have killed 12 of al Qaeda’s top 20 leaders and 100 of their associates.

“They are in fact not able to do anything remotely like they were in the past,” Biden said of al Qaeda. “They are on the run. I don’t know where Dick Cheney has been. Look, it’s one thing, again, to criticize. It’s another thing to sort of rewrite history. What is he talking about?”

Most likely Democrats will pick up Biden’s argument and Republicans, talk show hosts and the new media will pooh-pooh it, ignoring the stats he sited, saying they’re not true or just picking up the soft on terrorism charge. If you decided that the truth is somewhere in the middle — and that is not always a correct assumption in politics, foreign affairs or diplomacy — you could conclude:

Biden’s comments will get widespread play in the new and old media. The timing is important: Cheney will also appear on a Sunday Morning show and is expected to continue his criticism. Whatever Cheney says will be reported on newscasts and the mainstream news media and be twinned with Biden’s comments about Cheney’s overall comments. To some Republican partisans, no matter what Biden says won’t matter but to independent voters, moderate Republicans and Democrats it will be taken as a counter argument which will offset some of Cheney’s comments because it provides a reply with specifics.

Cheney’s host of comments since leaving office had had the tone of someone who is on a partisan mission versus a policy warning mission. If it was strictly a matter of sound and safe policy, his criticisms would be far more specific in terms of what to do and would accurately depict what the current administration has done — and how to improve it.

Here’s the segment as it appeared on Meet the Press:

UPDATE: Cheney criticized Biden on ABC, but his points this time were more substantive:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney lashed out at Vice President Biden’s assertion that another 9/11-style attack is unlikely. In an exclusive interview on “This Week,” he called Biden’s view “dead wrong.”

“I think, in fact, the situation with respect to Al Qaeda, to say, you know, that was big attack we had on 9/11 but it’s not likely again – I just think that’s just dead wrong,” Cheney said.

“I think the biggest strategic threat the United States faces today is the possibility of another 9/11 with a nuclear weapon or a biological agent of some kind. And I think Al Qaeda is out there – even as we meet – trying to do that,” Cheney said to ABC’s Jonathan Karl.

Cheney also said:

“I don’t think a president can make a judgment like that on the basis of politics. The stakes are too high, the consequences too significant to be treating those as simple political calculations,” Cheney said. “When you begin to talk about war, talk about crossing international borders, you talk about committing American men and women to combat, that takes place on a plane clear above any political consideration,” he said in an interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl.

“I’m a complete supporter of what they are doing in Afghanistan. I think the President made the right decision to send troops into Afghanistan,” Cheney said. “I thought it took him a while to get there.”

Here’s one Cheney segment as aired on ABC:

JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

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.

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