Comments on: The Cheney Exit Interview

On "Face The Nation," Vice President Talks About Iraq, Executive Powers, And Why Obama Needs To Keep Gitmo

[armydog2]

Good bye Darth Vader, so happy to see you go!

[mavnomore]

cont

WARE: Well, you''re not paying them to be quiet and stay on the sidelines. You know, you''ve brought them over to the other side. And now correct me if I''m wrong, but I remember a statement from President Bush himself that those who are fighting with Al Qaeda against us are now fighting against Al Qaeda with us.

And regardless, Wolf, you know, I''ve been to Al Qaeda training camps. I''ve seen how they work. I''ve been to their safe houses. I know individuals -- not just foot soldiers, not just mid-ranking commanders, but emirs who are now on the U.S. government payroll.

And why is that a bad thing? Because the Sunni insurgents in Iraq were driven to Al Qaeda by American policies. The Sunni insurgency was created because America wasn''t talking to them. Right from the beginning, in 2003, the hierarchy of the Sunni insurgency said to me, why are we on opposite sides here?

And, finally, the deal was cut. And now you see the downturn in violence.

It''s not a difficult calculation Wolf.

cont

[mavnomore]

cont

Michael Ware (born on March 25, 1969) is an Australian journalist reporting for CNN as an international correspondent based in Baghdad. He joined CNN in May 2006, after five years with sister-publication Time Magazine.

He is one of the only mainstream reporters to have lived in Baghdad near-continuously since before the American invasion and he gained early acclaim as one of the few reporters to establish contacts with the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Iraqi insurgency. Ware was one of the first mainstream journalists to report on the severity of the growing opposition Western coalition forces faced in mid-2003, and his contacts have provided him with controversial videotapes of attacks on coalition forces, including the murder of four Blackwater contractors.

Ware is also known for his stark assessments of conditions on the ground and his repudiation of the overly-optimistic assessments sometimes made by politicians. Ware has also been ''''embedded'''' with American and British military forces on numerous occasions, and the coalition forces have been the focus of many of his reports as he continues to describe conditions on the ground for both military and civilians in Iraq.

[mavnomore]

The last NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll on Bush%u2019s presidency found that 79 percent of Americans will not miss him after he leaves the White House. He is being forgotten already, even if he%u2019s not yet gone. You start to pity him until you remember how vast the wreckage is. It stretches from the Middle East to Wall Street to Main Street and even into the heavens, which have been a safe haven for toxins under his passive stewardship. The discrepancy between the grandeur of the failure and the stature of the man is a puzzlement. We are still trying to compute it.

The one indisputable talent of his White House was its ability to create and sell propaganda both to the public and the press. Now that bag of tricks is empty as well. Bush%u2019s first and last photo-ops in Iraq could serve as bookends to his entire tenure. On Thanksgiving weekend 2003, even as the Iraqi insurgency was spiraling, his secret trip to the war zone was a P.R. slam-dunk. The photo of the beaming commander in chief bearing a supersized decorative turkey for the troops was designed to make every front page and newscast in the country, and it did. Five years later, in what was intended as a farewell victory lap to show off Iraq%u2019s improved post-surge security, Bush was reduced to ducking shoes.

cont

[mavnomore]

cont

The crowning personality tic revealed by Bush%u2019s final propaganda push is his bottomless capacity for self-pity. %u201CI was a wartime president, and war is very exhausting,%u201D he told C-Span. %u201CThe president ends up carrying a lot of people%u2019s grief in his soul,%u201D he told Gibson. And so when he visits military hospitals, %u201Cit%u2019s always been a healing experience,%u201D he told The Wall Street Journal. But, incredibly enough, it%u2019s his own healing he is concerned about, not that of the grievously wounded men and women he sent to war on false pretenses. It%u2019s %u201Cthe comforter in chief%u201D who %u201Cgets comforted,%u201D he explained, by %u201Cthe character of the American people.%u201D The American people are surely relieved to hear it.

With this level of self-regard, it%u2019s no wonder that Bush could remain undeterred as he drove the country off a cliff. The smugness is reinforced not just by his history as the entitled scion of one of America%u2019s aristocratic dynasties but also by his conviction that his every action is blessed from on high. Asked last month by an interviewer what he has learned from his time in office, he replied: %u201CI%u2019ve learned that God is good. All the time.%u201D

Once again he is shifting the blame. This presidency was not about Him. Bush failed because in the end it was all about him.

Frank Rich, NY Times

[pr_boxer]

Cheney Said:"I think Iraq is much better off than it was before we went in in ''03 and got rid of Saddam Hussein,"

except perhaps the 200,000 or more dead, and the millions displaced!

[tincup356]

Cheney Quote:

"But you never have perfect intelligence in this business.",,,,,,............................................so Cheney the only thing perfect you can claim ,,,,is being a perfect case when it comes to proving you and the chimp have taken a dump on the constitution and the bill of rights. Intelligence is something you or Bush or congress don''t have a clue about.

[irmcvet971]

I wonder how it feels to be THIS hated by your own Country. This lower than dirt piece of human trash can''t even walk the streets, can''t go around normal people and most certainly can''t expect anyone to help him if he should fall. Honestly folks I wouldn''t give this THING air if it were in a bottle.

[irmcvet971]

Boy that Cheney thing is evil....It''''s just hard to even look at....I wonder if it will eventually die....

Posted by earache4 at 06:34 AM : Jan 05, 2009

I don''t think this kind of evil EVER dies. Sure the slime ball he calls a body will die but the EVIL that is Cheney? I just doubt it.

[tincup356]

Reality ,,,Cheney,,,,you and georgie boy have almost destroyed America,,,,,,just don''t wander off too far after January 20th......there are a lot of unanswered questions many prosecutors around the world would like to ask......I hope they send both of you to gitmo,,,,so some well hung raghead can properly introduce themselves to you good ole boys.

[irmcvet971]

Posted by GoGWGo at 12:24 AM : Jan 05, 2009

Can you say irrelevant? That''s what you are, just wondered if you could say it?

[notfooled]

This murdering liar should be behind bars until the trials for war crimes and crimes against humanity begin.

A million human bloodmoney victims, many of them women and children.

This man is a national disgrace.

[neoconrcrazy]

cheney lies as he breathes.... ex CIA analysists say publically under oath they were "directed" towards the interpretations which assumed WMD; nuclear, biological, chemical.

[karl2m]

The same old lies, the same old contempt for democracy, the same old self-righteousness. This man is dangerous. I can''t wait untill he goes. It will take many, many years to repair the damage he and his buddy bush have inflicted on america and the rest of the world. Instead of going fishing in wyoming, and write a book, i''d rather see this guy go to the hague with handcuffs on.
This man, together with bush and a few others, has done more to harm the very things that he claims to be defending, such as freedom and democracy. extreme self-centeredness and foolishness are just a few terms that come to mind when i read this interview. If there is some justice in the wold, they''ll ship him off to the hague and keep him there for the rest of his life.

[missingamerica]

Am I the only one who has noted that the comments that are laced with profanity, hate, and the lust for violence are almost exclusively - like, 99.9998% - the work of those who profess themselves to be proud members of "the right"?

It is hard to believe that religious organizations choose to support such - and, judging from their comments, that such even come from religious organizations.

It is enough to make you skeptical of religion...

[shameonbush]

Why is *** Cheney still at large?

[shameonbush]

Why is *** Cheney still at large?

[tawpdawg111]

Skip the interview.....just get to the exit part.

AND DONT FORGET TO TAKE THE CHUMP WITH YOU!

[missingamerica]

Cheney: "We''ve seen a significant reduction in the overall level of violence; it''s lower now than virtually anytime since we''ve been there in the spring of ''03."

Funny, in a way - Cheney says it, but he probably doesn''t even comprehend the truth he speaks: The big time destruction and death among the Iraqis started exactly when he says - when we got there in the spring of ''03.

God spare us from another Administration that can hide their real motives - and the horrific impact of their actions - behind the veil of moral superiority.

[dburfears]

Cheney thinks that anything the President does is legal so long as he can get away with it.

In other words, it may be wrong, it may be unconstitutional, it may be illegal. However, if the Congress does not have the political will to remove the President, then the President has no obligation to follow the law, follow the Constitution, or do what is right.

So if you murder someone, but you are never prosecuted, then it is OK with Cheney because (in his twisted world) it is "legal".

Cheney is not a man who understands representative government, right and wrong, or the concept of integrity. He is a BLIGHT on American history, and someone who aspiring American leaders should look to as a perfect example of power gone terribly wrong.

"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."-- Thomas Jefferson