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Former Vice President Dick Cheney delivered some more harsh commentary on President Obama's leadership, just as the president prepares to address the nation regarding his new Afghanistan policy.

"I begin to get nervous when I see the commander in chief making decisions apparently for what I would describe as small 'p' political reasons, where he's trying to balance off different competing groups in society," Cheney said in an interview with Politico. "Every time he delays, defers, debates, changes his position, it begins to raise questions: Is the commander in chief really behind what they've been asked to do?"

After a 92-day review of the war in Afghanistan, Mr. Obama tonight will lay out to the American public, in a nationally broadcast address, his new battle strategy for the war in Afghanistan. The new plan is expected to include sending more than 30,000 additional U.S. forces to Afghanistan, as well as an increased emphasis on training for Afghan forces in order to allow the U.S. to leave down the line.

Although the president is facing criticism for some on the left for increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan, Cheney told Politico that average Afghan citizen "sees talk about exit strategies and how soon we can get out, instead of talk about how we win."

When asked whether the Bush administration's focus on Iraq was responsible for the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, Cheney reportedly said, "I basically don't," without elaborating.

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Former Vice President Dick Cheney again harshly criticized President Obama this morning, telling a conservative talk show host that the president's much-debated bow to Japan's Emperor Akihito was "fundamentally harmful" to the country and suggesting that Mr. Obama doesn't understand the negative impact of the time he has taken to craft a strategy going forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Weekly Standard reports that Cheney told Scott Hennen that the bow reflected the fact that Mr. Obama "doesn’t fully understand or have the same perception of the US role in the world that most Americans have."

Cheney also said the decision to put Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and other Guantanamo Bay detainees on trial in civilian court was a misguided effort at a "show trial" that will allow terrorists "to stand up and spread the terrible ideology that they adhere to."

And he again made the case that the president's "dithering" on what to do in Afghanistan and Pakistan is hurting the country.

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Liz Cheney's organization Keep America Safe today released a mini-documentary featuring citizens of Standish, Michigan lashing out at the Obama administration's proposal to transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the town's Standish Maximum Correctional Facility.

Standish is one of at least four sites being considered as potential transfer destinations for detainees, along with facilities in Montana, Colorado, and Illinois, according to the New York Times. The Detroit News reports that the Standish facility, which closed October 31st due to budget cuts, employed more than 250 people, making it the small town's largest employer. Nonetheless, some residents are reluctant to let their town play host to the 200 or so alleged terrorists facing transfer to the United States.

The video, which you can watch at left, includes interviews with citizens of Standish (which has a population just over 2,000 and is 97 percent white, according to last available census data) intercut with messages from Keep America Safe, all set to an ominous piano track.

"President Obama has ordered the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility closed," a message on the screen reads. "Hundreds of terrorists will be moved to prisons in the United States. Politicians want them placed in Standish, Michigan."

This message is followed by a woman speaking. "[Politicians] aren't listening to us little people in Standish," she says. "Because that's what we are. We're a small, small farm town. And we are not being listened to."

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Vice President Joe Biden's popularity has fallen to its lowest point since the Democratic National Convention, a new Gallup poll finds.

There are nearly as many people with an unfavorable opinion of Biden, at 40 percent, as there are with a favorable opinion (42 percent). That makes Biden far less popular than the previous two vice presidents, Dick Cheney and Al Gore, during their respective first years in office.

Biden's favorability rating peaked in November of last year at 59 percent, the poll finds, and has steadily dropped since. While President Obama's popularity has declined over the course of the year as well, his favorability rating remains higher than Biden's at 55 percent, according to Gallup. On average this year, Biden's favorability rating has been close to 20 points lower than the president's.

By contrast, both Cheney and Gore in their first years as vice president held favorability ratings just a few points lower than President George W. Bush's and President Clinton's, respectively. On average, Cheney held a favorability rating of 65 percent in 2001, while Gore was popular among 55 percent of Americans in 1993.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton beats out both Biden and Mr. Obama with a recent favorability rating of 62 percent.

Updated 2:36 p.m. ET

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs this afternoon hit back hard at former Vice President Dick Cheney for his criticism of the current administration, arguing that Cheney "seems to have forgotten his role in the last seven years of Afghanistan."

He said criticism from Cheney, who argues that an Obama administration delay in making a decision on a strategy going forward in Afghanistan hurts American allies and helps American enemies, is "curious" in light of the fact that "the vice president was for seven years not focused on Afghanistan."

It's "even more curious given the fact that an increase in troops sat on desks in [the Bush] White House, including the vice president's, for more than eight months, a resource request filled by President Obama in March," Gibbs continued.

"What Vice President Cheney calls 'dithering,' President Obama calls his solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform and to the American public," said Gibbs. "I think we've all seen what happens when somebody doesn't take that responsibility seriously."

Gibbs noted there were fewer troops in Afghanistan under the Bush administration and wondered why Cheney is pushing so hard for new troops now in light of the fact that the Bush administration "resist[ed] adding an additional 25,000 troops" while in power.

The former vice president's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Wednesday night, while accepting an award from a conservative national security group, Cheney said that "signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries" – a reference to the review process now being undertaken by the Obama administration to decide what to do in Afghanistan.

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Updated 5:39 p.m. ET

A former Congressman has joined with two retired generals and an Iraq war veteran in a push to pressure lawmakers to close the Guantanamo Bay prison facility. The group is calling upon Congress to "ignore the scare tactics" of former vice president Dick Cheney, who they accuse of leading "a concerted right-wing smear campaign" against closure of the facility.

On Tuesday the group, called "The National Campaign to Close Guantanamo," released a 30-second ad which you can see at left. The spot will run on national television for a week at a cost of $100,000; it urges viewers to sign an open letter to Congress lobbying for the shutdown of the facility.

"President Obama said we should close it," a narrator says in the ad. "Colin Powell agrees. But Congress stands in the way, continuing to follow the failed Bush/Cheney policies."

President Obama promised to close the facility within a year of taking office, but there are questions about whether that deadline will be met amid opposition from lawmakers concerned about the transfer of detainees to prisons on U.S. soil. Though House Democrats recently blocked a Republican effort to outlaw the transfer of Gitmo detainees to the U.S., members of both parties, fearing political repercussions, have been skittish about detainees coming to their states and districts.

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Like her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, Elizabeth Cheney doesn't think highly of President Obama's policies. And now she has a new organization, Keep America Safe, dedicated to pressing her argument.

"Like a lot of Americans, we have watched with concern and dismay as the Obama administration has cut defense spending, wavered on the war in Afghanistan, and launched investigations into Americans serving on the front lines of the war on terror, while at the same time expanding legal protections for the terrorists that plot to attack this country," Cheney writes in an opening statement, which is also signed by fellow board members Debra Burlingame and William Kristol. "These policies, along with President Obama's abandonment of America's allies and attempts to appease our adversaries are weakening the nation."

The group vows to "make the case for an unapologetic approach to fighting terrorism around the world, for victory in the wars this country fights, for democracy, freedom and human rights, and for a strong American military that is needed in the dangerous world in which we live."

Keep America Safe has also produced a video (at left) articulating a critique of Mr. Obama for failing to match his rhetoric with reality – and for playing golf and traveling to Copenhagen instead of dealing with various issues.

Politico reports that the group, incorporated as a 501 (c ) 4 non-profit, launches its fundraising push today. Said Kristol, the editor of the conservative Weekly Standard: "The Left has dozens of organizations and tens of millions of dollars dedicated to undercutting the war on terror. The good guys need some help too."

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A group of retired generals say that former Vice President Dick Cheney and his "acolytes," including daughter Liz Cheney (left), are trying to scare Americans over the prospect of closing the Guantanamo Bay prison facility through "nonsense" arguments, Politico reports.

"It's up to all of us to say these arguments advanced by Cheney and his acolytes are nonsense and that really what they're doing is undermining our national security by delaying the date at which Guantanamo is closed," retired Brig. Gen. James Cullen told Politico.

Added retired Gen. David Maddox: "Some of the fear issues that are being raised in this are really unfortunate. It gets people excited about things they shouldn't be excited about and impedes doing what is critical to this country…We take a setback every time somebody, whether it's the vice president or his daughter comes out and says the things that they say."

In June, Liz Cheney said on CNN that "it's clear that al-Quaeda operatives and terrorists have spent a lot of time and have expended a lot of effort to get into the United States. So I think it's impossible to argue that when our government actually helps them get into the United States, as we would do in this case, that it doesn't make us less safe. Of course that makes us less safe."

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First, the White House struck back at criticisms former Vice President Dick Cheney has lobbed at the Obama administration, and now the Democratic National Committee is having its say.

The DNC tomorrow is releasing a new television ad on cable stations nationwide that question the vice president's assertions on national security.

Cheney on Sunday called the Justice Department investigation into CIA interrogations an "outrageous political act" that will do significant long term damage to the nation. He also said the interrogation techniques used against suspected terrorists were essential for preventing another terrorist attack within the continental U.S. borders.

The Democrats' new ad highlights the former vice president's assertions that Americans would be greeted as liberators in Iraq, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction ahead of the Iraq war and his newest comments on the importance of "enhanced interrogations." The ad reads, "Dick Cheney, Wrong Then, Wrong Now."

"Long ago, the American people concluded that Dick Cheney could not be trusted on matters of national security and why he thinks they should or would trust him now is mind-boggling," DNC Communications Director Brad Woodhouse said in a statement.

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A White House spokesman on Monday said former Vice President Dick Cheney had his facts wrong when he criticized the Obama administration's decision to investigate allegedly abusive CIA interrogation techniques.

Cheney on Sunday called the Justice Department investigation an "outrageous political act" that will do significant long term damage to the nation. (Watch more about Cheney's comments here.)

At his regular press briefing Monday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs brushed aside the criticism as "the same song and dance we've heard since literally the first day of our administration."

"I'm not entirely sure that Dick Cheney's predictions on foreign policy have borne a whole lot of fruit over the last eight years in a way that have been either positive or, to the best of my recollection, very correct," Gibbs said.

Cheney said on Sunday that the harsh interrogation techniques used on terrorist suspects were "directly responsible" for the fact that there have been no further mass casualty attacks against the United States since Sept. 11, 2001.

"I think the (former) vice president, if you watched some of his interview, clearly had his facts on a number of things wrong," Gibbs said Monday.

Gibbs contrasted Cheney's statements with Republican Sen. John McCain's comments on CBS's "Face the Nation." Though McCain said it was a "serious mistake" to investigate the interrogations, he said the interrogation techniques of the CIA under the Bush administration were harmful to the U.S.

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