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Cheney: I'm actually 'loveable' By: Andy Barr January 7, 2009 07:09 PM EST Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday that his image has gotten a bad rap in the press and that he is in fact “a warm, loveable sort.” Cheney conceded in an interview with CBS radio that he sometimes expresses himself “rather forcefully toward some of my compatriots, like Pat Leahy from Vermont” but dismissed as a caricature the idea that he is a “Darth Vader-type personality.” “I think all of that’s been pretty dramatically overdone,” the vice president said. “I’m actually a warm, loveable sort.” Cheney also...

In a luncheon round table interview today with a small group of conservative journalists, Vice President Dick Cheney insisted that “we don’t torture” but that “enhanced interrogation techniques” have “produced a wealth of information” that has protected the United States against terrorists – and, on a far more personal level, said that his four decades in public life have been a “helluva ride” that he is “seriously thinking” about recording in memoirs after he leaves office. Cheney refused to comment on whether he has advised President George W. Bush to pardon his former top aide, Lewis “Scooter” Libby or to...

President Bush will leave office with an approval rating of under 30 percent, and the Republican Party is not faring much better. In the past two elections, it has shed more than 50 House seats and more than a dozen Senate seats. The conservative label, though, does not appear to have taken much of a beating. On Election Day 2008, exit polls showed that more voters still identify themselves as conservatives than as liberals. Conservatives can thus spare themselves the kind of re-branding liberals felt compelled to attempt earlier in the decade when they dubbed themselves “progressives.” Precisely what is...

President George W. Bush departs with low approval ratings. Appraisals of presidents sometimes change over time, and sometimes they don’t. *snip* No doubt the Internet dervishes will pepper this and other assessments of Bush with their standard displays of anonymous ferocity. There are a lot of 14-year-olds with Internet connections. But when the Jon Meacham of 150 years from now goes about his task with Bush, that historian will have as much material and more, as did the author of “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House.” And the verdict will be nearly the same: Here was an extraordinary...

The latest NIC Global Trends 2025 Report is out… and it’s not good news for those determined to insure the Bush legacy is portrayed as one consisting of nothing but of utter failure. Download the 120 pg, 8.2MB report hereI had summarized for Larry Weisenthal here just a few days ago… as well as blogged about it on my old haunt Sea2Sea back in February 2008… PLUS Wordsmith’s post May 29th here on FA… about what? There’s been more than a few of us becoming aware that one of the side benefits of the Iraq war was the decline of...

Tonight, we will be breaking down the last 8 years of the Bush presidency, what he did right, what he did wrong, how history will remember him, and what to expect from the incoming President elect. Tune in tonight at 11:30pm EST.

“Thank you President Bush God Bless” is what 14-year-old Chrissy Doolittle’s sign read. The Leesburg resident stood holding her sign by the Washington Monument for nearly an hour and a half Saturday afternoon with her mother and grandmother to thank President George W. Bush for his eight years in office. Chrissy’s family was part of a group of around 150 people – the majority of them from Loudoun County – who wanted to make sure that their voices of gratitude were heard, even as Bush’s approval ratings hover around 30 percent and the area and nation turn their focus toward...

Here is video of CBS News' Face the Nation today, which was devoted to a full-length interview with Vice-President Dick Cheney. Bob Schieffer talked with Cheney about the Iraq War, Homeland Security, and his power as Vice-President. Among other things, Cheney says President-elect Barack Obama needs to keep our Guantanamo Bay prison which houses the most dangerous captured terrorists. . . . (see video)

As George Bush’s presidency comes to an end, it seems a fitting time to acknowledge and honor the accomplishments of his wife, First Lady Laura Bush. This is especially important because Laura Bush has often been unfairly painted as a “typical Republican Stepford wife.” In addition, there have been rumors that finding a publisher for her memoirs has not been as easy as it has been for other first ladies, perhaps due to the media’s bias along with their stereotypical image of her. The fact is that Laura Bush has been working in an unassuming manner for eight years, advancing...

As GWB prepares to leave office, I think history will treat him much as it does now Harry Truman: A plain spoken humble man who made the really tough decisions and left office with abysmally low poll ratings. There were four major policy decisions of GWB I personally never liked: 1) No Child Left Behind--Whatever happened to the concept that public education is supposed to be a state and local issue, not a federal issue, at least according to the U.S. Constitution? Besides it was way too costly. 2) Prescriptions Drugs Medicare Part D--How much is this greatest entitlement program...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Treasury Department opened the door Friday to using a Citigroup-style rescue package to help other troubled financial institutions. The financial lifeline thrown to Citigroup Inc. (C) in late November involved backing billions in risky assets and providing the banking giant with a fresh capital infusion. Treasury said participation by other companies in such a program would be weighed on a case-by-case basis. Treasury said it would consider, among other things, whether the "destabilization" of a financial institution could threaten the viability of creditors and others. It also would weigh the extent to which the institution faced...

As he madly dashes further into socialism, Comrade George W. Bush seems determined to lavish billions of taxpayer dollars on Detroit’s automakers — conservatism, Congress, and the Constitution be damned.

Laura Bush, Steel Magnolia Laura Bush has single-handedly restored the term, "lady," to the American vocabulary. And she has done it with such rare aplomb that nary a soul seems to have even noticed, which is precisely the way I'm convinced she planned it. I took an instant liking to Laura Bush; I won't deny it. After eight years of Hillary Clinton trying to act as an unelected co-President and leftist feminists egging her on every step of the way, Laura Bush came on the scene as a refreshing respecter of the electorate, content not to seize power that wasn't...

Laura Bush has single-handedly restored the term, "lady," to the American vocabulary.  And she has done it with such rare aplomb that nary a soul seems to have even noticed, which is precisely the way I'm convinced she planned it. I took an instant liking to Laura Bush; I won't deny it.  After eight years of Hillary Clinton trying to act as an unelected co-President and leftist feminists egging her on every step of the way, Laura Bush came on the scene as a refreshing respecter of the electorate, content not to seize power that wasn't rightfully hers.  What could be...

Lost in the 2008 pre-election hysteria was a sobering piece of news out of Iraq. It was revealed, after a precisely-executed plan to maintain secrecy and prevent disclosure, that 550 Tons of Yellow Cake Uranium were shipped out of Iraq to Canada. Why is this event so spectacular? It proved beyond the wildest dreams of even the staunchest skeptic, that Saddam Hussein was clearly pursuring a Weapons of Mass Destruction program, and debunks the chorus of "Bush Lied" accusations from the Democrats. Further, it bolstered the claims of U. S. and British intelligence (which were presented to the United Nations)...

WASHINGTON – Hurricane Katrina not only pulverized the Gulf Coast in 2005, it knocked the bully pulpit out from under President George W. Bush, according to two former advisers who spoke candidly about the political impact of the government's poor handling of the natural disaster. "Katrina to me was the tipping point," said Matthew Dowd, Bush's pollster and chief strategist for the 2004 presidential campaign. "The president broke his bond with the public. Once that bond was broken, he no longer had the capacity to talk to the American public. State of the Union addresses? It didn't matter. Legislative initiatives?...

~snip~ Widely seen as his biggest foreign policy error, the decision to invade Iraq could ultimately prove to have been a masterstroke. Today the world is witnessing the birth of the first truly democratic state in the Middle East outside of Israel. Over eight million voted in Iraq's parliamentary elections in 2005, and the region's first free Muslim society may become a reality. Iraq might not be Turkey, but it is a powerful demonstration that freedom can flourish in the embers of the most brutal and barbaric of dictatorships. The success of the surge in Iraq will go down in...

Considering that it’s published in the UK, the Telegraph is a great American newspaper. Today, hosting Nile Gardiner on the vision and action of the much-reviled George Bush, champion of western values: Much of the condemnation of his policies though is driven by a venomous hatred of Bush’s personality and leadership style, rather than an objective assessment of his achievements. Ten or twenty years from now, historians will view Bush’s actions on the world stage in a more favourable light. America’s 43rd president did after all directly liberate more people (over 60 million) from tyranny than any leader since Winston...

WASHINGTON: President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have been unusually talkative in recent weeks, sharing candid thoughts in a string of exit interviews. But after eight years of a tight partnership that gave Cheney powerful influence inside the White House, the two are sounding strikingly different notes as they leave office, especially on one of the most fundamental issues of their tenure: their aggressive response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Bush defends his decisions as necessary to keep the nation safe, yet sounds reflective, even chastened. He has expressed regrets about not achieving an overhaul of...

The Bush hatred we are seeing in the media today belongs in the long catalogue of human psychopathology -- not rational behavior. The latest version is the shoe-throwing incident in Iraq. Iraq happens to be a hot war zone, in which tens of thousands of innocent people have been killed by hidden bombs. Bush' protective detail had no way of knowing whether an assassinaton attempt was under way, in just the way Saddam tried to assassinate George H.W. Bush, Sr. At the end of his two terms of office, the President flew to Iraq, into harm's way, knowing the dangers,...

WASHINGTON — President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have been unusually talkative in recent weeks, sharing candid thoughts in a string of exit interviews. But after eight years of a tight partnership that gave Mr. Cheney powerful influence inside the White House, the two are sounding strikingly different notes as they leave office, especially on one of the most fundamental issues of their tenure: their aggressive response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Mr. Bush defends his decisions as necessary to keep the nation safe, yet sounds reflective, even chastened. He has expressed regrets about not achieving an overhaul...

History will be kind to George W. Bush. In the years ahead historians will look back at the Bush years and see: A leader who kept America safe, A warrior who went on the offensive against Islamic terrorism, A Christian who liberated 50,000,000 Muslims from two of the most brutal regimes in modern history, A hero who would not leave the battlefront in defeat, A visionary who brought democracy to the Middle East. Kevin Hassett at Bloomberg reported today: ...Might history judge him favorably? The argument for his eventual vindication is stronger than many might expect. On foreign policy, Bush...

Kosovo decided Wednesday to name a central street of its capital Pristina after outgoing US President George W. Bush for his support of the territory's split from Serbia. Backed unanimously by Kosovo's cabinet, Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said the move was "a sign of the huge state and national respect and appreciation" for the United States' contribution to independence, declared earlier this year. Located in Pristina's downtown area, Bush Street is to be linked to the main thoroughfare named after Mother Teresa, the 1979 Nobel Peace Laureate of Albanian origin. Separately, the government pledged 5,000 euros (7,000 dollars) towards a...

In the end, the shame of Vice President Dick Cheney was total: unmitigated by any notion of a graceful departure, let alone the slightest obligation of honest accounting. Although firmly ensconced, even in the popular imagination, as an example of evil incarnate - nearly a quarter of those polled rated him the worst vice president in U.S. history, and another 41 percent as "poor" in this week's CNN poll - Cheney exudes the confidence of one fully convinced that he will get away with it all. And why not? Nothing, not his suspect role in the Enron debacle, which foretold...

A fairly balanced analysis of how Bush will probably be remembered in the future. It is a Bloomberg article so it cannot be directly posted on FreeRepublic. The article is linked on DrudgeReport.

Vice President Cheney on 'FNS' Transcript: The outgoing vice president marks 40 years in Washington by taking a few parting shots at Vice President-elect Biden and Capitol Hill • E-mail the show: fns@foxnews.com Videos Part 1: Outgoing vice president comments on current economic crisis; fires back at Joe BidenPart 2: Vice president on national security controversiesPart 3: Vice president on Iran, bin Laden and changes in Washington

President Bush headed to Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Monday to meet with wounded soldiers ahead of the Christmas holiday, but that's only the latest activity in a wide-ranging effort the president has made to comfort the families of the fallen. According to The Washington Times, the self-described "comforter in chief" said it's his duty as president to try to help as "best as I humanly can a loved one who is in anguish." The Times notes that people familiar with Bush's routine say he has written letters personally to every one of the families of the more than...

As the year draws to an end and President Bush enters his final month in office, there is much commentary about the Administration's record over the past eight years. Unsurprisingly, many of these stories assail and distort the President's record and recycle myths and unfounded allegations that have been leveled for the better part of his two terms. Historical accuracy requires a response to the litany of attacks leveled against President Bush, and while there's not enough space to respond to all of them, here are five of the most egregious:

President George W. Bush is leaving with one of the lowest approval ratings in the history of numbers. During his final months on the job, the controversial commander-in-chief has given several interviews that have revealed how he views his legacy. Here are some highlights... Soul not for sale One of the president's most interesting sound bites came during his interview with FOX News. He said: "I didn't compromise my soul to be a popular guy." The quote is an acknowledgment that the president is well aware that he's about as popular as taxes and chicken pox. Bush went on to...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The Bush administration has finalized the new rules that protect both medical professionals and medical staff who don’t want to be involved in abortions or abortion referrals. The Department of Health and Human Services released the final rule that will go into effect on January 20. The new regulations are intended to clarify and enforce existing federal laws that protect the choices of health care providers who have moral objections to abortion. The regulation clarifies and implements existing federal statutes enacted by Congress in 1973, 1996 and 2004.The federal laws, which protect the conscience of...

Bush on His Record The president defends his democracy agenda and his economic interventionism. By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL Air Force One As he sits at his mile-high desk, clad in his Air Force One crew jacket, George W. Bush is as he has ever been: upbeat, focused, confident in his past decisions and in the future. [The Weekend Interview] Terry Shoffner This is remarkable given the up and downs -- lately downs -- of his administration. Through it all, the president has acted on his own convictions, a trait that has inspired both violent critics and passionate defenders. In a...

Leadership: President Bush reminded us this week of our triumphs in the war on terror despite critics who sought to deny him the tools. He's kept us safe since 9/11 and says luck had nothing to do with it.With scarcely a month left in his presidency, the president on Wednesday took aim at critics who maintain that the lack of another terrorist attack on American soil had little to do with his leadership and skill. According to them, we've just been lucky. In a speech at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., Bush noted that in the aftermath...

To my Conservative Friends: I have to hand it to our Commander-in-Chief, he is one amazing person. I don't know about the rest of you, but there is no way in hell, I would be able to show the restraint and dignity this President has shown after being totally dis-respected the way he has been for the past 8 years. This past weekend, I am sure everyone has heard of the show-throwing incident in President Bush's final visit to the country he liberated from a tyrannical dictator some 5 years ago. And if you didn't see it, I'm sure you...

3 mins ago WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush knows he's unpopular. But here's what matters, he says: "I didn't compromise my soul to be a popular guy."

As we observe the scandal surrounding Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, arrested for attempting to sell the U.S. Senate seat formerly belonging to President-elect Barack Obama to the highest bidder, and think of what it portends for the next four years, it causes me to be grateful for the two most important things President Bush has accomplished during his tenure. The first is that there has been absolutely no hint of the scandal, soap opera or three-ring circus that had been a daily suffering under President Clinton. The dignity and the prestige of the office of the presidency were restored, and...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15, 2008 – Afghanistan is making progress, and despite challenges, it can rely on America to help it defeat terrorists and grow its fledgling democracy, President George W. Bush told Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the capital city of Kabul today. “There’s been good progress made, but there are a lot of tough challenges” ahead in Afghanistan, said Bush, who made a surprise visit to Afghanistan following his unannounced visit to Baghdad yesterday. “I told the president that you can count on the United States -- just like you’ve been able to count on this administration, you’ll...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2008 – President Bush paid a surprise visit to Iraq yesterday, where he praised lawmakers in Baghdad for passing the status of forces agreement with the United States and offered a farewell message of thanks to U.S. troops serving there. “I am just so grateful that I had a chance to come back to Iraq before my presidency ended,” Bush told reporters in Baghdad during a news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talibani. Bush said one of the reasons for his trip was to herald the passage of the Strategic Framework Agreement and the Status of...

Five years ago this week, something remarkable happened, which has been conveniently forgotten: On December 13, 2003, one of history’s worst dictators, Saddam Hussein, was captured by U.S. troops. America awakened to the news on Sunday, December 14, as a grateful President George W. Bush readied for church. In fact, the secular left had become so ferocious, so emotional, and so uncharitable that Bush decided to skip church to avoid images of going to a house of worship just after Saddam’s capture. His staff feared a New York Times editorial with a title to the effect, “Bush Thanks Jesus After...

BAGHDAD -- President George W. Bush on Sunday made a farewell visit to Iraq, a place that defines his presidency, just 37 days before he hands the war off to a successor who has pledged to end it

“It is seldom,� David Hume wrote, “that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.� That admonitory sentence furnishes one of the epigraphs for Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, first published in 1943. How is freedom faring in the United States today? Peter Robinson, a scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, provided a melancholy précis in “The Loss of Individual Liberty,� a column that appeared in Forbes last month. Mr. Robinson recalled a dinner he shared with Milton Friedman several years ago. He complimented the venerable economist on his role in transforming the intellectual landscape, especially in...

Another unsung accomplishment by Bush that the MSM won't tell you about. http://thebulletin.us/articles/2008/12/12/top_stories/doc4941f4f8cbc70008686389.txt

Philip Klein has an excellent article in a recent issue of The American Spectator. He starts: With President Bush’s days in office coming to an end, the inevitable debate about his legacy is upon us. To critics, his record of failure is self-evident: a costly and unnecessary war launched under false pretenses, an economy in tatters, and the protection of civil liberties eroded. To his defenders, Bush deserves credit for keeping America safe after the September 11 attacks by treating terrorism as part of a broader war rather than a criminal matter, and targeting the state sponsors of terror rather...

Once again, I find myself watching Fox News Sunday on Sunday morning. And once again, I am sad to see the departure of the Bush administration. I’m a fan of a couple of sports, tennis being one of them. My friends and I would watch a tournament on TV and then we would get that itch to play. So we would set a date for the weekend and keep watching the tourney on TV. There I sat, on the couch, watching Leyton Hewitt or Andre Agassi wail on these balls, sending the shots from corner to corner at over 100...

I can see it now. The world will be very different. The president of the United States will receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his lifesaving aid to victims of disease in Africa. Government and civic leaders from Europe and Asia will express their admiration. Americans will walk a little taller. Barack Obama will bow his head as the ribboned medal is extended But wait. The president who deserves such an honor is in office now. It is George W. Bush who has devoted so much time, energy, and money (well, our money, but it was legal) to fighting AIDS...

Even though Barack Obama received less than 53 percent of the popular vote, his favorable rating stands at 67 percent. It appears that many conservatives who didn’t support him are nevertheless enthusiastic about his presidency and optimistic about his tenure. How could it be otherwise? Americans were hungry for change, as was the rest of the planet. Obama’s victory has generated excitement around the world — among Muslims, Christians and Buddhists, Scandinavians and South Africans, democrats and autocrats — and helped to restore the moral authority of the U.S. As The Economist put it recently, “All of Europe is on...

Amid the cold gusts of winter, Republicans will soon be ushered out of power after controlling Congress, the White House, or both for 14 years. Here's a further chilling thought: Since 1896, with only one exception, when a party has taken over the White House, it has held it for at least eight years. The exception is the Jimmy Carter Democrats, retired after a single term in 1981. And it would be churlish to hope that Barack Obama will recapitulate the ineptitude and foolishness of the Nobel laureate from Plains. So it could be eight years on the outside of...

The president-elect has to take a stand on Bush's dark legacy. A small and largely unnoticed spat among the transition planners for the president-elect, Barack Obama, broke out last week. It was the first genuinely passionate debate among the Obamaites and it centres on a terribly difficult and terribly important decision that will be among the first that Obama has to make. How does he deal with the legacy of criminal actions of his predecessor's administration when it comes to detention, interrogation, abuse and torture of terror suspects? That has long hovered in the back of the minds of those...

With the U.S. economy in crisis, George W. Bush’s already slumping popularity levels have sagged even deeper. This summer, his own political party kept him away from its national convention in St. Paul. The President himself has been reduced to wistful hopes that history will somehow justify him. At this low point, some counterbalance: 1) Even as you read this, Indian commandos are waging a deadly urban battle against Islamic terrorists. Those soldiers have almost certainly trained with U.S. Rangers or Marines — part of an intensifying U.S.-India security partnership that has been one of the most signal foreign policy...

IT'S OBVIOUS not only that George W. Bush has already earned his Great President badge (which might even outrank the Silver Star) but that much of the opposition to Bush has a remarkable and very special quality; one might be tempted to call it "lunacy." But that's too easy. The "special quality" of anti-Bush opposition tells a more significant, stranger story than that. Bush's greatness is often misunderstood. He is great not because he showed America how to react to 9/11 but because he showed us how to deal with a still bigger event--the end of the Cold War. The...

The federal government agreed Sunday to take unprecedented steps to stabilize Citigroup Inc. by moving to guarantee close to $300 billion in troubled assets weighing on the bank's books, according to people familiar with details of the plan. Treasury has agreed to inject an additional $20 billion in capital into Citigroup under terms of the deal hashed out between the bank, the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Treasury officials will charge a higher interest rate for the capital injection -- 8% for the first few years -- than it has charged to dozens of...