Posted on 12/21/2009 10:21:41 PM PST by pissant
(CNN) - He may have exited the national stage nearly one year ago, but former Vice President Dick Cheney has been named "Conservative of the Year" by the conservative Human Events magazine for his ardent and continuous criticisms of the Obama administration's national security policies.
"What Cheney is saying, primarily on foreign policy, defense and anti-terrorism, makes sense to more and more American citizens growing increasingly worried by the Obama Administration's insouciance when U.S. national interests are threatened, both at home and abroad," former U.N. ambassador John Bolton writes for the magazine.
"Since the only real, long-term way to deal with persuasive positions on substantive policy matters is to refute them with sounder policy arguments, it is not hard to understand why the Obama White House is near panic," Bolton also writes. "Where are they going to go to find a better policy inside his administration?"
In a series of interviews and speeches over the last year, Cheney declared President Obama had put the country's security at an elevated level of risk as a result of a string of national security decisions that largely went at odds with Bush administration practices.
Cheney's comments have met criticism from many Democrats and some members of the media who say he would be better off following the example set by former President George Bush, who has remained largely silent on the actions of his successor.
But in the Human Events article, Bolton said its necessary former leaders continue to defend their policies.
(Excerpt) Read more at politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com ...
doesn’t cheney back a rino to be texans governor over a more conservative one?
Is Perry conservative? I hadn’t noticed.
God bless Dick Cheney AND John Bolton!
“doesn’t cheney back a rino to be texans governor over a more conservative one?”
I don’t know, I think both Hutchinson and Perry have a RINO streak in them.
Dick Cheney cuts through the crap.
A great American
Yes indeed!
I’m happy he won the Human Event’s award.
He’s rattled Obama several times.
“Human Events” gives us the inside the beltway pick for “Conservative Of The Year” when we all know who the real “Conservative Of The Year” is.
I still remember Dick Cheney as White House Chief Of Staff for uberRINO President Gerald Ford.
The mainstream media christened him a “conservative” a long time ago and I guess the label stuck.
Here is the April reply:
Cheney Unleashed
I have long pondered the seeming incomprehensibility of the failure of the Bush administration to defend itself even as it was dying of a thousand cuts. It is not necessary here to rehearse the rope a dope strategy which brought Bush down into the depths of approval ratings and left his administration toothless.
One primary example of this inexplicable taciturnity was brought to light in a remarkable press interview of Carl Rove which I saw on CNN international . Rove commented that perhaps the biggest mistake of the Bush administration was its failure to defend itself against the mantra, "Bush lied and people died" in the wake of the failure to find WMDs in Iraq. Rove said he went to President Bush and explained to him that the slander that Bush lied was gaining coinage in the absence of the administration telling its side of the story. Who could blame the electorate? President Bush forbade Rove from campaigning in public or otherwise to defend the administration, saying that there were other more important issues and political capital should not be wasted on this issue. I believe Bush said that he would be content to have history judge the matter. Unfortunately, the rest is history.
I believe that this mindless policy is responsible in some unmeasurable way for putting the Manchurian Marxist in the White House. We know what happens to history when Marxists make it and when Marxists write it. In any event, Barak Obama is even today running against George Bush. Republicans cannot defend the record because of Bush's massive unpopularity. George Bush has left the party in a lose -lose situation.
While I was railing against this in post after post I could not understand where Dick Cheney stood in this affair. I think his role is now becoming clearer. Although always a relatively taciturn man, Dick Cheney is no pushover and he is certainly not bashful about speaking out on behalf of policies he believes in especially a policy that he so dearly believes in like national security. Cheney was clearly a dutiful vice president and felt obliged to follow the wishes of his chief executive. There is reason now to believe that Cheney considers the circumstances to have changed.
First, there was Cheney's offhand remark that he speaks to the president "occasionally" indicating that their once very intimate relationship might have cooled. I believe that it cooled dramatically in the last days of the administration when Bush rebuffed Cheney's pleas for a full pardon for Scooter Libby. Bush's passivity, indeed his pusillanimity especially during the early stages of the Valery Plame affair, stand as a morality lesson in irony for his entire administration. It is entirely possible that President Bush will be indicted because the Liberals acquired a blood taste for prosecutions that resulted in travesty done to Scooter Libby. The parallels to Katrina are also obvious.
Second, Cheney is no longer serving his commander in chief and therefore he is more free to speak out.
Thirdly, obviously Cheney is greatly exercised about what he regards to be the security lapses being committed by this administration and what Cheney yesterday acknowledged to be Obama's attempts to "socialize the American economy."
I believe Dick Cheney is a passionate patriot but one who never loses his cool. I believe he is profoundly motivated to speak out now, not in defense of the administration, but in defense of his country.
Cheney’s ACU rating was 100% his last year in the House (1988). I would say his conservatism is more than a label.
I wish he would consider a 2012 Run for POTUS. The Left needs a knuckle sandwich.
Cheney will be an invaliuable member of President Palin’s kitchen cabinet.
Democrats for Cheney/Palin 2012!!!
Being from Wyoming that had better have been his rating.
You nailed most of it, I think.
Cheney being a ‘conservative’ is one of the biggest jokes perpetrated in political history. Sure, he’s a hawk on Iraq, etc. but national security means securing the nation’s borders. He supported Bush’s amnesty and his domestic policy advisor was a guy named Cesar Conda, one of the biggest open border, hispandering people around.....who now works for George Soros. Then there is his son in law...hubby to Liz...nothing but a lobbyist who did NO good while head council for homeland security.
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