Cheney's Unforgivable Egotism

Q: "Did they come to you and -- (laughter.)"

Cheney: "I don't do hypotheticals."

Cheney on the Democrats and Iraq

Cheney in the Raddatz interview: "Now when I hear my friends in the States, candidates and so forth, wannabees, announce that the solution in Iraq is to withdraw, take our forces out, I say that is exactly what happened in Afghanistan that produced a safe haven that generated the terrorists that came and killed 3,000 Americans. We don't have the luxury of saying we don't care what happens in Iraq, or we don't care what happens in Afghanistan; we have to be engaged in that part of the world. We've got to work with others so that they can control their own sovereign territory. But the idea that we can walk away from Iraq is, I think, terribly damaging on its face.

"And to say that, well, that's the only way we can get the Iraqis to take on responsibility, I don't believe that's the case. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have stood up alongside us and enlisted in their security services, have run in elections, have taken on responsible post, been threatened with assassination and car bombs, operated under very difficult circumstances. And all of that --"

Raddatz: "So a candidate that would do that, you believe is -- you believe is putting the homeland at risk?"

Cheney: "I do, and is seriously, seriously misguided. A belief that somehow we can walk away from Iraq, and it won't have lasting consequences --"

Raddatz: "Are you talking about Barack Obama?"

Cheney: "I'm talking about any candidate for high office who believes the solution to our problem in that part of the world is to walk away from the commitments that we've made in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere."

So?

Raddatz also gave Cheney a chance to recast his "So?" response regarding public sentiment against the war. He declined -- instead telling her about how President Gerald Ford's decision to pardon Richard Nixon was terribly unpopular, but is now seen more positively.

Said Cheney: "I have the same strong conviction the issues we're dealing with today -- the global war on terror, the war in Afghanistan and Iraq -- that all of the tough calls the President has had to make, that 30 years from now it will be clear that he made the right decisions, and that the effort we mounted was the right one, and that if we had listened to the polls, we would have gotten it wrong. You can disagree with me, but that's what I believe; I know that's what he believes. My comments the other day should be taken in that light."

Vice Presidential Power

In the roundtable interview, Cheney was asked whether he's set a new precedent for vice presidential power.

Cheney: "I don't know, in the sense that it's always -- I think, to the extent that I've looked back at it, watched several Vice Presidents operate -- it's a very sort of personal kind of thing, with the President, the time in which he governs. George Bush really is the one who has made this possible, who wanted me not because he was worried about carrying Wyoming. He was going to get Wyoming whether or not I was on the ticket.

"But as he said at the time, he wanted me to sign on as a member of the team, somebody who would be an active participant in the governing process, and he's kept his word. He's been great at it, and the relationship has prospered now for more than seven years because of the understandings we came to. There's no contract, job description, being Vice President. . .

Q: "So do you think we're going to see a similar --"

Cheney: " . . . You can conceive of a situation in the future where, for various reasons, we'll end up with a more conventional kind of arrangement. It will depend upon why the Vice President is selected, what qualities it is the President is looking for, the time in which they govern."

Deb Riechmann writes for the Associated Press: "Cheney's lack of presidential aspirations has been a unique aspect of his two-term vice presidency.

"'People said this is a source of his strength. He doesn't have a different agenda from the president, but there's a flip side that I think is troubling,' said Joel Goldstein, a law professor at Saint Louis University who has written extensively on the vice presidency. 'A vice president who is not looking to succeed to the presidency is not politically accountable.'

"Cheney can afford to make the bulk of his public appearances in Republican-friendly forums: Conservative talk radio shows, the Heritage Foundation, a think tank in Washington that leans right, or military installations....

"'If he were running for president, he would have to be out there talking to a cross section of the American public,' Goldstein said. 'I'm very hopeful that both parties' presidential nominees will pick somebody presidential and give them the accessibility and responsibility that the nation's second officer ought to have.'"

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