It's probably one of the lowest moments because the administration chose to waste the incredible good will that was established throughout the world and the insane levels of support that lasted for several years in this country. Remember that there were signs all of the world of people expressing sentiments similar to "We Are All Americans Now" and that the administration had something around 70-80-plus approval ratings. Bush, et al could have proposed bombing Toronto and people wouldn't have immediately ruled it out. And what did the administration do with this support? It chose to pursue a radical agenda that turned the world against us and made about half the country believe the other half was working against it from the inside.

These thugs should be ashamed of themselves.

The high point was the rapid ejection of the Taliban from Kabul, with international support and following a reasonable ultimatum, using a small US resource commitment.

Straight down the tubes from there. You cannot point to a single positive policy achievement, otherwise. Bush was trying to talk about AIDS funding in Africa, but since that went to stopping condom usage as well as getting drugs to people, it was pretty much, at best, a wash.

Let's face it. Cheney is insane.

Compelling moment is not at all same as highest moment. He didn't answer the question.

, only one moment comes to mind

Certainly, Obama's election is the highlight. But I would bet that if Wallace had asked Bush, he would have mentioned his own re-election. After four years of lies and deception, he would see that as proof that people endorsed his core principles.

You're giving Cheney too much credit.

Even if he had a genuine human reaction to that tragedy, it's pretty obvious those thoughts and feelings have long since vanished into the muck of his soul. To Cheney and his ilk, 9/11 now symbolizes the ratification and justification of every tyranical, racist and totalitarian impulse and desire they ever had. It really is a "high point" to them.

Mike

I think the highest moment was probably when he said "So help me God" on January 20, 2000. ALL downhill from there.

Still, I would not put it past him to actually think that 9/11 was the highest moment as it allowed them to follow their main policy objective: seizing control of the government through a war against Iraq.

If I were in Cheney's shoes I'd take them off and throw them at myself. Preferably with chewing gum stuck to the soles.

The problem with picking a "highest moment" for this administration is that everything that they touch turns to crap. So they have no accomplishments to point back to. Even the things that might have looked at the time to be impressive accomplishments (jayackroyd's point on the rapid ejection of the Taliban, the trial of Hussein, the tax cuts) all turned out to be true "high points" as everything around those events came crashing to the ground around them.

Of course for Cheney, his true high points can't be discussed in public. I'm sure he's ecstatic that his view on Executive Power (if the President does it it's not illegal) will now be ratified in history as "correct" (W will never be convicted of anything, so future presidents have nothing to worry about). I'm sure he's also ecstatic that he was able to get torture back into the rotation as an interrogation technique. And I'll bet there's even a bit of glee in what passes for his soul over the fact that he shot a man in the face and got away with it. But really, even Cheney knows that outside of the circle of vampires he commands, no one finds those kinds of things to be acceptable "high points" to crow about on national television.

"It was the afterlunch party at that pheasant shoot, right before I peppered that Texas hilljack."

Seriously, Cheney's smart enough not to mention the billions siphoned from the country through Halliburton, KBR and Blackwater.

I like your final link Mr. Benen.
That's far more satisfying than throwing away a good pair of shoes....

He was speaking the literal truth. 9/11 was the luckiest thing that happened to the Bush administration. Without it, how could they have had their fun little war? or wiretapped US citizens?

9/11 was a license to run amok; they were very glad to use it.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that, for Cheney, the highest moment WAS when terrorists gave him the pretext to push through the enormous expansion of executive powers he'd always thought should be the way the country ran, so that he'd be able to not only take out Saddam, but build a surveillance and torture regime in the name of 'national security' and 'protecting us from another 9/11'.

He just couldn't completely admit it, so he fudged the wording to "most important." It was that, too.

9.11 gave Cheney et al license to rape,pillage and destroy Iraq,Afghanistan and America; and to earn $billions illegally. Sounds Dictatorial to me.

Of course, that's kind of a tough question in general. For liberals/progressives/moderates, what would you say was the high moment of the Clinton years?

I probably would say the high moment was the signing of the Oslo Accords, but that was real early in his presidency, and look how that turned out. What else can we look at? The 1993 tax increase, that set us on the path for fiscal sanity? Balancing the budget? Winning the Government Shutdown? Welfare reform? It would be hard to come up with anything that was unambiguously a high moment.

For liberals/progressives/moderates, what would you say was the high moment of the Clinton years?

Wrong construct. I bet Clinton could give an answer. Probably in 2000 words or more. Gore probably has a few candidates for 'high point' as well.

Arachnae nailed it.

9/11 was the Pearl Harbor that PNAC had been praying for all those years. Why didn't Bush care about the briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."? He is an arrogant asshole. Why didn't Cheney care? (Remember, he was always briefed on everything Bush was briefed on) Because if it happened, it would be just the ticket for finally rolling out the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz PNAC plans.

Yeah, it was the highlight for Cheney all right.

If I were in Cheney's shoes, I'd have committed seppuku or get that Iraqi journalist to get me new shoes.

What do you do when all is an emergency? You dial 9-1-1.

Asshats and a-holes. Welcome to your Bush administration.
-

But Cheney didn't really change the question. For him, and for those who think like him, 9/11 was the highest moment, because it set things up for their massive power grab and their assaults on the Constitution. It was a dream come true.

Lest We Forget: In his Christmas card message of 2001, Bush cited the year as having been a "fabulous" one for him and Laura. Leastwise, I believe that's how he characterized it. He definitely lauded the year as having been a good one.

Those animals are war lovers. Cheney meant what he said.

Ditto Joe buck! Mega Dittos!

Andrea Mitchell just indicated on MSNBC that

"There is something ya gotta love" with regard to Cheney's consistent refusal to back down or admit regrets.

Something ya gotta love? What is that, Mitchell?

I'd like to ask her: what is to admire about that?
That he was a consistent asshole?

How irresponsible and stupid to imply that is something we should find admirable. It's why we're so fuc*ed up as a country as to what is the right thing to do.

It was a purely political make-nice comment that belongs on FOX or the like. It's gotta be the most ludicrous stretch (as though she had to say something positive?) I've ever witnessed on MSNBC by a supposed credible anchor.

I've lost all respect for Andrea Mitchell.

Wait a minute. Where were Bush and Cheney in the polls in the days right after 9/11, and what inexorably happened to those ratings from then onward? You see? It WAS their "highest moment." QED.

Jed noted, "[I]t tells you something about the darkness of Cheney's mind that this was the first thing to come to his mind when looking for bright spots over the past eight years was 9/11."

What, the chance to overturn the constitutional order of this country and establish an Imperial [Vice]Presidency. Why wouldn't Darth Cheney regard that as the high point of the last eight years?

[slapping forehead]

The highlight was getting all those damn black people out of New Orleans.

Of course, Dick "Dick" Cheney never caught a seven-and-a-half pound largemouth bass, or that woulda topped even 9/11 as the best moment, just like it did for Runnynose McPretzeldent.

Wouldn't it be the most delicious irony if, sometime next year, Cheney's pacemaker failed and he fell out while giving a lgeacy speech to his sycophants, and the paramedics who answered the call refused to treat him under the protection of "Right of Concious?"

Then as Cheney lays writhing and gasping, the EMT, a relative of a sick and dying ground zero worker, stands and says. "Go f*ck yourself."

By Cheney's own reasoning the EMT would be toally justified.

Bush's stupidity would make his actions perfectly legal.

I might be suffering from Bush/Cheney derangment syndrome, but my dad always said, "What goes around comes around."

The capture of Saddam was sabotaged the same way as the tax cuts.

If we'd left shortly after installing a government, we might have blamed any debacle on the Iraqi people.

Instead, we followed up with an oil-soaked occupation that was popular with few outside Haliburton KBR and Blackwater.

A potential triumph squandered by not knowing when to let up.

If your highest is your lowest, then that's pretty low. The earth will not miss you when you go,Mr. Cheney.

I heard on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me a couple of years ago that Bush was asked what the high point of his term had been and he answered catching a record bass on a fishing trip. I think he was right.

Hey, 9/11 went exactly as Cheney planned, so why wouldn't he consider that the highwater mark?

Actually, Cheney was being perfectly honest. 9-11 is the highlight for him, just as he (as a signatory to The Project for a New American Century) predicted it would be in 2000, when he and his fellow neo-cons told us that they needed "a new Pearl Harbor" to galvanize the U.S. and proceed with their plan. This was a backhanded admission of his masterminding the plan. They got everything they needed with it: a rerouting of taxpayer money into the pockets of their buddies, the armament, oil, and banking industry.