" . . .more workaday Afghans will side with the Taliban if they think the United States is heading for the exits."

The Bush administration did exactly that when they shifted resources and troops to Iraq.

This is nothing but classic Rovian projection. Accuse your opponent of your own weaknesses.

God damn Dick Cheney's shit-filled soul to hell.

I'll be honest with you: Dick Cheney would sound a lot more pathetic to, you know, the common man, had a certain someone had the stones to prosecute him, convict him, lock him up, and throw away the key.

This is just another example of the President creating problems for himself by avoiding controversy. The smart thing to do would have been to prosecute the hell out of the neocons. The failure to do that has merely emboldened them and their media stenographers.

Cheney was asked if he thinks the Bush administration bears any responsibility for the disintegration of Afghanistan because of the attention and resources that were diverted to Iraq. "I basically don't," he replied without elaborating.

Yeah, this isn't important or anything. I can definitely see why Politico let Cheney completely off the hook here.

[Slaps forehead...]

Politico isn't really a news outlet. It is, instead, part of the Republican noise machine. As such anything it publishes will have all the hard hitting bite of a NRC press release.

Abe is right. Could somebody tell the President that hiding from his duty to prosecute the likes of dead eye Dick only emboldens criminals.

If Politico were a homicide detective...

Politico: So, do you think you bear some responsibility for your wife's death seeing how you pointed a loaded gun at her and then pulled the trigger?

Suspect: I basically don't.

Politico: Good enough for me. You're free to go sir.

it's not hard to understand at all: the politico lives inside the beltway bubble, and projects its thinking accordingly.

what is hard to understand is why you would be willing to link to the politico: deny it traffic, man, don't encourage it!

Obama's nuanced and at times cerebral approach projects "weakness" and that the president is looking "far more radical than I expected."

So, in a war, I guess it's better to project soulless avarice, xenophobic brutality, aimlessly unwavering strategy, caustic and inhuman terseness, and unhinged instability. Am I right?

When you give the Sith Lord an accountability-free platform, he's gonna take it every time. I blame the media. Cheney has never been anything more than a rightwing radio loudmouth. He is incoherent, irrational, and a fucking liar.

I agree with Howard. No more links to Politico. If people want to read the article, they can find it on their own.

rank-and-file Republicans were asked the other day who best reflects the party's principles. Just one chose Dick Cheney -SB

As Steve would probably say, that's odd. Dick embodies everything the Republicans admire.

And niell sums it up nicely again at #2.

Our friend, Dick, was the one who decided who should be VP all those years ago, when he realized how much money he could make
waging war.

His forays into Iraq and Afghanistan have netted untold billions for
Halliburton and it's subsidiaries.

You tell me Bush/Cheney's wars were not about profit!

Which is why I removed Politico from my favorites. I now have my blood pressure under control.

I cannot stand Dick Cheney! The worst thing that ever happened to America...Dick Cheney!

But, after the Afghanistan speech tonight,Afghanistan will no longer be Bush's and Cheney's War, Afghanistan will be Obama's abyss! For all the same reasons as Vietnam!

Obama should read, "Street Without Joy, Bernard Fall.

This comes right after they published a list of potentially negative stories that Obama supposedly has to worry about--it was nothing but the standard GOP talking points and attacks they've made against him since day one.

A greater effort should have been made to identify them as an online version of Fox"news" from the beginning--now all of the MSM treat them as some sort of legitimate, objective news source.

It would be extremely helpful to Obama's argument if tonight at West Point he laid out an honest assessment of how screwed up Afghanistan is right now and how it got that way.

It would be nice if he ended his speech by saying

I will never send American soldiers into battle with a strategy of nothing more than "Don't lose." If I send soldiers into harms way, there will be a strategy in place that they can follow and win.

I will never ignore a reality that doesn't fit into my preconceived notions, like spending months insisting that we shouldn't call the armed insurgency that's killing our soldiers an insurgency. Anyone who does such a thing isn't fit to hold this office.

And I will never shrug and say that 'you fight the battle with the equipment you have, not the equipment you wish you had'. I will move heaven and earth to make sure out soldiers have everything they need to win. We owe them nothing less.

Like I said, it would be helpful, but it won't happen. Being honest with the American people and pointing out past errors so we don't repeat them would be . . . partisan.

How the hell did this guy survive in Chicago politics anyway?

I object to Allan Snyder's (and anyone else's) use of MSM.

They are NOT mainstream! They are the Corporate Media and should consistently be referred to as such!

Objection sustained. Duly noted.

"I think our adversaries -- especially when that's preceded by a deep bow ... -- see that as a sign of weakness." In Cheney World, even Japan is our adversary. The man is disturbed.

I don't think the Obama White House worries about this interview -- I think the Obamaites welcome it. I think it serves Obama's purposes -- he's triangulating between Cheney and antiwar critics. I think that "sensible centrist" is exactly what they want the perception to be.

Corrected Politico Headline: War Criminal Thinks Obama Is A Wuss.

Cheney is winning by moving the sensible center to the right.

Matt F. said: Corrected Politico Headline: War Criminal Draft Dodger Thinks Obama Is A Wuss.

Fixed that for ya.

Politico = Fox News in a print medium. That's the ONLY difference.

The Top 10 list of low-life sons-of-bitches in American History

1. Dick Cheney
2. Lee harvey Oswald
3. Sirhan Sirhan
4. Timothy McVeigh
5. James Earl Ray
6. Charles Manson
7. Aldrich Ames
8. Oliver North
9. Gordon Liddy
10. Karl Rove

Isn't it a sign of weakness when this type of drivel is pedalled by the former vice-president of the United States? Where is the gravitas? The representation of the entire country in its diversity? The fact that Cheney has to dive so deeply into the partisan cesspool is a true sign of the Republican Party's strength and record these days.

Within days, literally, of leaving office, Cheney was sending drunken, abuse-filled e-mails about the Obama administration to every journalist on his Rolodex, and the good little stenographers were printing them, anonymously of course, and with the more hateful language edited out so as to make his criticism sound more reasonable, instead of the bitter rants of an utter failure that they were. What is it with these people? How did American journalism fall so far, so fast since the days of Watergate?

When is Hannity going to castigate Cheney for undermining his Commander-in-Chief when we have troops in harms way?

Bananas:
Like that top 100 best songs list,
awfully biased to the last twenty years.

I think you missed:
J Edgar Hoover
Joe McCarthy
Ty Cobb
Jefferson Davis

and I am historically illiterate.

Cheney's opinions would carry so much more weight if only he bothered to share them with us WHILE HE WAS IN OFFICE. Go back to your undisclosed location Dick. You had your chance and blew it.

Catclub@11:36

How is the list biased? Only three scumbags on it did their dirt in the last twenty years (Cheney, Rove, McViegh). It is perhaps biased towrds the last 50 years.

The thing to remember about not only Cheney but also McCain and all the other Republican critics of Obama's Afghanistan policy is that:

1) they are all complicit in the Bush/Cheney administrations 7 years of neglect of the Afghan conflict, including the failure to kill capture Bin Laden and Mullah Omar and other Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders at Tora Bora.

2) they all used the "Powell doctrine" as a basis to criticize Clinton's efforts in the Balkans including specifically, its supposed lack of an EXIT STRATEGY.

Now of course, they claim that any attempts to create an exit strategy in Afghanistan prjects weakness and gives "aid and comfort... to the enemy"? And they made the exact same claim in Iraq right up until the Iraqi's forced Bush to accept a withdrawal schedule?

Everyone one of them is completely lacking in credibility or the slightest sense of shame.

Fuck them and t

Why does Dick Cheney think he's such a bad-ass? Squinty bald mofo with heart disease and an extensive record of professional failures.

neill, do you say "God damn Death's shit-filled soul to hell" at every funeral?

Do all the mourners get the joke... every fucking time you utter it?

If Politico were a homicide detective...

Politico: So, do you think you bear some responsibility for your wife's death seeing how you pointed a loaded gun at her and then pulled the trigger?

Suspect: I basically don't.

Politico: Good enough for me. You're free to go sir.

Great analogy, Moonlight. But you could substitute the guy he actually shot in the face and you get a real-life example:

Detective: So, do you think you bear some responsibility for shooting your friend seeing how you pointed a loaded gun at him and then pulled the trigger?

Cheney: I basically don't.

Detective: Good enough for me. You're free to go sir.

"Follow the money" - the guy who finances The Politicfo is a well-known far right wing fundraiser and supporter of wingnut causes. This supposed "news outlet" is nothing but a far right disinformation project.

So of course the villager scum in Washington just slop up the shit.

Bananas @ 1149
You are right. I wrote far too quickly.
The 50 year bias is more likely accurate.

I did write that I was historically illiterate.
Apparently that does not just meant illiterate
about history.

Abe@10:00: I'll be honest with you: Dick Cheney would sound a lot more pathetic to, you know, the common man, had a certain someone had the stones to prosecute him, convict him, lock him up, and throw away the key.

That's why the power structure begrudgingly came to accept Obama, after conceding that there'd be no way for a Republican... nor their "plan B" candidate (Hillary Clinton), to win.

The only thing more disruptive to them than the audacity of "Hope"... is the audacity of a n1gg3r. There are so many things that *must* be done before the nation can begin to heal itself. Who better to *not* do those things than a "stranger" who must be on his best "behavior".

We need someone who's willing to send these people where they belong: to prison, if not the gallows. We are not ready as a nation for these necessary steps to be performed by a black man. We're just not there yet.

Hey, that first link to the Atlantic Monthly story doesn't work.

:(

[it's fixed now. thanks for bringing it to our attention -- mod.

Hed:

Cheney Calls Saudi Arabia and Japan "Adversaries"

"I think our adversaries -- especially when that's preceded by a deep bow ... -- see that as a sign of weakness."

Corrupt, incompetent clown, depraved rhetoric, hopelessly insane, pathetic, disgraced humiliated......Wow- hyperbole much? You're a fuming ball of rage today because some blog somewhere didn't bend to your will. Unreal.

T-Rex@11:25: How did American journalism fall so far, so fast since the days of Watergate?

The same thing that happened to our political discourse: the 'boomers "grew up", and got rich! They became their parents, just like they promised themselves and each other they'd never do.

Banana: Off the top of my head - Lee Atwater and Roy Cohn.

"Cheney went on to suggest the president's decisions may give "aid and comfort ... to the enemy.""

A former vice-president accuses the current president of treason, and they just write it down. You'd think a real journalist would know that "aid and comfort to the enemy" is the definition of treason, and would ask Cheney if he really meant that...

So, why is Cheney's 90-minute tirade against the president the lead Politico story today?

When Snarly growls, people do what he wants. He probably threatened Allen and Vandehei with a shotgun. He has a history, you know.

JTK: Lumping the "boomers" and "rich" together only demonstrates your ignorance of their plight. Most of these folks have lost their retirements and 401K investments to the Wall Street takeover of "our" country. Too many have been foreclosed on, laid off, and their lives are in ruins. Many live on foodstamps & catfood, suffer from depression and anxiety, and many have no healthcare now when they really need it. What do they have to look forward to? The looting of Social Security, that they paid into all their working lives. The money's been borrowed by many administrations but never replaced.