Once again former Vice President Dick Cheney takes Obama and his administration to task for their handling of Afghanistan and national security. Once again Cheney is refreshingly blunt about it too. From Politico:
MCLEAN, Va. — On the eve of the unveiling of the nation’s new Afghanistan policy, former Vice President Dick Cheney slammed President Barack Obama for projecting “weakness” to adversaries and warned that more workaday Afghans will side with the Taliban if they think the United States is heading for the exits.
In a 90-minute interview at his suburban Washington house, Cheney said the president’s “agonizing” about Afghanistan strategy “has consequences for your forces in the field.”
“I begin to get nervous when I see the commander in chief making decisions apparently for what I would describe as small ‘p’ political reasons, where he’s trying to balance off different competing groups in society,” Cheney said.
“Every time he delays, defers, debates, changes his position, it begins to raise questions: Is the commander in chief really behind what they’ve been asked to do?”
Cheney's sharpest critiques on Obama was on the image Obama presents to America's adversaries. I think it is more than safe to say Dick Cheney thinks Obama is a joke on the world stage.
“Here’s a guy without much experience, who campaigned against much of what we put in place ... and who now travels around the world apologizing,” Cheney said. “I think our adversaries — especially when that’s preceded by a deep bow ... — see that as a sign of weakness.”
Cheney doesn't stop there, he even questions Obama's understanding and belief in American exceptionalism.
During the campaign, Cheney recalled, he saw Obama as “sort of a mainline, traditional Democrat — liberal, from the liberal wing of the party.” But Cheney said he is increasingly persuaded by the notion that Obama “doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism — the idea that the United States is a special nation, that we are the greatest, freest nation mankind has ever known.”
“When I see the way he operates, I am increasingly convinced that he’s not as committed to or as wedded to that concept as most of the presidents I’ve known, Republican or Democrat,” he said. “I am worried. And I find as I get out around the country, a lot of other people are worried, too.”
Dick Cheney is probably the only person I have seen to date to give a very blunt opinion on Obama. However, with Obama's plan to increase the troop level in Afghanistan tonight, I suspect some Cheney-like bluntness to emerge from the left.
Via: Memeorandum
Via: Politico
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