The Thing From The Bunker Returns

You knew Dick Cheney was eventually going to open his mouth on last week's attack and say something wildly disgraceful and stupid.  He did not disappoint this morning, and Steve Benen is equally merciless in shutting the Dick down.

It was only a matter of time before Dick Cheney decided to trash the president again.

"As I've watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won't be at war."

Let's review a few pesky details. First, it was Cheney's administration that released some of the alleged terrorists who plotted the attack into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" in Saudi Arabia, only to see them become terrorist leaders in Yemen. It was also Cheney's administration that gave Abdulmutallab a visa to enter the United States in the first place.

Second, let's compare some "low-key responses." President Obama addressed a failed terrorist attack three days after it occurred. Eight years ago, when a terrorist tried to blow up an airplane under nearly identical circumstances, then-President Bush waited six days before making brief, cursory public remarks. Five days after the attempted terrorist attack, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused substantive comment altogether, telling reporters, "That's a matter that's in the hands of the law enforcement people." A White House spokesperson would only say at the time that officials were "continuing to monitor events."

Democrats, at the time, didn't launch an assault against the Bush administration, and we didn't see Al Gore condemning the White House. It simply didn't occur to Democrats in 2001 to use the attempted mass murder of hundreds of Americans to undermine the presidency.

Eight years later, Dick Cheney believes his principal responsibility is to destroy President Obama -- the man Americans chose to clean up the messes Cheney left as a parting gift after eight years of abject failure.

It's gotten to the point where Cheney is a national embarrassment.  I can't honestly think of any single person with less credibility on American national security right now than Cheney, and that includes Bush, who has wisely kept his mouth shut.  Every time Cheney criticizes Obama, he does so with eight years of buffoonery hanging around his neck.  Any American's response to this nonsense needs to be that of Benen's:  your failures in office made this attack possible, so you have no leg to stand on.

Cheney needs to be dismissed out of hand.  The White House's continuing policy of ignoring the old douchebag is the right one.

He is irrelevant.