After waiting nearly eight years and maddening the current administration’s supporters, Vice President Dick Cheney finally made his most forceful defense of the Bush presidency. Speaking with Chris Wallace on the December 21, 2008 “Fox News Sunday,” Cheney blasted incoming VP Joe Biden for comments Biden had made during his campaign for Barack Obama.

Click here to read the FoxNews.com article

It is fascinating how Biden perceives Cheney as the most dangerous Vice President we’ve ever had, whilst he will be serving under what will most likely be the most dangerous President the United States has ever had. Is this not the same Joe Biden that warned us of the inexperience of Barack Obama in the Democrat primaries? Say it ain’t so, Joe!!!

The fact of the matter is, Biden was an afterthought in the Obama transition until last week, when it became apparent that poor old Joe was being left out of any decisions. Now, the holder of The Office Of Vice President Elect (may he also be praised) is trying to make himself relevant by making the point that the office of VP is relatively irrelevant. So why will we be paying you $221,000 next year, Vice President Elect Biden?

Cheney is correct in his assertion that history will treat the Bush presidency much better than his contemporaries do now. The frustrating thing is that neither Cheney nor Bush made an effective defense of the actions to protect this country from foreign and domestic enemies when they had the bully pulpit. Reagan repeatedly and effectively went over the Congress’ and medias’ collective heads and communicated effectively with the people of this country. With a few exceptions (the case for the Iraq War being one), this administration has been unable to sell a bottle of water to a man dying of thirst. Their inability to make a coherent case on a number of issues has been one of the biggest contributing factors to the nation’s lack of trust in the Republican Party to lead.

In then-Governor Bush’s acceptance speech at the 2000 Republican Convention, Bush said over and over (with reference to Clinton and Gore), “They have not led, we will.” In most instances, people fail to lead by what they do, preferring only to lead by what they say and leave the deeds undone. In the case of the Bush administration, the leading was done by the deeds, but was woefully lacking in words. As a result, a young, energetic communicator with the gift of eloquence is our near term future. Too bad he will set back the cause of conservatism at least 50 years.

President Elect Barack Hussein Obama has been blessed with a smooth transition so far. He has met with the sitting President and been assured of a trouble-free and an informed exchange of power, made scores of Cabinet appointments, pontificated from the pulpit of The Office of the President Elect, and squeezed in a smoke or two as well as a few basketball games.
Now let your minds go back to 2000 at this time. George W. Bush had only made a handful of Cabinet appointments by December 19, 2000. What? Why was that? Because he’s a monkey? Doofus? Idiot? Balaam’s donkey? has the IQ of cordwood?
On this date in 2000, George W. Bush had only held The Powerful Office of President Elect for seven days. Al Gore had demanded recounts in not the whole state but four primarily Democrat counties in Florida. Bush won the first recount on Wednesday morning, November 8. Remember, now, that’s the second time Bush won Florida in consecutive days. However, Gore, knowing then what Al Franken knows now, realized that the more recounts that take place, the more Democrat votes that will appear out of thin air, and kept demanding further recounts.
Even more fascinating, people like Michael Moore seemed to discover for the first time ever that our Presidential elections were determined by the Electoral College, as though Bush had implemented this wicked institution just for 2000 to steal an election.
As a result, Bush’s cabinet appointments were delayed for more than a month. His inauguration was marked with sophisticated protestors and classy rioters. Bill Clinton didn’t even give Bush the phone number of the pizza girl. And members of Clinton’s staff five-finger discounted White House trimmings and computer keyboard “W’s.” They didn’t even leave any Rose Law Firm records behind.
Less than eleven months later, the terrorist attacks on 9-11 would dwarf the 168 people killed by Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City as the worst terrorist attack on American soil. The plot was hatched by Osama Bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a meeting in 1996. The planning stages of the plan took place on Clinton’s watch.
Eight years later, Bush is pledging Obama an uncomplicated shift of power, going so far as fading all the heat on the economic recession. Bush is showing more Presidential class by going the extra mile for Obama’s transition than either living Democrat President did for their successors.
After the Florida election results were certified, Bush gave a speech on December 13, 2000, in which he proclaimed he was going to reach across the aisle to unify a divided America and declared “the President of the United States is the President of every single American, of every race, and every background.” How did that work out for you, Mr. President?

His aim, 20 feet away from his target, was dismal. Muntathar al Zaidi of the Baghdadiya Television removed both of his shoes and threw them in succession at President George W. Bush on Sunday, December 14, 2008. Because of the war of the man whom Muntathar attempted to “shoe,” al Zaidi wasn’t introduced to a plastic shredder head first, as would have been one of his innumerable possible grisly fates at the hand of Saddam Hussein. Also, fortunately, Saddam’s army had the same erratic aim, and our military marched through their country like Ex-Lax through a widow woman (please, no offense to widows). Bush didn’t even bother to duck as the second shoe was thrown, and had the class to not take offense to the entire episode (Muntathar also called the President a “dog,” the oh-so-unclean animal in the Islamic world).

Now, this ingrate is a hero to Shiites throughout Iraq. Let’s get this straight: Saddam Hussein was a ruthless Sunni Muslim who, though in the minority among the majority Shiites and Kurds, used ruthless and brutal tactics to suppress dissent against these groups. Now the Shi’as rejoice when one of their own disgraces the man who removed their tormentor. These ungrateful . . . people now demand the release of Muntathar.

I say, let him go. Yes, that’s right. Let him go. Free as a bird.

Of course, I would have him videotaped beforehand “converting” to Christianity. Then release the tape. Then let him go. In that order.

American and Coalition blood and treasure have been given for these people. Maybe we need to review some of the ones that stick out in my mind:

Nick Berg was kidnapped in April, 2004. He was beheaded by Abu Musa’b al-Zarqawi on video tape in May. From the looks of the video, Berg appeared to have no idea of the fate that was about to be his. He screamed for at least a minute as Zarqawi sliced his head off.

Eugene Armstrong, Jack Hensley, and Brit Kenneth Bigley were captured on September 16 of that same year. On September 20, Armstrong was videotaped with Zarqawi and four other “insurgents” standing by. Armstrong rocked back and forth, shaking, sweating, and hyperventilating for 5 minutes as Zarqawi read a statement. After the statement was read, Zarqawi pushed the blindfolded Armstrong down as another “insurgent” grasped his chin and head. Zarqawi used a relatively small knife, so it took nearly two minutes for him to saw Armstrong’s head off as Armstrong squirmed and tried to scream.

The next day, Hensley was beheaded on videotape. I guess the “insurgents” learned their lesson the day before, as this knife was at least 18 inches long. It took less than 30 seconds to behead Hensley.
Bigley was much “luckier,” you could say, as he spent the next couple of weeks in a cage made of chicken wire, being forced to make video tapes in which he begged Prime Minister Tony Blair to help him. After a failed attempt to rescue Bigley (in which his rescuers were executed on the spot), Bigley was videotaped one last time, clearly exhausted, gaunt, and exasperated. He, too, was beheaded.

Margaret Hassan was a CARE humanitarian worker who was opposed to the war. She was kidnapped October 19, 2004 and held for four weeks, during which time she was videotaped at least three times. In the first video, Hassan begged Blair for help and stated she didn’t “want to die like Bigley.” In the second video, she was made to beg for her life until she fainted, after which an “insurgent” threw a bucket of water on her. She awakened and began to cry. Here is Robert Fisk’s description of the final video in the August 7, 2008 UK Independent:
“Then comes the last tape. She is standing in that bare room in a white blouse, a blindfold over her face, her head slightly bowed and a man approaches her from behind holding a pistol. He points it at her head and places what appears to be an apple over the muzzle – a primitive form of silencer? And then squeezes the trigger. There is a click, an apparent misfire, and the man retreats to the right of the screen and then reappears. Margaret Hassan doesn’t move although she must have heard the click. The man is wearing a grubby grey and black checked shirt and ill-fitting, baggy trousers, a scarf concealing his face.
This time the gun fires and the woman utters a tiny sound, a kind of cry, almost a squeal of shock, and falls backwards onto the floor. The camera lingers on her. She has fallen onto a plastic sheet. And she just lies there. There is no visible blood, nor wound. It is over.”

Of course, if this is the way this country shows its gratitude during a war to set it free, I suppose I shouldn’t expect any class or grace from them after the war has been won. But I can just bet the farm that the next time they let a ruthless dictator rule over them that their pleading eyes will be looking west toward “the last great hope of mankind on earth.” Pathetic.