Cheney's Tell-All Book to Take a Shot at Bush for Softening Up

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Look up the word "hypocrisy" in the dictionary and the new definition is: Dick Cheney. OK, maybe heretofore not that new, but now we've got the former VP cold. He's writing a tell-all book, something he's ripped other former Bushies for doing:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is writing his memoirs. That in itself is something of a surprise, because Cheney has long—and openly—disparaged people who do. The presidency is owed loyalty, or anyway that was Cheney's view when folks like former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and former White House press secretary Scott McClellan told tales out of school.

This is what I love about the uber right: Righties take deeply principled stands on the crucial issues of the day, but decide the rules don't apply to themselves whenever the whim strikes them. Cheney is apparently consulting with military, diplomatic, and government experts as he writes his memoirs and one or more of the participants in these sessions he calls together is also talking to the Washington Post:

"In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him," said a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney's reply. " He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney's advice.

So George W. wasn't even far right enough for his formerly principled former VP. Heaven help us if we ever elect a regime as far right as George W. Bush again. There won't be a country left if we do. Americans are in general agreement on one thing: George W. was one of if not the worst presidents in American history. That's why President Obama, inexperienced as he was, won national office: Anything seemed better than another Bush at the time. Sen. John McCain smacked too much of a Bush rerun (of course, the stock market meltdown in September of last year didn't help McCain, either).

But if right wingers hope they can regain power anytime soon, or that Bush wasn't far right enough, they've got quite another thing coming.

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