Cheney: "I Don't Have Any Idea" Why I'm Unpopular

Dick Cheney tells a Wyoming paper, via Think Progress, that he can't understand why people don't like him:

How do you explain your low approval rating?

"I don't have any idea. I don't follow the polls.

"My experience has been over the years that if you govern based upon poll numbers, upon trying to improve your overall poll ratings, people I've encountered who do that are people who won't make tough decisions. And the job the president has and those who advise him is to make those basic fundamental decisions for the nation that nobody else is authorized or able to make.

"First and foremost among those is to defend the nation. If you're going to follow the polls, you are going to change your policy every week when the poll comes out. Secondly, I think you're adversely affected by the fact that you can get just about any result you want out of a poll.

"My own experience has been, in the administrations I've served in, for example Gerald Ford, a man who made a very, very tough decision when he decided to pardon Nixon, something that was extremely unpopular, universally condemned, but 30 years later he was praised as having done the right thing. So I think you need to have that kind of approach to it rather than watch the polls on any given day."

Read the whole thing.

Comments

[American04]

Butt-Head

[Meteor]

Clue: If the USA was in any way better off because of Cheney's "tough decisions" he might be more
popular. Causing compounded disasters does not make one popular.

[trudem2]

The contempt this man has for the American people in the statement "I don't follow the polls" is staggering. How someone who loathes the citizens to the extent Cheny does could rise to the 2nd highest position in the land tells me we're doing something very wrong in this country. He has the mindset of a tyrant, and were we in another place and time, we might have suffered severely with this sociopath at the helm. We should count ourselves very lucky indeed that we dodged this bullet.

[DeniseD]

This comes as no surprise to me. When he was told that the majority of Americans were against the war in Iraq and he said "So?", that was all I needed to hear to convince me that this man doesn't give a da*n about what we think.

[savconsulting]

His comment is akin to a compulsive lier saying that they never lie.
He is one sick puppy and I'm sorry Reid and Pelosi are so weak. They should have ben impeached.

[TheAnti-Bush]

I totally agree. Reid and Pelosi caved. They should both be de-throned. Are we stuck with them for the next 4 yrs.?

[RationalDubSteppa]

Neither do most pathological socio paths.

[Romeover]

Follow the polls?

I'd be happy if the unindicted felon had just followed the Constitution and the Law.

[foolchild0]

I loathe Cheney, but in this case I think his reasoning is exactly right. Where we differ is that I think in this case the polls are right and he is wrong. But in general, I don't think leaders should pay too much attention to polls, or they become insubstantial Bill Clinton, John Edwards types.

[MsYellowDog]

When Darth Cheney claims that "30 years later" Gerald Ford "was praised" for pardoning Nixon, for whom does he speak,pray tell? I think he's speaking for himself---if Nixon had been prosecuted,as he richly deserved to be, it would have made impossible the nightmarish(for the American public) re-appearance of Cheney and Rumsfeld into public life,and we all would have been spared a lot of misery.

[PhilipTaylor]

That Ford and Nixon really stick out as great Presidents on NO ONE's LIST!

We can say with almost 100% assurance:

Bush-Cheney can not even hope to make the "Nixon-Agnew List" or even the "Buchanan-Breckinridge List" without developing a Time Machine and magically wiping out the last 7.6 years!

[DeniseD]

ROFL!

[Ourrias]

Well.... At least he's consistent: a lying sack of s*#t until the very end.

[totaldisbelief]

he's so convinced of what he does that he's oblivious to every other point of viwe.

[Emlyn]

CHENEY SHOULD GO TO JAIL FOR 50 YEARS. TAKE HIS WIFE TOO. I HAVE NO USE FOR EITHER ONE OF THEM.

[slc1950]

No idea?????? No idea??????

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

You're joking, right?

23 days.

[mzwednesday]

Unpopular is an understatement....try LOATHED....
These neo cons really know how to f**k with the english language
de sho?

[paulf40]

I don't really hear that many people praising Ford for pardoning Nixon. I wouldn't say that pardoning the person who effectively appointed you president is a particularly difficult decision and it was almost meaningless in the long run. No one was going to put Nixon in Jail even though that is where he belonged.

[suemag]

Because you've lived up to your first name, Dick.