Bush and Cheney Mosey Off Into the Sunset, Cowboys Till the End

Dick Cheney appears to be the last man standing firm.

Maybe a CIA operative slipped the Vice President a covert goody bag of blue pills but, given the pressures of his job and the risk of another heart incident, it's still an impressive rigidity.

I watched Mr. Cheney, resolute and completely unrepentant, telling Wolf Blitzer Sunday that he would not hesitate to recommend water boarding again as a method of interrogation if he had the chance. He didn't mention Christopher Hitchens by name, but Hitch might be on the Veep's list just for his video criticism that simulated drowning does constitute torture. Which was also John McCain's position.

"John's wrong" about that, Mr. Cheney told Wolf Blitzer, without equivocation. Not: well, reasonable people disagree. But: Senator McCain is just plain WRONG, (you moron!).

There's something almost refreshing and bracing about that level of certitude, sustained for so long under occasionally inconvenient facts. Like a splash of freezing trout-filled stream water or a full muzzle of buckshot right in the face.

You have to admit, eight years away from his Wyoming ranch have not taken a single kerchief stitch of the cowboy out of Dick Cheney. Only Rod Blagojevich and Bernard Madoff can match him for sheer chutzpah, or "gumption" as they might call it on the Western frontier, and one of those guys is in an ankle cuff (still) under house arrest while the other faces impeachment and possibly jail.

Dick Cheney is free and now retired, able to step out of the bunker, write a book and, apparently, not feel a single second of hesitation about his life in public service.

Well, also high up on the cultural gumption scale Joe the Not-Plumber, whose latest video from his new career as a self-hating war correspondent has taken him to heights of incomprehensibility neither Sarah Palin nor, you know, Caroline Kennedy will ever know. He's pretty out there. Watch for his invite to the next White House Correspondents' Dinner from some snooty magazine looking to appear edgy.

But the Vice President has outlasted even his boss in staying tough and resisting any possibility of doubt or silly, hippy navel-gazing self-contemplation. He even took a parting shot at former counter-intelligence chief and Administration critic Richard Clarke: "If Dick Clarke was such an expert," Mr. Cheney sneered, "how come he didn't have all this information about al Qaeda" when he was in that job. (Sound of shell being chambered).

For most everyone else, the last few days has been a time for reflection and farewells as the pulse quickens toward the Barack Obama inauguration.

After watching President Bush's final press conference, I found myself feeling for him as he tried his darndest to concede some shortcomings and mistakes - always hard for him - and stand up for himself at the same time. He was petulant, reflective, irritated, assertive and even wacky, giving his own imitation of a whiner politico that was a kind of odd dramatic rendering we haven't seen since John Burton, in his under-the-weather period, pantomimed an entire speech on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Eight years away from Texas clearly had taken a little starch out of this cowboy's checkered shirt. It's a tough job, but despite recognizing the "writers and opiners (who) don't like me", smacking the foreign "elites" who don't respect the US and wading into what has always been awkward territory of press conference joke-making, Mr. Bush was clearly speaking from the heart when he talked about Barack Obama's family and the love they have for each other.

Overall, he showed some bitterness but not the tell-tale signs of someone truly embittered by his time in office.

I remember being in on an interview with the then-Texas Governor during his first run for the Presidency. He bounded down the stairs at his office in Austin, tanned, beaming and hyper-confident, bear-hugging several editors in the room and basically making the charismatic Bill Clinton seem like a wallflower by comparison. "You think I can get a single vote in San Francisco?" he asked me, smiling. I think I said probably not.

But he got agitated after a few tough questions and you could tell that this was someone who could be worn down by controversy and criticism, even as he did not flinch in the face of it.

Until, really, today at his press conference.

Mr. Bush is right: history will judge him more completely than his 25 percent approval rating or comparisons-in-advance to the incoming president (or even to his dad, who new polls show is more popular as an ex-President, just like Jimmy Carter.) But for all the frat boy smirking and righteous indignation about policies that even he now admits could have used a little more work, this is not someone unmarked by his own presidency.

Comments

[jqcitizen]

After 8 long years of Bush-Cheney the entire world will finally be free of being continually 'Afraid' in only 7 more days.

The main thing to be worried about for the next week would be that Bush would give a blanket pardon to Cheney for anything he 'might' have done that was illegal and the resign as president. Cheney would become president and reciprocate and grant a presidential pardon to Bush.

Sound familiar? Anyone remember the un-elected president Ford that brought the current administrations 'Geniuses' (Rumsfeld and Cheney) into power?

7 more days to sweat this out. Heaven help us all.

[hmargret]

Cowboys? No, that would mean real work...they are gangsters in western style. If he is marked by his presidency, it's because the job was bigger than he was and it cratered him. Good riddance! But, let's bring them to trial for war crimes.

[pueblocolorado]

Yep. I believe we are seeing the beginnings of a melt-down.

Maybe he just got the news that no one wants to read his book (or publish it). Maybe he's starting to lose some donations on that presidential library and "think-tank" he has planned. Something certainly hit him between the eyes in the past few days. Oh well. See ya. Wouldn't want to be ya.

[ESerafina42]

It's interesting, as they pointed out on Stephanie Miller's show, that the only "mistakes" he could think of were mistakes in PR and photo ops, i.e., the "Mission Accomplished" banner and the above-it-all look out the plane over New Orleans. Then he starts whining about how he COULDN'T have landed there, as if that were his only option. What he COULD have done was blow off McCain's birthday party and get to work dealing with it and preparing for it, so he didn't have to be shown a video compilation of news clips DAYS after the worst of it to find out what went on.

[ArdentV]

Remember when Fulbright wrote a book entitled "The Arrogance of Power?" True, it was aimed at Lyndon Johnson but the title is still applicable to our seven day President. Then a few years ago I had an excited student who obtained a career position in Dubai. He was excited for the reason that he would not have to pay taxes. If this was true, and I know this is stretching a point, but with Halliburton now headquartered in Dubai, does Cheney have to pay taxes on his stock earnings? Maybe the kid was wrong but if not, I would like Mr. Cheney try and explain his profits to the GIs in Walter Reed. I apologize to all of you readers as I am making an assumption that may be unwarranted. But I wish the press corps would check it out.

Where am I going with this? Good Grief, I am not even sure but I am of the opinion that if Mr. Cheney "has a few scores to settle," perhaps we as a nation have one to settle ..........­.......... with him.

[vote-obama]

calling this fools cowboys is an embarrassment to cowboys.

[cindysundancer]

I take issue with the term "cowboy" unless it is amended as cowardly cowboys. Five deferment Dick demonstrates unbending arrogance, not the courage of a real cowboy. And an over-privileged cheerleader who always yelled his bold taunts from behind a formidable defensive line, had a fake ranch with no critters, and is afraid of horses, certainly doesn't merit the cowboy moniker.

[pueblocolorado]

I had a neighbor in Houston who attended high school during the Cheney's senior years in Wyoming. They were quite the hot item and didn't have the least bit of time for anyone but the two of them. I'm sure they were making big plans back then to sweep the dust off and move on to bigger and better things. Pity.

[Morcat]

Actually, I'd consider them more rustlers than cowboys. Cowboys do have a code of honor.

[Soulsurfer]

"Eight years away from Texas...." Sorry, less than 7 years away. He's spent more time on vacation than any other president, most of it in Crawford.

[luziannagirl]

Oh, yeah, and I really have a problem with the term "cowboy" even metaphorically used to characterize one man who can't shoot straight and another who's afraid of horses.

Never MIND their East Coast pedigrees...

[shadow322]

I listened to CSPAN this morning. Two elderly women praised Pres. Bush on his morals and committment to God. A man of God - huh! For me, it takes more than rhetoric to fit that bill. It does create a good argument against religion's involvement when our government is concerned. I wish people would learn that. When "don't confuse me with the facts" citizens are the basis on which we choose those who govern, what one gets is a President Bush. The name doesn't really matter but the results are always the same. If you're honest, you have to admit that religious leadership in this country has fallen so many times they make Pres. Clinton look like a choir boy! Just look at the Republicans that prosecuted Pres. Clinton. As it turned out, they were banging their secrataries "while prosecuting" someone for a similar act. So add lies and hippocracy to their virtues or lack there-of, action really is the bottom line here, not rhetoric. In Pres. Bush's first week in office (God speaks to him) he declared "you're either with us or against us" and merrily devided this country before running it into the ground! Now after 8 years of running the most powerful nation in the world we're left with two old ladies quoting "he's a religious man and that's good enough for me." How sad an epitat - in those 8 years we could have done so much good in this world. What a waste!

[shadowgm]

Here's the thing about the Bush-as-Ch­ristian-Le­ader concept ...

Christ was imprisoned, tortured, and executed as a political exercise. So how is it that good, upstanding Christians justify treating others - especially our political enemies - in the same way?

[luziannagirl]

And, according to the New Testament, Jesus Christ, didn't rail against abortion, prostitution, or even the worship of other gods and practice of other religions. He even advised separation of church and state, with the words "render unto Ceasar that which is Caesar's".

In recorded Biblical history, Jesus got good and pissed off and violent over only one thing... greed, corruption, and consumer rip-offs, when He physically threw the "money-changers" out of the Temple.

That's why for centuries, "usary", the charging of interest on a loan, was considered a mortal sin to Christians.

Oh how the Holy have changed...

[LeftCoastLarry]

These two were quite the pair. Keith Olbermann quite aptly noted that "which is the ventriloquist and which is the dummy hardly matters". They can't count on history being kind to them as it has been for Carter and Truman simply because Carter and Truman had very positive accomplishments to their credit. Bush and Cheney do not. People in the know who have a conscience who were a part of this outrageous period will tell their stories. Some already have. As events unfold, even some of the hard core 27%ers so driven by their ideology that they refuse to admit how awful these people were may come around and smell the coffee.

[whatsthatsound]

I expected him to say, "You can't handle the truth!"

[eden4barack08]

Cheney defends the intelligence on pre-war Iraq, Bush blames it as faulty. It's as tough there were two presidents for eight years.

[shadow322]

It is very important that they do not just mosey off into the sunset! I know Pres. Obama would like to simply "look forward from here-out." But - laws have been openly broken and the enforcement of same has been ignored. As hard as it is to prosecute elected officials, at the least we must investigate the outing of a CIA agent for political gain, the authorization and encouragement of torture, the denial of habias corpus, the pressure of our CIA, Pentagon and allies to produce investigative reports suitable to the President's wants in justifying the attack on Iraq, the willful delay of services to minority populations after Katrina, etc. After all, WE ARE OR ARE NOT A NATION OF LAWS. Rhetoric and "but we'll make sure it won't happen again" are just lies and dodging one's responsibilities in the end and only ensure that "it will happen again!"

[LeftCoastLarry]

Well stated.
PE Obama has no choice once he takes the oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. Bush repeatedly broke this promise to the American people. It is imperative that Obama pursue crimes committed by this Bush administration. We can't survive if we fail to uphold the rule of law.