Cheney Calls Former President Bush A Wuss

Ken AshfordBush & Co.Leave a Comment

Well, in so many words.

Cheney's outspokenness since leaving office has not been reserved exclusively for President Obama or Democrats. He's now going after his own former boss as well.  The Washington Post reports:

In his first few months after leaving office, former vice president Richard B. Cheney threw himself into public combat against the "far left" agenda of the new commander in chief. More private reflections, as his memoir takes shape in slashing longhand on legal pads, have opened a second front against Cheney's White House partner of eight years, George W. Bush.

Cheney's disappointment with the former president surfaced recently in one of the informal conversations he is holding to discuss the book with authors, diplomats, policy experts and past colleagues. By habit, he listens more than he talks, but Cheney broke form when asked about his regrets.

"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. He'd showed an independence that Cheney didn't see coming. It was clear that Cheney's doctrine was cast-iron strength at all times — never apologize, never explain — and Bush moved toward the conciliatory."

The two men maintain respectful ties, speaking on the telephone now and then, though aides to both said they were never quite friends. But there is a sting in Cheney's critique, because he views concessions to public sentiment as moral weakness. After years of praising Bush as a man of resolve, Cheney now intimates that the former president turned out to be more like an ordinary politician in the end.

Cheney comes from an old-school Nixonian Republican party (he, in fact, served in the Nixon White House).  Bush came from, well, partying at Yale Business School.  It's nice to know that a little of Bush Sr. came to rest with Junior.

And Cheney?  Dude's scary.  One wonders what this country would be like if he was in the top seat during the last decade.