Biden Says ‘Who Cares’ What Cheney Says

[cal04]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/us/politics/24veep.html?hp

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had a blunt response Friday to the latest broadsides from former Vice President Dick Cheney: “Who cares?”

In the latest exchange between old and new administrations, Mr. Biden rebuffed his predecessor’s criticism about President Obama’s handling of Afghanistan as “absolutely wrong.” And Mr. Biden rejected the last review of the war conducted by the White House under former President George W. Bush and Mr. Cheney as “irrelevant.”

The dismissive reply came during in an interview here at the end of Mr. Biden’s three-day swing through Eastern Europe and underscored the weariness in the current White House with Mr. Cheney’s periodic assaults on the new team’s record. At the same time, advisers to President Obama and Mr. Biden consider the former vice president a useful public foil and have not shied away from escalating the debate by taking him on directly.

(snip)
“Who cares what — ” he said, and then stopped himself to find another way to put it. (“I can see the headline now,” said the famously free-wheeling vice president. “I’m getting better, guys.”)

But he went on to dismiss the Bush-Cheney review as inadequate. “That’s why the president asked me to get in the plane in January and go to Afghanistan,” Mr. Biden said. “I came back with a different review.”

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. Cheney is the past, a 'has been'

[blondeatlast]

5. Great minds think alike--I said much the same below! nt

[Ardent15]

2. Cheney is a criminal. I thought we don't pay attention to criminals?

Fucker should be in prison.

[blondeatlast]

3. Joe plays the press like a fiddle. There's not a reason in the world we should pay attention

to a has-been.

[Barack_America]

4. It's my policy to ignore angry and irrelevant people.

It's great for my mental health.

I really could not care less what Cheney has to say about anything.

[Ardent15]

7. We shouldn't ignore Cheney...

We should ARREST Cheney!

[Barack_America]

9. True. But I don't have that authority.

So I'll stick with ignoring him for the time being.

[bluedeminredstate]

6. He also could have said in response to Cheney,

"So?" Thus quoting him and telling him to piss off in the same breath.

[pinto]

8. LOL. One of Obama's first good moves - choosing Biden as VP running mate.

While one is careful to parse his statements, one is more off the cuff, yet both are sincere, knowledgeable, opinionated and persistent. A good team, imo.

[Barack_America]

10. I love how he cut himself off saying, "I can see the headline now"...

...then the Times went right ahead and make it the freaking headline.

Poor guy, he can't catch a break.

[pinto]

16. I bet he's used to that.

:evilgrin:

[Muttocracy]

24. me too. nt

[CoffeeCat]

11. What Cheney is doing is unprecedented...

Can you imagine Bill Clinton getting on all media outlets and trying to dictate foreign police, during
Bush's administration???

No other former President, let along, vice president--has been so brazen, arrogant and unable to realize
that his time is DONE.

WTF is wrong with Cheney? Seriously.

I'm glad Biden said this, but I'm disappointed that he appears to back off. The quote should have been, "Dick
Cheney needs to slide down a razor banister into a vat of lemon juice", but I guess I'll take, "Who cares?". But
we shouldn't back off from a benign comment like that.

Cheney certainly has no problem being a brash, overbearing, outspoken blowhard.

[redqueen]

13. He's an evil cancer, that's what's wrong with him.

He wants to be a dictator.

[Ardent15]

18. In practice he WAS a qausi-dictator for the last 8 years

[redqueen]

20. Yep... and he sitll has some of his evil minions in place...

still working for their dark lord. x(

[redqueen]

12. LOL... nice... not too many I'd think,

after the way he and Bush handled Afghanistan.

[fujiyama]

14. Would have been great if Biden said

"Mr. Cheney. Go fuck yourself".

[stanwyck]

17. I believe that was the clear implication

Really. Who cares what Cheney has to say. He's been wrong more times than Bill Kristol.

[rvablue]

15. K&R! Love the plain spoken VP! n/t

[malaise]

19. Perfect answer

Good for Joe.

[Edweird]

21. Finally. It's about damned time.

[Catshrink]

22. Reminds me of the movie Tootsie

when Dorothy went off-script and the director would frantically scroll through the teleprompter trying to find where she was.

[Overseas]

23. Go Joe! I agree. Who cares what the war criminals say?

I am always disappointed to see any of them on TV-- THEY LOST both wars-- they are still going on, draining our treasury and creating more terrorists. The Cheeeneey Gang embroiled us in those two quagmires

AFTER they ignored the many warnings and couldn't stop 9-11.

Cheney actually wants us to believe his gang kept us safe while they were creating more terrorists by the thousands with their imprecise bombing and torturing in two wars--

both ostensibly to get Bin Laden who they never got.

Just because CHeeeeeneeeey does his "I've kept my voice low like Kissinger to show that I'm a serious guy who knows about serious international issues that would frighten the rest of you peons to death" thing, doesn't mean the networks should take him seriously.

Every time he appears anywhere he should be asked about brushing aside the Geneva Conventions, and how that endangers our own soldiers, how he can lecture the next administration when his team couldn't find a 6-foot tall Saudi who needed regular dialysis, and whether he thinks we should pay reparations to the families of the Japanese we executed for waterboarding in WWII, etc. etc.

We could also ask Dick The Torturer how he felt about the Bush Bailout, as a long time supply-sider who favored deregulation, was he disappointed that the deregulated financial sector gambled away billions of dollars and needed Bush to bail them out with 700 billion of our taxpayer dollars?

[anonymous171]

25. I love Biden. nt