Consequential

Gene Weingarten’s civics test.

The Cheney Legacy of Go Fuck Yourself Tour continues. Today, Fox aired an interview with Cheney recorded Friday.

He explained his 29% approval rating (who are these people?) as not really being about him personally: “Eventually, you wear out your welcome in this business.”

He said that Biden was entirely wrong in criticizing as dangerous Cheney’s views of the scope of executive power, and what proves Biden is entirely wrong about absolutely everything is that one time he said that the powers of the executive branch are enumerated in Article I of the Constitution, when it’s actually Article II. Stoopid Biden.

Chris Wallace asked the Frost/Nixon question and got the Frost/Nixon answer: “If the president, during war, decides to do something to protect the country, is it legal?” Cheney: “In general proposition, I’d say yes.”

He suggested that the powers of the executive branch are entirely dependent on the “specific circumstance,” which I’m guessing he found in Article II of Stuff I Pulled Out of My Ass. For example, he said, the president now has the authority to launch a nuclear attack any time he feels like it. “He doesn’t have to check with anybody, he doesn’t have to call the Congress, he doesn’t have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in.”

He disagreed with Bush’s firing Rummy: “I was a Rumsfeld man.”

GLAD YOU ENJOYED IT: What was the “Highest moment in the last eight years? Well, I think the most important, the most compelling, was 9/11 itself”. Wallace, trying to help him out, suggested that 9/11 might also have been the lowest moment. “Sure, yes.”

ORDER OF MERIT: Cheney admitted having told Patrick Leahy to fuck himself, but “I thought he merited it at the time.”

IF YOU CAN’T SAY SOMETHING NICE ABOUT SOMEBODY, SAY THAT HE’S “CONSEQUENTIAL”: Cheney was unwilling to name a favorite president, but offered that Bush has “been, in my mind, a very consequential president”.