In this month’s Playboy, former Vice President Dick Cheney sat down with Fox New correspondent James Rosen for an in-depth interview about his time as George W. Bush’s right hand man during the most tumultuous period in America’s recent history.
It’s a good read. I’m not gonna tell you have to read it, but you won’t be any worse off if you do. Sure, in it is a lot of the usual partisan hackery, the reflexive dismissal of anything Barack Obama’s done, and lots of rote general talking points. But there are some insights.
One of the more interesting (and appalling things) I read was during the discussion about interning suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Cheney essentially dismissed the interviewer’s question about innocent people being detained at the camp. He justifies it in the context that because actual terrorists were held, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, it didn’t matter that some people who committed no crimes were held without any trials for a decade.
Frankly, I didn’t worry a lot about that… I didn’t sit around wringing my hands at night worrying about an innocent terrorist down in Guantánamo. [T]hey were well cared for, treated far better than they would have been in their own country, in terms of the facilities, the services that were provided for them and the things we did to meet the highest standards. They’re probably better than some of the municipal jails here in the United States.
Yea fuck that. That to me seems so completely counter to the ethos of everything America was founded upon, and it makes Cheney’s claim that Barack Obama has done more to harm foreign relations than any president ever downright laughable. “Sure, we held innocent nationals for years and denied them basic human rights, but the stupid black dude had the fucking gall to apologize for it,” you can almost hear him exasperatedly screaming.
But I’m biased. He also throws George W. Bush under the bus regarding ‘enhanced interrogation’ procedures, claiming 43 knew the entire time about them, which seems like a calculated reveal given the (albeit very faint) specter of criminal charges looming.
Oh, and he admits to having sold hash at Yale before he dropped out.
I was invited back to Yale to speak to a large gathering of alums in the dining hall where I used to sling hash when I was a freshman. There must have been over a thousand people there. This was a period of time when the whole country is cheering: We won in Desert Storm; the troops are coming home and so forth. I was invited to come speak, and it was very well received. But I was never sure—and I’ve never asked—but I was never sure they knew they’d kicked me out 30 years before.
Two things about that. One, it’s nice to know that three out of the past four presidents and vice presidents have had some experience with marijuana, so you needn’t worry about the behaviors you have now precluding you from running for office.
Two, America post-9/11 is what happens when you allow a former drug kingpin to mastermind foreign policy.