I've grown fond of former President George W. Bush since he left office. During his book tour, it became apparent he has a great sense of humor. I guess it's asking a little much, though, to expect a sitting president to be a comedian while carrying a load of trouble on his shoulders.
But most of all, I appreciate how he refuses to critique or second-guess the current president. What a gentleman! He's one of the few individuals willing to give the man a pass and let him make his own decisions.
A while back we had Condoleeza Rice spouting about how much better she would do things. And now, former Vice President Dick Cheney has come out of the woodwork to express himself.
The interview on This Week was interesting if uninformative. The more he was pressed to tell exactly what steps he would take to do it differently, the more he sidestepped the answer. He just kept saying the President should recognize it's more of a problem than just this situation in Iraq and Syria.
Really, Mr. Cheney, you don't think the man knows this? Let's see what clues he might have. In Africa, rebel groups kidnapped a whole group of girls that he had to try to help rescue. Iran is a little quiet now, but periodically causes distress. Hamas has kidnapped three young boys. Pakistan, a supposed ally, harbored America's number one enemy for a long period of time and then got ticked off when Navy Seals slipped in and took him out without their official permission. India is a little restless. Piracy was a big issue for a while. Afghanistan sort of wants us to leave troops behind but isn't willing to make any compromises to keep them. The Afghan government expects and accepts financial aid from our country while accepting dollars from our enemies as well -- and then badmouths us. Russia is taking parts of Ukraine away from Ukraine and seems to want more. Egypt erupted to get freedom and wound up with disaster. We can't even bear to talk about Syria. North Korea wants their ball friends to tell the President to call their leader so he won't have to "do war". Then he gets centrifuges. Different sects of the same religion can't seem to get along amongst themselves much less with other religions. Crazy people are willing to kill for converts. I'm sure Allah appreciates this -- and yes Sheldon Cooper, that is sarcasm. Dead people cannot become converts. But, then, it looks like they kill because they like it.
There is civil war and terrorism everywhere. We get one firestorm stamped out and another pops up. We get called in to help in situations then get blamed and hated when we do. But, you somehow feel the need to go on air and tell the man that he can't see the big picture while you can. And, to think, you are not even in the inner circle that hears the worst information. When pressed for what exactly he should do, aside from leaving more of our kids there to get blown up by terrorists, you've got no answers.
I think some members of The Round Table got it right. All this Republican hot air is meant as distraction to keep the government from solving the real issues. Of course, they also hope if they hash and rehash the same situations over and over, they will win all the key political positions next time. Maybe this will work, but then it didn't last time, did it?
If you have nothing more constructive than this to say, Mr. Cheney, a zipper on your mouth would be very nice.
Oh, yeah. I neglected to mention that you rushed to inform us when pressed, that your own mistakes were past and had no bearing on the current situation. Two questions on this. Didn't the mistakes you made get us into a lot of this mess? How come you Republicans keep bringing up past Democratic errors if the past doesn't have anything to do with the present?
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