Cheney goes Time Warp on PBS Newshour

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Many decades ago, there was a Lon Chaney who scared the bejeezus out of audiences whenever her appeared. His namesake Dick Cheney, who is hawking an unapologetic book about his years in the Bush43 administration, is not much different.

Few would expect the former Vice President to apologize for misleading the public into believing Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks, so it should come as no surprise that he's still a master obfuscater hell-bent on misleading the electorate. From the PBS Newshour site:

JUDY WOODRUFF: You talk about national security more than the economy in the book. But when it comes to deficits, you responded to something that Paul O'Neill, the former treasury secretary, wrote, when at one point you told him Ronald Reagan proved deficits don't matter.

You responded he took you out of context; that is not really what you meant. But, today, how much of a priority should there be on deficits?

DICK CHENEY: Oh, there has to be a big priority on it.

We're to the point now, especially as a result of looking at our long-term debt problem and entitlements in particular, we have to have -- I hope the special committee that's been appointed will, in fact, adopt a major program to reduce our deficits.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Even though there wasn't that sort of focus on deficits in your administration?

DICK CHENEY: Well, first of all, the deficit wasn't nearly as big obviously as it is today. It's been significantly expanded under the Obama administration.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, it was $400 billion when you and President Bush left office.

DICK CHENEY: But now we're talking about a deficit, a debt that rivals our total national annual economy of upwards of $14 trillion.

The situation today is more serious than it was then. It's going to require us to go after entitlements, as well as all other aspects of federal spending. And it's essential that we do it.

That's right, Dick Cheney is pushing the Republican Time Warp strategy for 2012. And Ms Woodruff seems to be helping him. In fact, the last Bush-Cheney budget (for FY2009) was some three times that $400 billion amount, and his administration and other Republican administrations are responsible for about $10 trillion of that $14 trillion.

Republican policy in a nutshell: Budget deficits and national debt don't matter, unless the Democrats are in the White House, at which time we cry "national emergency!" over the problem and hope the hop polloi forgets that we created it.

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