Today a liberal coworker of mine stopped by to ask me what I thought of Vice President Cheney's criticism of President Obama's inaction on Afghanistan. I told him I thought Dick Cheney was right on...Obama needs to act, which I blogged about last week. After he spouted some Democrat talking points about "how Obama is waiting for the election because he needs to get this right," I pointed out that he wanted to pass a $700+ billion dollar stimulus in a week, and he originally wanted health care reform done in 2 weeks. Basically, he's tried to do everything really fast, except the one thing that all his military experts said needed to be done quickly. This simply brought out more talking points about having a friendly government in Afghanistan is what is important, and it's only 10 days until the election, and he wanted to let the Congress act on Health Care and yada yada yada.
This back and forth went on for a little while longer. Eventually this point came up in a sort of round about way: should a former VP, or President for that matter, criticize the sitting President? I asked if he had a problem with Al Gore criticizing George W. Bush when Bush was President. The response was something like..."Al Gore didn't criticize Bush this early into his Presidency." And then he walked away. I don't know why I even bother with these discussions sometimes...I just end up frustrated.
Given more time to think about this, I should have taken a totally different approach. I should have said that Dick Cheney is an American citizen. And, as American citizens, we are guaranteed the right to Freedom of Speech, so we can criticize our President if we think he is wrong. Is it Dick Cheney's fault that he gets a big audience when he chooses to criticize the President? No, not at all. And, as Hillary Clinton told us during the Bush years, it's patriotic to criticize our President.
Dick Cheney, or any American, can exercise their Freedom of Speech in any legal manner they choose. If that means speaking out against a President who they believe is totally inept on foreign policy, then by all means speak out. Heck, if an American citizen is ok with being totally wrong, they can even speak out in support of Obama and his misguided policies. That's the freedom guaranteed by our Constitution (yes Obama voters, we still have a Constitution...he hasn't managed to get rid of it yet).
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Dick Cheney is an American citizen, and he is a former Vice President. So, like all American citizens, he needs to act with care. Can criticism from a former president or vice president hurt the ability of a sitting president to lead and therefore potentially harm the United States? I believe it can. More so if they are in the same political party, which isn't the case, here obviously, but it can still have an impact on a president's ability to lead. So, Dick Cheney and others need to speak out against a president only when it really matters. Is it Dick Cheney's fault he has a larger audience? Yes. I'm pretty sure he worked very hard for that honor, so he has to use more cauiton in his remarks, but that doesn't mean he should never comment on a president's actions. I think Dick Cheney believes President Obama's inaction in Afghanistan is dangerous and costing lives. This is seroius. If this is what Dick Cheney believes then he should definitely speak out. It was would be irresponsible not to. Does he need to critique President Obama's every move? No. And he hasn't. He has spoken out when he felt Americans were in danger,as any good American citizen should.
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