Dick Cheney Smears The President By Claiming Obama Thinks Bush Overreacted to 9/11

On ABC’s This Week, Dick Cheney smeared President Obama by claiming that the president thought Bush overreached after 9/11.

Video:

To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.

Transcript:

STEPHANOPOULOS: One of the things they’re doing is backing away from the so-called democracy agenda that was propagated by President Bush in your administration.

But you weren’t, it seemed, a big fan of that.

Do you think it’s right to scale it back?

CHENEY: Well, I think the U.S. presence in the Middle East was enormously important now for decades, going all the way back certainly before Desert Storm. I think that presence and that capability and that influence has been significantly diminished as we have withdrawn from the region. We’ve cut the number of forces we have in the region.

I think our friends no longer count on us, no longer trust us and our adversaries don’t fear us. That was sort of the cornerstone and the basis of the U.S. ability and influence.

If we’re not heavily involved there, if we’ve turned our back on the region, if we’ve had a president who believes we overreacted to the terrorism attacks on 9/11, I think the Saudis, the Emirates, the Egyptians, many in that part of the world no longer have confidence in the United States.

Cheney was referring to the president’s Cairo speech in 2009. The former vice president has been fuming for years about this speech. He even demanded an apology from President Obama in 2011 for the claim that Bush/Cheney overreached after 9/11, but the president never said anything about overreach. It never happened. It’s a Republican myth that was created by those believe that President Obama is anti-America.

What Cheney really hated about the speech was that it was a rejection of the neo-con Bush Doctrine. During the same interview where he smeared the president, Cheney called for war with Iran. He also claimed that Obama had failed on Syria because he did not take military action.

Dick Cheney is telling lies about the president, because he can’t handle the fact that Barack Obama is succeeding where he failed. Cheney has been spreading this untrue story about overreach and 9/11 for years, and it is time that he finally got called out on it.

Cheney’s remarks reveal that some Republicans will never accept the fact that President Obama loves his country, and they will continue to paint him as anti-American until the day that he leaves office.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association