Nutroot’s. Heads. Explode.
‘Remarkably Successful’: Dick Cheney Defends Waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed:
Via Breitbart.
Cheney also said that Obama should be grateful to Bush.
The Hill reported:
Vice President Cheney predicts that Barack Obama will be grateful for the state of presidency he inherits from President Bush.
And while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other congressional Democrats have repeatedly criticized Bush for grabbing power, Cheney argued that Obama, the Democratic president-elect, will be glad of it.
“My guess is, once they get here and they’re faced with the same problems we deal with every day, that they will appreciate some of the things we put in place,” said Cheney Monday in a telephone interview with conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh.
Furthermore, Cheney does not think Obama is about to give those hard-won gains back to Congress.
“I think the Obama administration is not likely to cede that authority back to the Congress,” said Cheney. “I think they’ll find that given a challenge they face they’ll need all the authority they can muster.”
Cheney has made expansion of presidential and vice-presidential power a hallmark of the administration.
Over the past eight years, Bush, Cheney and senior executive branch officials have pursued innovative legal theories to expand their prerogatives.
Bush attached signing statements to legislation asserting his power to disobey elements of newly enacted laws and approved warrantless surveillance of persons making international calls from the U.S.
He also authorized the detention of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and established military tribunals to try suspects outside the U.S. courts system.
