has been in this series of attacks he has mounted on this administration. this administration, after all, found it necessary to send a sitting vice president out twice on sunday programming to respond to cheney, a man that they claim that they are delighted to be in a big argument with because he is so terribly unpopular. well, i think if that were so, they wouldn t be so sensitive about him and they wouldn t have sent the sight sitting vice president out to rebut him. bill: do you know if cheney was booked first and then they got wind of it and then offered biden up. yes, i think that s the case. cheney was booked and then biden was booked. bill: there is no doubt and i think you are absolutely right that dick cheney has put pressure on the obama administration. however, when the president does say flat out in the state of the union, look, i know we are in a war, we are going to fight the war and then he does the aggressive drone program, finally he delivered the troops to afgha
i don t know that he wanted to do it in the end. he certainly was afraid of it despite the fact that he had campaigned for quite a long time on it, but he did it. and republicans should support him. i think by and large have. even vice president cheney said yet yesterday he doesn t have a problem with the afghanistan policy. on this range of other things that pertain as well, i think republicans have every reason to criticize him and i think the criticism, particularly from cheney, has had an effect. bill: now, do you believe that going forward president obama has to change and become more aggressive, become a tougher warrior because i say this in the scott brown polling, his own polling, the senator s own polling, after he defeated martha coakley in massachusetts, it said that the terrorism issue was big. because brown, as you know, not only advocated no civilian courts, keep gitmo open, he said waterboarding should be used. i think. bill: internal polling said this was a big,
even asking me this question isn t because of anything that they said that was especially enlightening. i mean, i didn t learn anything from it. i think the reason we are talking about it is because the media loves confrontation. it loves drama. and that s what we had yesterday. we had dueling vvice presidents slugging it out over anti-terrorism. i don t think you learned anything. whoever you liked going in, that s who you think came off looking better after the interview. bill: here is what i learned yesterday. i learned that the white house, that president obama is very nervous about dick cheney, as we have discussed here. exactly. bill: and that as soon as they found out that cheney was going to have this forum, and, remember, it s only about three and a half million, 4 million people who see. this not a huge number. okay? but it will be replayed on all the shows like this one and this and that. as soon as they found out cheney was going to be put on they put
listening, and that s what sparked the outrage. what are you talking about. these people are trying to kill us. they are terrorists, it just hence to fuel the idea that, you know what? the obama administration is not at war despite what the president said, that his words don t match the behavior and policies. i m sorry, bill. bill: should they fire brennan? should he just shut up? what should happen to him because he is hurting the president? he needs to be reigned in. bill: reigned in? he is not the spokesman. he is not the guy you want as a spokesman. let me quickly adhere in response to something mary katharine said. i don t think the man she called darth vader, dick cheney, is the best spokeman at this point for criticizing the obama administration s activities because bill: i thought darth vader was me. i thought she was calling me darth vader. [ laughter ] all he does is credit size bill: he does have credibility. he is a tough guy. and as human pointed hume
terrorism. foggy situation to be sure. yesterday there was interesting political display on the sunday morning programs. we are billing it the battle of the vice presidents. in this corner dick cheney. up until 9/11, all terrorist attacks were criminal acts. after 9/11, we made the decision that these were acts of war. these were strategic threats to the united states. once you make that judgment, then you can use a much broader range of tools, in terms of going after your adversary. bill: mr. cheney went on to say that trying khalid sheikh mohammed in civilian court is a about big mistake as is closing down guantanamo bay. in reply, vice president joe biden said this: dick cheney s a fine fellow. he is entitled to his own opinions. he is not entitled to rewrite history. the president of the united states said in the state of the union we are at war with al qaeda. he by the way, we are pursuing the war with a vigor like it s never been seen before. bill: to be fair, both side