Dick Cheney’s “Blame Obama” tour

Merriam-Webster defines the word “chutzpah” as, “Having personal confidence or courage that allows someone to do or say things that may seem shocking to others.” It derives from a Hebrew word hutspa meaning “insolence,” “cheek” or “audacity.”

There is no better word in any language to describe former Vice President Dick Cheney. Every time the sneering sack of soulless spin opens his mouth, the words that fall out are so maddeningly insolent, cheeky and audacious, he makes Darth Sidious sound like a Sunday school teacher.

The Tin Man of modern politics is now crisscrossing the country promoting the book he wrote with his daughter Liz, Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America. In an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, Chaney said of the recent Iran deal, “I can't think of a more terrible burden to leave the next president than what Obama is creating here." He added that he thought Obama “was the worst president we’ve ever had.”

Chutzpah, anyone? This truckload of bullshit has me gagging. To have the audacity to call Obama the worst president in this country’s history after having served under the dimwit Bush who, according to actual historians is considered one of the worst American presidents, is unbelievable. The man whose boss was President during the worst terrorist attack this country has ever faced, who handed Obama a $450 billion dollar deficit when he left office (which ballooned to $1.4 trillion the following year), and who arrogantly and illegally started wars in the Middle East that Obama was left to clean up, this man has the audacity to pretend that all of this is Obama’s fault.

With his new book and interviews by the conservative media, Cheney is undertaking the arduous task of rewriting history. He knows Americans have notoriously short memories, and he’s capitalizing on that fact with his “Blame Obama” tour. And no one in politics does this kind of damage control better than Cheney. It’s up to the rest of us to remind Americans that the majority of the problems we face today, from a struggling economy to the eternal war on terror to abuses of the surveillance state, all have their genesis in the Bush era.

Cheney should be writing his autobiography with a crayon from a jail cell at a federal prison and not being showered with attention and accolades from the right wing media. In that arena, Cheney’s chutzpah is not merely indulged, but rewarded. What a world.