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Cheney: Obama Making US Less Safe

Former VP slams prez for quashing 'essential' Bush policies

By Wesley Oliver, Newser Staff

Posted Mar 15, 2009 9:57 AM CDT

(Newser) – President Obama "is making some choices that will in fact raise the risk to the American people of an attack," former VP Dick Cheney charged today. Appearing relaxed and slimmer on CNN’s State of the Union, Cheney upbraided Obama for revising the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies, which he called “absolutely essential” to preventing another 9/11-style attack. “They are very much giving up that focus that’s required,” Cheney said.

Bellyaching was at the top o' the morning around the Sunday circuit:

Cheney expressed frustration over President Bush's refusal to pardon Scooter Libby. "I was clearly not happy that we in effect left Scooter hanging in the wind, which I don't think was appropriate," he said.
On Fox News Sunday, Barney Frank fumed over the $165 million AIG bonuses. "It is wrong," he said, declaring the payouts an example "of people at the commanding heights of the economy misbehaving, abusing the system."
Larry Summers agreed on ABC's This Week, calling the bonuses "outrageous." Obama's chief economic adviser also declined to say if the economy has bottomed out and warned that the nation's problems "are not going to get fixed rapidly."

[Images (4)]

[Videos (1)]

Asked Sunday if President Obama's policies are making the US less safe, former Vice President Dick Cheney said: "Yes." (AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov, Pool)

President Barack Obama gestures during his meeting with Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Saturday, March 14, 2009. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

White House National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers appears for an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week, in Washington, Sunday, March 15, 2009. (AP Photo/ABC News, Lauren Victoria Burke)

Former Vice President Dick Cheney appears on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday, March 15, 2009. Cheney's going high-tech with a BlackBerry and an e-reader. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

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Former Vice President Dick Cheney tells "State of the Union" that the Bush administration "accomplished nearly everything" it set out to do in Iraq. (CNN Video)

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Cheney: Obama Making US Less Safe