Cheney: Obama Making US Less Safe

'New York Times' dives into president's counterterrorism approach

(NEWSER) - The New York Times is running what is undoubtedly today's biggest talker—in terms of both length and heft. The paper interviewed three dozen current and past Obama advisers in an attempt to define the president's counterterrorism approach—a topic it describes using words such as baffling, confounding, paradoxical, and inscrutable. Among the most notable talking points:

• Some 100 national security officials meet via video teleconference near weekly as part of a Pentagon-led "secret nominations process" (described as "an invention of the Obama administration") in which they review potential additions to the "kill list" of suspected terrorists.
• Nominations are communicated to Obama, who himself approves every single name added to the "kill list," after reviewing potential targets' bios. He OKs "lethal action without hand-wringing."

Eugene Robinson says Obama's strategy is incoherent

(NEWSER) - "Show of hands: Does anybody really understand the US policy in Afghanistan?" asks Eugene Robinson in his Washington Post column today. Because he sure doesn't, even after hearing Obama's speech from the war zone earlier this week. His big question: Why are we still there? We've taken out most of al-Qaeda's leadership—including, of course, bin Laden—wiped out its training camps, and dislodged the Taliban government. "That smells like victory to me." More»

New book says Obama's team routinely undermined him

(NEWSER) - In March 2009, in the throes of the financial crisis, Barack Obama told Tim Geithner to focus on a proposal to dissolve Citigroup—but the Treasury Secretary ignored him and never developed a plan, according to former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind’s new book Confidence Men. In the book, which was obtained early by the AP and the New York Times , Suskind writes that Obama’s “authority was being systematically undermined or hedged by his seasoned advisers.” More»

If Bush, Cheney were criminals, Obama is too

(NEWSER) - Ralph Nader, often a candidate for president and never a fan of the president or anyone who wants to be president , has quickly condemned President Obama's action in Libya , branding him a "war criminal," Mediaite reports. Sound familiar? Nader had the same pet name for George W Bush and Dick Cheney. Nader tells an interviewer that "Barack Obama is committing the same crimes as Bush and Cheney, in fact worse ones in Afghanistan." More»

But he still has enough energy to zing President Obama

(NEWSER) - Former Vice President Dick Cheney needs a new heart and may soon join a transplant list, he revealed in his first interview since major surgery. He's suffering from "end-stage" heart disease and will make a decision soon whether or not to go ahead with a transplant. In the meantime, he's as irrascible as ever and has declared Barack Obama a "one term" president because of his strategies "expanding government and the deficit, and giving more power to the government over the private sector." Cheney also boasted that Obama has apparently recognized the wisdom of many of George Bush's anti-terrorism policies. More»