Liz Cheney on Axelrod’s Claim of No Scandals: It’s the ‘See No Evil Administration’
CHENEY: “If the question is what he’s most proud of, obviously there isn’t a lot to choose from in this administration. But for goodness' sake, to sit there and say there have been no scandals -- and I was watching your last segment with Secretary Rumsfeld talking about the fact they are in denial on the national security front. This is the see-no-evil administration, hear about no scandal. They really have this attitude that if they pretend it doesn’t exist, it doesn’t exist. We won’t see it. At some level tough it’s not scandal in terms of just sort of bad press. This is very serious violation of a sacred trust with the American people across the board. Whether it’s Benghazi or whether it's using the IRS to target political enemies. I think that's clearly how history is going to judge this president.”
HEMMER: “Republican would tick those off and they'd probably mention a few more. On screen, the ObamaCare rollouts. If you like your doctor, keep your doctor. Like your plan, keep your plan. IRS targeting, Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the VA backlog, which was a horrendous experience for our veterans and for some it still continues. Axelrod said our record may not be pristine but it’s light-years ahead of previous administrations. What about that?”
CHENEY: “I’m not sure which administrations he’s talking about but I really do think that if you look at how this administration's operated, the level of misruths to the American people I would say is unparalleled at least in recent memory, recent history. They haven’t been called to account by large sections of the media, they know they can get away with it. But as you mentioned, something like the VA scandal and something like Benghazi -- there is a common thread that runs through the national security issues and the domestic scandals and that is, they say what’s necessary to protect Barack Obama. And they put our national security at risk. For example, something like Benghazi, not admitting even to this day on the part of some of them that this was a terrorist attack. It was a terrorist attack by Islamic terrorists on our embassy and on our facilities instead of claiming for many, many weeks and months afterwards that it was caused by a video. That somehow he was saying the tide of war was receding and if he admitted that actually we had been attacked by terrorists that put a lie to that notion and it was the middle of the presidential campaign.”
HEMMER: “Explain this if you could. The Gallup numbers I believe in the past week hit 50 percent approval. I know you believe everything you just said, but on the screen it’s now 48 - 48 approval to disapproval. All things considered, I think you can be happy with a number like that if you are a commander-in-chief but the question is why is it there?”
CHENEY: “I think frankly he would like to see those numbers higher but I think it does go back to a real sort of absence of responsibility on the part of much of the media. The free press plays an incredibly crucial role in our society. This president is not covered and he's not held to the same standards that his predecessors have been. They know that and they get away with things. When you have a situation where the commander-in-chief is putting our national security at risk because he’s unwilling to say we are at war with Islamic terrorists and we have an embassy that’s attacked and ambassador killed and they still continue the lies, that's what the history books will say. They will talk about a violation of sacred trust, I think they will talk about dereliction of duty. They can pretend as much as they want but I don’t know that we have seen, certainly that I can recall, an administration so divorced from reality as this current one is.”
