Dick Cheney Loves Obama's Drones

In what may be a side-effect from a transplanted heart–his first ever!–Dick Cheney had something nice to say about the Obama Administration.

Which of Barack Obama's policies does Cheney agree with? If you guessed that he really enjoys the killer flying robots and nothing else, then you earn zero trivia points, because of course he enjoys the killer flying robots and nothing else.

"I think it's a good program and I don't disagree with the basic policy that the Obama administration is pursuing now in those regards," Cheney told CBS host Charlie Rose, in reference to the U.S. drone program.

This follows the statement of Bush-era UN ambassador John "Hot Mustache" Bolton, who noted, "[T]he approach that the Obama administration is following is consistent with and really derived from the Bush administration approach to the War on Terror, and I think it is entirely sensible."

It's amazing: the Bush Administration has been out of power for over four years, and they're still torturing people. Except now their victims are Obama supporters who have to deal with the brain-exploding cognitive dissonance of being on the same side as Cheney and Bolton.

Previously
Dick Cheney Says Canada Too Dangerous to Visit

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Tags: Barack Obama, Dick Cheney, Drones, Military

Monday Links: Drone Drama

* The Kroll Show dramatizes drones.

* Pope Beyonce? Yes please!

* A list of historical fallacies, from Cracked.

* A little girl hears Bad Brains for the first time.

* Please don't watch this if you're afraid of spiders.

* More George W. Bush selfies have surfaced.

* Maybe if we had fewer guns we'd have cooler fisticuffs.

* Jesse Thorn's new show on NPR looks very promising.

*How to order takeout during a blizzard without being a dick. (Save this one for next time.)

* Teddy Roosevelt had an interesting way of expressing himself.

Tags: Beyonce, Dick Cheney, Drones, Funny or Die, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Guns, Nick Kroll, NPR, Oscars, Pope Benedict XVI, Punk Rock, Ronald Reagan, Spiders, Theodore Roosevelt, Weather

Tweet Untweet: Whatever Happened to Baby Cheney?

The NRA isn’t on Facebook anymore? Shoot, who’ll like all of Dick Cheney’s baby pics now?

— Erik Bergstrom (@Erik_Bergstrom) December 18, 2012

 

Tags: Dick Cheney, Facebook, NRA, Tweet Untweet, Twitter

Paul Ryan, Most Severely Conservative V.P. Nominee in History?

Mitt Romney once described himself as a "severely conservative governor," marking the first time that adverb had been used to describe something other than an illness. Whether or not that's true, according to Nate Silver's analysis of House vote data, Ryan is the most severely conservative vice presidential nominee in at least 100 years…

Various statistical measures of Mr. Ryan peg him as being quite conservative. Based on his Congressional voting record, for instance, the statistical system DW-Nominate evaluates him as being roughly as conservative as Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.

By this measure, in fact, which rates members of the House and Senate throughout different time periods on a common ideology scale, Mr. Ryan is the most conservative Republican member of Congress to be picked for the vice-presidential slot since at least 1900. He is also more conservative than any Democratic nominee was liberal, meaning that he is the furthest from the center. (The statistic does not provide scores for governors and other vice-presidential nominees who never served in Congress.)

Unfortunately, that's not how science — even political science — works. In essence, a NOMINATE score measures how frequently a member of Congress agrees with other members of his or her party, but the policies that constitute the party line change over the years.

For example, a loyal Republican in the 1930s may be a staunch isolationist, while a Republican with a similar score in the 2000s will only favor withdrawal from Iraq if the troops are sent next door to Iran. Likewise, congressmen from the 1920s couldn't vote to cut Social Security and throw grandma off the fiscal cliff because Social Security didn't exist.

So it's not possible to evaluate whether Ryan is more conservative than Charles W. Fairbanks, though it's perfectly plausible to use NOMINATE to determine that Ryan stands somewhere to the right of Dick Cheney. A dangerous place politically and also physically, as it may get you shot in the face.

Chart by Nate Silver/NY Times

Tags: Conservatives, Dick Cheney, Nate Silver, New York Times, Paul Ryan

Quote Unquote: McCain v. Cheney

Following Dick Cheney's recent comments regarding his V.P. choice four years ago, John McCain defuses the situation…

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"I respect the vice president. He and I had strong disagreements as to whether we should torture people or not. I don't think we should have."

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It's always nice when Sen. McCain lets his integrity out for some fresh air every now and again.

Tags: Dick Cheney, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Torture, Veepstakes