I’ve been told never to argue with drunks, and never to kick people when they’re down. What happens, however, when they throw the first punch, verbally or otherwise?
CNN has reported a poll that 72% of Americans disagree with Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s assertion that the Obama administration is worsening America’s security. Whether we are improving our security is an important question, and while clearly the last administration did a dismal job at diplomacy that led to America’s isolation, why go there now?
The answer is that Vice President Dick Cheney chose to open his mouth. There is an unwritten rule in executive politics that you do not speak ill of either your successor or your predecessor. The reason is obvious: it looks like sour grapes. Cheney has vested his ego in an approach that the American people have demonstrably disagree with
. It is also possible that the man whose policies were a huge source of controversy misses the limelight. And it is certainly true that Cheney believes that his policies were the correct ones, and that the dismantling of those policies are dangerous: he’s not lying.
This leaves open the question of whether Vice President Joe Biden should engage in the same kind of dirt throwing, negative politics. It goes back to the Vince Lombardi rule: when you get to the end zone, act like you’ve been there before. Having exited with the lowest opinion poles in history, Cheney is not in a position to affect public opinion. So why then engage him?