The spectacle of a former Bush Administration stalwart when confronted by questions from government officials saying “I don’t recall,”  again and again is troublesome.  It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Dick Cheney is not telling the truth and that he is being less than truthful about what he remembers because he believes the truth could get him fined or imprisoned. 

The problem in my view, with accusing Dick Cheney of being less untruthful is you have to stipulate which time.  The time he fought tooth and nail to keep the American people from knowing that he was colluding in secret meetings with oil companies to do something he did not want us all to know about?  Raising prices perhaps?

Or how about the time he cherry picked, massaged and made up intelligence in support of the illegal, unnecessary, and ill-timed Iraq war?  Or how about the time he blamed the Intelligence agencies for the bad intelligence he forced out of them?

Or the time he supported torture in support of the illegal war in Iraq?

Or maybe the reference to Dick Cheney being a stranger to the truth is over the notion that he knew nothing about outing a CIA agent for purely political reasons in violation of national security.

There is an idea in business called the Peter Principle.  In general it says that we each of us rise to our level of incompetence.  I think that of all the Vice Presidents history that Dick Cheney was the most emblematic of the Peter Principle in action there has ever been and may ever be.  Former Senator Joe Biden seems like a merely a loose lipped bumbler by comparison.

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia