Former Vice President Dick Cheney gave an interview to conservative talk radio host Scott Hennen today, in which he slammed President Obama’s “fundamentally harmful” bow to the Japanese Emperor during his trip to Asia.
In the interview, Cheney says that when the President bows to a foreign leader, “our friends and allies don’t expect it and our adversaries perceive it as a sign of weakness.”
“I think it’s fundamentally harmful and it shows in my mind that this is a guy, a president, who would bow, for example, who doesn’t fully understand or have the same perception of the U.S. role in the world that I think most Americans have,” he says.
Cheney concludes: “What I see in President Obama is somebody who bows before foreign leaders and spends his trips aboard primarily apologizing for U.S. behavior. I find that very upsetting.”
The former vice president did not offer the same criticism of his former bosses, former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Richard Nixon. Bush traveled to Tokyo for Emperor Hirohito’s funeral in 1989 and bowed to the casket. Nixon bowed to Chairman Mao Zedong during his historic visit to China in 1972.
Cheney’s interview follows remarks by his daughter, Liz Cheney, that suggest that Obama’s bow means her father should run for President in 2012. After watching a video of Obama bowing, and then one of her relatively stiff-backed father meeting the Japanese emperor in 2007, Liz Cheney said on Fox News Sunday: “You could also look at the comparison and think, Cheney 2012.”
Cheney also weighed in on the Department of Justice decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other suspected terrorists in civilian court in New York City. Cheney said:
I can’t for the life of me figure out what Holder’s intent here, and in terms of having Khalid Sheikh Mohammed tried in a civilian court, other than to have some kind of show trial here. They’ll simply use it as a platform to argue their case. They don’t have a defense to speak of. It’ll be a place for them to stand up and defend the terrible ideology that they adhere to.
Here’s the full video:
