During this afternoon’s White House press conference, Robert Gibbs positively lambasted Dick Cheney — both for the attacks that Cheney lodged against PResident Obama in yesterday’s CNN interview, and for Cheney’s own record in office:
Gibbs was asked about Cheney’s line that the Obama Administration is making the country less safe. “Well, I guess Rush Limbaugh was busy,” Gibbs said, prompting of the reporters to laugh out loud. “So they trotted out their next-most popular member of the Republican cabal.”
Gibbs then elaborated on Obama’s responsibilities as president to fight terrorist — and the failures that came before him:
“I think the President saw over the seven-plus years the delay in bringing the very people to justice that committed terrorist acts on this soil and on foreign soil. That delay in seeking swift and certain justice was what he decided to change through his executive order. In changing the legal architecture by which these terrorists would finally be brought to justice. I think the American people will in this administration see those actors brought to the swift and certain justice that was not brought to them in the previous administration.”
As for Cheney’s criticism of Obama on the economy: “I think not taking economic advice from Dick Cheney would be maybe the best possible outcome of yesterday’s interview.”
And later on, Gibbs stated again his response to Cheney’s national-security criticism: “For seven-plus years, the very perpetrators that the Vice President said he’s concerned about weren’t brought to justice.”
