Boy, Dick Cheney really is
determined to caricature himself:
During an event sponsored by Politico, Cheney said the next president needs to "turn around the whole trend" of cutting defense dollars.
"That ought to be our top priority for spending. Not food stamps, not highways or anything else," Cheney said. "Your No. 1 responsibility as president is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. [Obama] is the commander-in-chief and he's absolutely devastating the United States military today.”
Since when are increasing the defense budget and supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States synonymous? I guess if that's Cheney's understanding of the Constitution, it might explain a thing or two. But, aside from the moral bankruptcy of his dismissal of feeding the hungry, let's talk logistics. Let's say you cease funding highways in order to buy more bombers and tanks. Do you then have to use the tanks' capacity for driving across rough ground to take them off-road from the factory to the military base? Do military recruits prove their mettle by hiking to boot camp? For that matter, let's get back to the food stamps for a second.
Military food stamp use rose in 2013, and that doesn't even take into account all the veterans on food stamps. Except as we've had ample opportunity to observe, Dick Cheney doesn't give a single damn about the people who make up the American military. He just wants giant pallets of cash for defense contractors and an American political culture geared toward war rather than the economic strength of the nation and its people.
And, for the record, Mr. Cheney, American defense spending is still huge. Though maybe not quite as huge as your ego, your arrogance, your monumental callousness.
