Cheney says Obama should be grateful to Bush

Vice President Cheney predicts that Barack Obama will be
grateful for the state of presidency he inherits from President Bush.

And while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other
congressional Democrats have repeatedly criticized Bush for grabbing power,
Cheney argued that Obama, the Democratic president-elect, will be glad of it.

{mosads}“My guess is, once they get here and they’re faced with
the same problems we deal with every day, that they will appreciate some of the
things we put in place,” said Cheney Monday in a telephone interview with
conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh.

Furthermore, Cheney does not think Obama is about to give
those hard-won gains back to Congress.

“I think the Obama administration is not likely to cede
that authority back to the Congress,” said Cheney. “I think they’ll find that
given a challenge they face they’ll need all the authority they can muster.”

Cheney has made expansion of presidential and
vice-presidential power a hallmark of the administration.

Over the past eight years, Bush, Cheney and senior
executive branch officials have pursued innovative legal theories to expand
their prerogatives.

Bush attached signing statements to legislation asserting
his power to disobey elements of newly enacted laws and approved warrantless
surveillance of persons making international calls from the U.S.

He also authorized the detention of suspected terrorists
at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and established military tribunals to try suspects
outside the U.S. courts system.

Cheney clashed directly with congressional Democrats by
refusing to divulge information about a special energy task force he headed
early in Bush’s first term. The administration went all the way to the Supreme
Court to defend his refusal to reveal the task force’s membership.

Cheney has also successfully refused to make his records
available to the public by arguing that he is not an exclusive part of the
executive branch. As vice president, Cheney is also president of the Senate,
giving him power to cast tie-breaking votes.

“He has managed
to stonewall everyone,” Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), former chairman of the
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told The Hill in June “I’m not
sure there’s anything we can do.”

Cheney also
praised Bush’s use of the Guantanamo detention center, a bête noire among
Democrats and other critics who charge that its existence tarnishes America’s
image abroad. 

“I think Guantanamo
has been very well run,” said Cheney. “I think if you look at it from the
perspective of the requirements we had, once you go out and capture a bunch of
terrorists, as we did in Afghanistan and elsewhere, then you’ve got to have
some place to put them.”

Obama has pledged
to close down Guantanamo but the question of where to send the prisoners may be
one of the trickiest challenges of his first months in office. Some
conservative believe Obama may have to back away from his promise if he cannot
find a workable solution.

Cheney said his
proudest achievement in office was keeping the nation safe from attack, which
he said has required expanded powers.

Cheney said
“we’ve been able to stop or disrupt all further al Qaeda attacks on the U.S.
homeland,” adding that “it required some very tough decisions by the
president.”