Dick Cheney calls Obama the 'worst president of my lifetime'

(Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

published 18 March 2015

In a new interview with Playboy, former Vice President Dick Cheney accused President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder of "playing the race card" and said that he could "go on for hours" about all of the ways Obama has "undone" the work of President George W. Bush.

Although the article claims that Cheney's "preoccupations revolve around the books in his study and the purchase of just the right gifts for his grandchildren," it sounds more like he's kind of obsessed with Obama. Calling him "the worst president in my lifetime," Cheney said his criticism of Obama and Holder has nothing to with race and is "merited because of performance — or lack of performance, because of incompetence." He also shared that he was "disappointed" in the Obama administration's response to the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, and said that he's heard from foreign leaders, "especially in the Middle East," that they are "so terribly frustrated, angry, [and] frightened" over Obama's handling of the crisis in Syria. "Our friends no longer trust us, and our adversaries no longer fear us," he said.

Lest you think Cheney only talked about the president, he did take some time out to say the energy policy he helped craft while in office was an "enormous success" and he feels "very good" about what the CIA did after Sept. 11. "We bent over backward to adhere to the law, to not do something that was, quote, 'torture,' et cetera, et cetera.... I don't spend a lot of time worrying what the critics have to say about it."