Cheney Blasts Bush.

As Time magazine publish this story about Cheney's battle to have Libby given a presidential pardon in the final days of the administration, Rachel Maddow goes over Cheney's extraordinary statement; which basically states that Bush was wrong not to pardon Libby.

As Rachel points out, Cheney has a history of continuing to fight battles which he has long ago lost, but this one was personal. "Scooter" Libby took a bullet for Dick Cheney. That's why Cheney saw the pardoning of him in these terms:

"We don't want to leave anyone on the battlefield," Cheney argued.

Cheney thinks that all is fair in love and war, which is why he wanted Plame outed in the first place. He can't seem to get his head around the fact that Bush doesn't see things in the way that he does.

The Libby pardon, aides reported, had become something of a crusade for Cheney, who seemed prepared to push his nine-year-old relationship with Bush to the breaking point — and perhaps past it — over the fate of his former aide.

Cheney doesn't appear to me to have any concept of legal and illegal. He sees only power and thinks that the president can do anything he wants and that, the fact that the president does it, instantly makes it legal.

He can't, even now, admit that Libby did anything illegal. Despite the fact that Libby was found guilty by a jury of his peers, Cheney insists that reality is what he says it is.

I can't think of an American Vice President who cared less about the truth than Dick Cheney did. Which is why he can come out with this hogwash regarding Libby.

Tags: Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, perjury, presidential pardon, Bush