Man, you know you keep things pretty close to the vest when you state a simple, well-known fact, and a radio host and journalist praise you for your “candor.”
In an interview Hugh Hewitt conducted yesterday with journalist Bill Sammon about Sammon’s latest ode to president Bush, “The Evangelical President: George Bush’s Struggle To Spread A Moral Democracy Throughout The World,” Hewitt and Sammon spoke a bit about conversations Sammon had with Vice President Cheney about the upcoming presidential elections.
HH: Now backing up a little bit to the political side, did you get any predictions out of the Vice President with whom you spent quite a lot of time as well?
BS: Well, I did…I didn’t get anything really specific, but it was kind of telling, because he was a lot more cagy than Bush about this business about…I asked specifically to Cheney whether the Republicans would hold the White House, and he said it’s really going to be close. It could go either way. And he talked about this close divide we’re at in the American electorate right now. And you know, he was almost sort of stoic about it, because I said well, aren’t you worried about a Democrat coming in and undoing all of what you obviously view as your hard-earned gains for eight years in terms of the democratization agenda, in terms of liberating 50 million Muslims, et cetera et cetera? And he said you know, Bill, you get two terms.
HH: You get eight years. I love that quote.
BS: Yeah, and then you’ve got to turn it over to the next guy, and you’ve got to sort of leave it in their hands. So I was amazed by the candor from Dick Cheney.
Yes, it truly was an amazing bit of candor for the vice president to relay the little known fact that by law an American president can’t serve more than two terms in office. Congrats on dragging that out of the normally tight-lipped veep, Bill.
Paul McLeary is a former CJR staff writer. Since 2008, he has covered the Pentagon for Foreign Policy, Defense News, Breaking Defense, and other outlets. He is currently a defense reporter for Politico.