A Request to Former Vice President Cheney: Please Be Quiet

Former Vice President Dick Cheney criticized President Obama and his administration on Sunday for increasing the chances of a terrorist attack on the United States by abandoning certain Bush administration policies. The former vice president also made a number of other criticisms of the new president. (See here.)

I am not going to go into whether the former vice president was right or wrong in his criticisms. I just want him to be quiet. (I would have said that I want him "to shut up," but I decided that would be disrespectful.) Mr. Cheney isn’t saying anything that couldn’t be said – and actually is being said – by lots of other Republicans.

By talking out like this, all Mr. Cheney does is to help President Obama. Instead of President Obama having to defend what he is doing, Mr. Cheney’s attacks allow President Obama to continue blaming President Bush for all our problems.

In the past, when a president or vice president left office, he would not criticize his successor. That was a good tradition that unfortunately former President Carter has ignored in the extreme. I hope Mr. Cheney will do his part to reestablish it. It will be better for Mr. Cheney, for Republicans – and for the country.