Newsweek Q&A: Obama on Dick Cheney, War and Star Trek

The president's read on Dick Cheney in this Newsweek interview is pretty interesting. He actually makes the point that Cheney had lost credibility in the prior administration and that he's trying to re-litigate issues he already lost out on.

What's your reaction to Vice President Cheney's ongoing [criticism]? He's not quite twittering your administration [ laughter ] but he's coming fairly close.

You know, Dick Cheney had a strong perspective about national security. It was tested in the early years of the Bush administration, and I think it resulted in a series of very bad decisions. I think what's interesting is that, in some ways, Dick Cheney actually lost these arguments inside the Bush administration.

And so he may have won early with Colin Powell and Condi Rice, but over the last two or three years of the Bush administration, I think there was a recognition among Republicans and Bush administration officials that these enhanced interrogation techniques that were being applied--that they had applied early on--were potentially counterproductive; that a posture of never talking to our enemies, of unilateral action, of framing national security only in terms of the application of force, often unilateral--that that wasn't producing.

And so it's interesting to me to see the vice president spending so much time trying to vindicate himself and relitigate the last eight years when, as I said, I think, actually, a lot of these arguments were settled even before we took over the White House.

The president's comments on his daughters dating while being guarded by men with guns and on Startrek are pretty interesting too.