"Last Throes"

In June 2005 Vice President Dick (Straight Shooter) Cheney said the Iraqi insurgency was in its "last throes." There was much ridicule in the media and blogosphere to this absurd prediction. As events on the ground continued to escalate rather than abate Cheney kept rather quiet on the issue. The VP appeared before the National Press Club today and Think Progress has this transcript of the Great Qail Shooter answering questions about the "last throes:"

REPORTER: About a year ago, you said that the insurgency in Iraq was in its final throes. Do you still believe this?

CHENEY: I do. What I was referring to was the series of events that took place in 1995 [sic – 2005]. I think the key turning point when we get back 10 years from now, say, and look back on this period of time and with respect to the campaign in Iraq, will be that series of events when the Iraqis increasingly took over responsibility for their own affairs. And there I point to the election in January of ‘05 when we set up the interim government, the drafting of the constitution in the summer of ’05, the national referendum in the fall of ‘05 when the Iraqis overwhelmingly approved that constitution, and then the vote last December when some 12 million Iraqis in defiance of the car bombers and the terrorists went to the polls and voted in overwhelming numbers to set up a new government under that constitution. And that process of course has been completed recently with the appointment by Prime Minister Maliki of ministers to fill those jobs. I think that will have been from a historical turning point, the period that we’ll be able to look at and say, that’s when we turned the corner, that’s when we began to get a handle on the long-term future of Iraq.

Of course Cheney is lying. If you read this CNN coverage of the 2005 remarks plus all the subsequent analysis, none of which he refuted at the time, he clearly predicted that the insurgency was ending. He was wrong then and he's lying today. Not only isn't he a straight shooter he isn't a straight shooter. This man is too trigger happy with his lies. He also has a seemingly endless supply.

His exact quote last year:

"The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

Do you see any reference to the political situation? I don't. I see a comment about the military situation. I really get fed up when they lie about their lies. Of course the problem with all pathological liars is they can't remember all their lies so they always get caught in them.