Cheney: "Anybody who thinks that's not a serious threat...is an idiot"

[sabra]

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_theswamp/2006/10/cheney_not_pull.html#more

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THE VICE PRESIDENT: Whether it resonates or not, we've got an obligation to provide leadership, to tell the American people what the problem is, to identify the threat, and to lay out and execute a strategy for dealing with it. The threat is there. It doesn't matter what the polls say about the threat, the threat is real.

If you spend as much time as we do, beginning first thing every morning six days a week with our intelligence brief, there's no doubt about the threat. Just a couple months ago, we had two dozen wannabe suicide bombers in England, the U.K. getting ready to get in airliners headed for the United States and blow them out of the sky. They're trying to acquire biological or chemical or nuclear weapons, if they can get their hands on them.

Anybody who thinks that's not a serious threat, or who sort of reverts back to the pre-9/11 mind set, thinks that we can withdraw behind our oceans here and be safe and secure is an idiot, with all due respect. 9/11 proved the vulnerability of the United States to the actions of a handful of terrorists. It's our job to make sure the American people are aware of the threat. We take an obligation when we're sworn in to defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. If we were to shape our message to the voters -- excuse me, shape our message to the polls, and say to the voters, because they don't like to hear it, or there may be resistance there, I think there's a problem. That would be fundamentally irresponsible on our part.