Not sure whether to believe my “lying” ears or not, but I believe I just heard the Senior Senator from the State of Michigan just call the former Vice President of the United States a liar on Fox News Sunday (FNS).

The former Vice President had charged that the President of the United States is “dithering” on responding to the request of the Army General whom the President had put in place.

Now whether the President is “dithering” or “engaged in serious deliberation” is ultimately a judgement call and hence a matter of opinion rather than an assertion of fact.

Whether the former Vice President should be openly critical of a current President, however, or gracefully keep quiet in the mode of (most) past Presidents is also a matter of opinion. Although I would weigh in that a past President who had served two terms is effectively “through with politics” and perhaps should maintain a graceful and respectful silence, but a past Vice President is as much a presidential candidate as anyone else, regardless of how disqualifying one thinks that Vice President’s health, age, and current popularity happen to be. Medical technology is always improving, and public opinions can shift. And to the extent that the former Vice Presidents of the last two Administrations were candidates, although perhaps far enough down on the list their candidacy’s never came to be, former Vice Presidents should be free to engage in free-wheeling partisan politics.

But there is much more to Mr. Cheney charging that Mr. Obama is dithering. The current drill these days is if Mr. Obama or anyone else in the governing coalition is accused of “dithering”, the retort is not only is he not “dithering” but giving due, dilligent, deliberation to the matter at hand, if the subject of dithering comes up, the previous Administration “had eight years” to “deal with this” and “talk about dithering!”

Well, Mr. Cheney called Mr. Obama “out” on this, stating that the Bush Administration was engaged in the most serious of policy review, made results known to Candidate Obama or President-Elect Obama as the case was, kept the results private at the request of Team Obama and in deference to an incoming President who would have to make his own decisions, that the March position of Mr. Obama was Mr. Obama’s customization of the policy that Mr. Cheney had endorsed, and that lately Mr. Obama was backing away from that position.

So all Mr. Carl Levin could say about this was that it was “inappropriate” for Mr. Cheney to make his remarks, but Mr. Cheney’s “credibility was practically non-existent before this and is now even lower yet.” So Senator Levin, what did Mr. Cheney that defies “credibility”, i.e. was untruthful? That he expressed an opinion that Mr. Obama should show more alacrity making a decision? That he stated a fact that Team Bush had conducted a policy review that Team Obama had respectfully requested to be kept under wraps to give Team Obama the dignity of putting “their own stamp” on a policy for which Team Obama would ultimately be accountable? Is the Senator from the State of Michigan suggesting that Mr. Cheney is “not credible”, that is not to be believed on matters of fact, and that the sharing of an Afghan report never happened?

And as far as I can tell, Mr. Levin is one of the “adults’ and not one of the 60′s radicals turned office holder. It’s a sad day when the “defense” he offers of the President is to fall back on partisan talking points and cliches about the Presidents’ predecessors.