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Cheney Personally Thanked Chris Wallace For Defending Bush; Promises Him ‘Special Exit Interview’ As Reward

Last Monday, at a screening of Ron Howard’s new film “Frost/Nixon,” Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace vociferously defended President Bush against criticism by Howard that Bush has abused the office of the presidency in a way similar to President Richard Nixon. “Richard Nixon’s crimes were committed purely in the interest of his own political gain,” said Wallace. Wallace claimed that it was a “gross misreading of history” to say that Bush abused his power “for pure political self preservation” like Nixon did.

Appearing on Mike Gallagher’s radio show today, Wallace revealed that Vice President Dick Cheney personally thanked him at his holiday party last night:

WALLACE: Let me ask you this, did the Vice President say to you, “thank you so much for defending the president and yes I’m going to be giving you a special exit interview in a couple of weeks?”

GALLAGHER: Did he say all that to you?

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WALLACE: Yes.

Later in the interview, Wallace said that “a bunch of people” at Cheney’s party thanked him for his comments. “Cheney was genuinely grateful for what I had done, and Ed Gillespie, the senior counselor to the president, was there and genuinely grateful.” Listen to it here:

As ThinkProgress noted earlier this week, the Bush White House did in fact abuse its power for political gain and to maintain control of the government. Beyond politicizing many federal agencies, the Bush team also outed an undercover CIA agent in order to punish a critic and fired nine U.S. attorneys for political reasons.