Obama is 'the worst president in my lifetime,' says Dick Cheney

"I look at Barack Obama and I see the worst president in my lifetime, without question--and that's saying something," says former Vice President Dick Cheney in the April issue of Playboy magazine. "I used to have significant criticism of Jimmy Carter, but compared to Barack Obama and the damage he is doing to the nation--it's a tragedy, a real tragedy, and we are going to pay a hell of a price just trying to dig out from under his presidency."

Cheney on whether or not President Obama has undone the Bush administration's work:  "Oh absolutely,” Cheney said. “Where do you start?  The way Obama is functioning now, he's crippling the capacity of future presidents to deal with future crises.  It takes a long time to build up that military force.  And I am absolutely convinced there will be a future president--two or three times down the road, perhaps--who will be faced with a major crisis and will not have the military capability he needs to deal with it.  We are limiting the options of future presidents because of what is happening to the defense budget today. I can go on for hours. He has gone through defense secretaries; you know, he sort of chews them up and spits them out.”

Cheney on the Ferguson tragedy: "It's always a tragedy when there is a death involved and so forth. But it seems to me it's a clear-cut case that the officer did what he had to do to defend himself. He was perfectly within his authorities to take action. I don't think it is about race. I think it is about an individual who conducted himself in a manner that was almost guaranteed to provoke an officer trying to do his duty."

The April issue of Playboy hits newsstands on Friday.