Dick Cheney not sold on Sarah Palin

Former Vice President Dick Cheney had some less than laudatory words to say about Sarah Palin on Friday.

Cheney, who was on conservative radio host Laura Ingraham's show as part of the promotional tour for his new memoir, was asked what qualities he thought were necessary for people taking the vice president job.

"Thick skin. You need the capacity to turn on the tube every night and watch the late night comedians make you the punch line, tell a lot of jokes, it goes with the turf and I’m not above telling a few of those stories myself," Cheney said, according to Mediaite. "But the fact of the matter is you really do need to have the capacity to do what you think is right, to offer the advice you think the president of the country needs, you have to remember you are not in charge of anything, you don’t run anything as Vice President. And you do need to have thick skin, you’ll be subject to a lot of criticism, some of it funny, some of it not so funny."

Ingraham followed Cheney's response by bringing up Palin, and asking Cheney if he thought the former Alaska governor was "well suited" to be vice president.

"Well, I’ve never gotten around the question of her having left the governorship of Alaska midterm," Cheney said. "I’ve never heard that adequately explained so that I could understand why, how she decided in her first term to step down and still be – I’d like to know more about that."

Cheney's memoir, titled In My Time, has come under fire from former Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell. Powell accused Cheney's book of taking "cheap shots" at Bush administration officials.

On Thursday, former President George W. Bush weighed in, saying the book didn't bother him.

"I'm glad members of my 'family' are giving their version of what it was like to serve our country,” Bush said. “I did the same thing, I put my version out there. And eventually objective historians will analyze our administration and they'll draw objective conclusions."