Former vice president Dick Cheney is critical of the process that led to the 2008 selection of another Republican vice presidential candidate: Sarah Palin.

"I think that was a mistake," Cheney said in an interview for ABC's This Week.

Cheney said Palin, then the first-term governor of Alaska, failed the most basic test of being on the vice presidential short list: "Is this person capable of being president of the United States?"

Said Cheney: "I like Governor Palin. I've met her. I know her. ... Attractive candidate. But based on her background -- she'd only been governor for, what, two years -- I don't think she passed that test ... of being ready to take over. And I think that was a mistake."

Cheney said the process that 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain used to select Palin should serve as a warning to 2012 GOP candidate Mitt Romney.

"That one, I don't think, was well handled," Cheney said.

Cheney, who served as chief of staff to President Gerald Ford, helped Ford select Bob Dole as his running mate in 1976.

More than two decades later, in 2000, Cheney headed up the vice presidential selection project for George W. Bush, a process that led to his own selection.

Cheney would not comment on what advice he has given Romney and his staff about their vice presidential pick.