Pundit Country

Actually Cheney said just the opposite in this video from his surprise appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), but considering Cheney’s record of being right about anything in the last 10 years, this is about as close a prediction for an Obama victory as we’re likely to get from the man.

One of the most lasting memories I have of grad school is my first class, Values and Action, where the professor put a challenge before us. He took the role of a Taliban cleric and asked us to talk him down from his stance on using military aggression to achieve their goals (at the time, they had recently taken over Afghanistan and had received worldwide condemnation for destroying centuries-old Buddhist monuments in their religious purge of the country).

We debated him for nearly an hour and a half, coming up with every rationale for ceasing, from appealing to reason to appealing to his religious convictions and on no issue did he budge or even bend. There was a reason in his mind for everything he did and everything he was about to do. The point of the exercise was to prove the man was a zealot and for some there is simply no debating them. They will not change or bend in any way.

That stuck with me and I was recalling that class when I read this piece by TBogg on Liz Cheney’s most recent appearance on TV where she claims Obama’s apologies for Gitmo and the CIA’s handling of the prisoners there amounts to slandering the agency. Like her father, Liz Cheney can justify any action committed by Bush and his vice president (although it appears more and more that he was acting as a shadow president in foreign affairs). So, while I see the point to refuting her many falsehoods and aspersions to the President’s character and motives, debating or seeking to debate her, her father, or any neocon who supports these positions is a complete waste of time. They are zealots, committed to whatever cause or action that puts them back in the seat of power and once there, keeping it.

Frustrating as it may seem, letting them go, is for many progressives, not a possibility. They do not want such baseless charges to go unanswered and further pollute the domestic discourse on the many questions facing the government and the country. But there is a way to address them and it isn’t head on.

Think for a moment the few times that Cheney (Dick) has ever found himself on the defensive. It happened once quite publically when the administration began floating the idea of investigating the CIA for crimes they may have committed under Cheney’s orders in relation to which interrogation techniques were acceptable. Cheney’s speech to the Heritage Foundation, broadcast just moments after Obama’s televised address to the nation (yet another corporate media failure by giving Cheney the spotlight as if to equate his position as a failed former Vice President to that of the sitting President) put him angrily on the defensive. He was genuinely afraid that he could face criminal charges for his actions if uncovered, which he most certainly will be if the proposed investigation takes place in a just and ethical manner. This was not the bold, noble warrior he likes to paint himself as, but a scared old man, fearing the actions he took will lead to criminal charges and potentially prosecution and imprisonment.

The trick was the the same as the first rule of chess: don’t play the other guy’s game. Don’t acquiesce to his topics and framing of issues. Move on the issues that need to be addressed, like torture, like illegal electronic surveillance, like cronyism and the rampant corruption that was a feature of the last administration rather than a flaw here and there by lone agents acting on their own behalf. That is how the neocons like Cheney will be silenced. While Fox will book both Dick and Liz from now to infinity, there is no reason AT ALL for any other self-respecting news organization to do it and not many reasons for liberal-progressive to debate the merits of their collective arguments. To do so gives neocons the illusion of respectability and legitimacy. This tired “philosophy” has neither. These views are child-like at best and paranoid at worst. Just stop it.

Related articles

• AP source: Blackwater missile contract ended (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Why are we in Afghanistan? (newstatesman.com)

Of all the articles I’ve read about the torture issue and the prospect of investigating and prosecuting those responsible, i don’t think I’ve ever thought of going over to a legal sight to see what the thoughts were there.

Steve Shepard, though, has been writing on the issue and doing it in well reasoned layman’s language. It doesn’t hurt that he’s also right. he hits the nail on the head in regard to Cheney’s admonition that investigating a prior administration in a purely partisan thing to do:

The answer is that when other scandals arose, the administrations involved – and the Congress that was then in session – did not wait for the next administration. They investigated allegations and prosecuted their malefactors themselves. From Abraham Lincoln’s dismissal of Simon Cameron, to Ulysses Grant and the Crédit Mobilier scandal of 1872 or the Whiskey Ring of 1875, to the Veterans Bureau scandal of 1923, to the IRS scandal of the 1950s, allegations of wrongdoing were taken seriously by both the Congress and the President serving in the administration that was in office when the allegations were made. In these and many other cases, there was no need for the later administration to investigate, because, as with Watergate, the investigation was either already concluded or in full swing when the next administration took office.

True, not all claims of illegal official conduct are investigated. Yet the serious crimes that become known to the public often are. Only if one administration refuses to start an investigation, must its successor do so. So it is not the Obama administration’s action, but the second Bush administration’s omission, that should be the focus of criticism here.

It’s a great and short little piece and you can read it here.

Related articles

• Cheney vs. Obama: CIA Abuse Probe ‘Political’ (abcnews.go.com)
• Countdown: Jeremy Scahill on Why There Need to Be Prosecutions from Top to Bottom for Torture (videocafe.crooksandliars.com)
• Cheney: Torturers Can Do No Wrong (emptywheel.firedoglake.com)

Steven Benen’s commentary about the New York Times article regarding Cheney and Addington pushing Yoo’s legal opinion that the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 was irrelvent in the war on terror offers a great piece of insight at the end:

Why would Cheney oppose sending the FBI to go get the suspected bad guys? Because he feared the evidence may not be compelling enough to justify an arrest and conviction. It was better, he said, to have the military take the Lackawanna Six into custody, declare them enemy combatants, and not worry about due process or meeting legal standards. [emphasis mine]

Benen starts to address a larger, more dubious outlook Cheney seems to have, but didn’t elaborate. In light of all the has come forth in the last few months regarding the depth at which Cheney was prepared to go in order to combat terrorism, one thing is coming into focus; Cheney’s desire to return the office of the Presidency to its pre-Nixon days is little more than a farce.

Nixon never had this level of authority as President nor did any commander- in-chief before him for decades. What Cheney appears to want is the “unitary executive” is the most authoritative version of the Presidency ever imagined. One that has no need whatsoever for Congress or the judiciary branch, even when actions occur on domestic soil.

Cheney’s idea of the President is whatever he wants, he gets. It takes the Nixon axiom “If the President does it, it’s not illegal” to its farthest extreme. This is probably the compelling reason why Cheney must face a jury of his peers so that this idea can be debunked thoroughly and completely before another executive takes the idea as his or her own and runs with it. Eight years with this man as a kind of shadow President was enough. Imagine the consequences if it were to occur again, but this time without the threat of legal repercussions.

Related articles

• Bush Weighed Use of Military in Suburban Buffalo (politicalwire.com)
• Whose Legacy is Being Tidied Here? (seminal.firedoglake.com)
• Bushies Tried To Do Away With Posse Comitatus (oliverwillis.com)

I was on the middle of writing a post speculating whether Liz Cheney’s staunch defense of her father was in some part a way of raising her profile for a future run at elected office herself. Now that we’ve seemingly entered the world of political dynasties in this country (the Kennedy’s, Clinton’s and Bush’s), it would make sense that Dick isn’t exactly ready to let go of the reins of power just yet and working the angles from the wings appears to be his modus operandi.

However, it appears that David Weigel has beat me to the punch with his post on the topic. It seems there are a number of conservatives who do want her to run, particularly on her father’s worldview of neoconservatism.

I do believe there is a future for her in the party, it remains to be seen how much of her father’s views are actually hers. It’s one thing to go on TV and defend (Dick) Cheney’s speech, its quite another to stand on your own and say the same thing.

Also, as was pointed out in the post, Liz has 5 children to raise and a party that is completely spinning out of control, so a 2012 run is likely out of the question. If that’s true, then 2016 is her first real chance at a serious run at the Presidency and by then, I would imagine the neoconservative “philosophy” would have been so discredited it would be lunacy to run on it.