Questionable motives in need of questioning – Cheney attacks Obama … Again

The latest round of criticism leveled at the Obama administration by Dick Cheney tell us much more about the latter than the former. They betray the insecurity felt by the former Vice President: that his legacy might not yet be out of the woods on the torture issue.

“[W]e are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe,” Cheney said in a statement to Politico.

“Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society.”

In that last bit from Cheney — dutifully published by Mike Allen of Politico, Dec. 30 — referring to the “goal” of the Obama presidency, he’s offering up his own subjective assessment, as is his right. Perhaps it was a nod to the ‘Obama is a tyrant’ crowd. Then again, perhaps not. No one has had an opportunity to ask, have they?

His premise, however, that “Obama pretends we aren’t” at war, is way off base. This same false assertion has been parroted to any news outlet that will have him by South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint in the wake of the Dec. 25 failed crotch bombing of a transatlantic flight.

Along with exploiting the matter in his latest war on organized labor, DeMint has repeated to numerous media outlets that Obama refuses to use the word “terrorism” – a claim, by the way, that’s easily disproved.

More prominent among Cheney’s concerns is the legal status of terrorists:

[Obama] seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of Sept. 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war…

These words from Cheney have been analyzed a hundred times over, but I’ll share with you a couple that I find to be the most revealing. First, you should check out Peter Baker’s extensive treatment, “Inside Obama’s War on Terrorism,” posted Jan. 4 at NYTimes.com. Baker notes that the Obama administration’s response to the threat of terrorism isn’t that dissimilar to the that of the Bush administration.

Regarding Cheney’s criticism, Baker writes, “… the underlying complaint seemed less about any particular policy than about Obama himself — how he reacted, how he spoke, how he led.”

Although he held conference calls every day with [John] Brennan, who was back in Washington, it took Obama three days to emerge from his Hawaiian vacation to address the matter in public, and when he did, he was typically cool and cerebral, with none of Bush’s bring-it-on, dead-or-alive rhetoric. Never mind that Bush took six days to publicly address the 2001 case of Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, or that Reid was charged in civilian court, not as an enemy combatant; critics like Cheney argued again that Obama did not believe America was at war. Bush felt it in his gut. Obama thinks about it in his head.

Obama’s cerebral approach is a welcome departure from the chest thumping of the Bush administration, to be sure. Baker indicates that during the transition from Bush to Obama, this was exactly what high-ranking Bush officials asked of the new president, some of whom were reluctant to say so fearing blowback from the Cheney camp.

But there is another, more important, difference between the two administrations when it comes to terrorism: Obama’s rejection of the ill conceived interrogation program which Cheney has so vigorously defended. Ironically, Cheney’s and the Bush administration’s implementation of the torture program actually weakened national security. The same can not yet be said of Obama.

So, if the differences between the Bush and Obama administrations on terrorism aren’t as great as either party would like us to believe, why are Cheney’s shorts is such a twist? On this, the Dec. 23 American Prospect post, “The Cheney Offense,” by Adam Serwer is helpful.

Published two days before the attempt on Flight 253, Serwer wasn’t reacting to Cheney’s most recent attacks. Rather, Serwer was reacting to a statement made by a mustachioed crazy person. “According to John Bolton, the conservative magazine Human Events chose Dick Cheney as its ‘conservative of the year’ because of his ‘persuasive positions on substantive policy matters,’” Serwer wrote.

On this, the American Prospect author begs to differ:

In fact, Cheney was chosen for his ability to effectively manipulate American fear to defend the lawlessness of the prior administration. In a year when the GOP has tried to ride a wave of understandable but wrongheaded populist anger and anxiety over rising deficits, it chose as its figurehead a conservative who thinks deficits don’t matter and whose crowning achievement is making torture a central part of the Republican platform.

Serwer posits that Cheney’s persistent criticism, combined with the enthusiastic, cat with a string media treatment it receives, has actually provided political cover for Obama’s inability or unwillingness to separate his national security policy from that of the Bush administration.

Of Cheney’s motives, Serwer wrote:

To suggest that Cheney is defending Bush-era “national security policy” is euphemism. He is defending torture.

Cheney’s reasons for doing so seem to have less to do with concrete evidence and more with personal pride — and perhaps an attempt to shield himself from accountability…

This is why Cheney is opposed to a civilian trial for KSM — not because he fears the alleged 9/11 mastermind proselytizing from the courtroom, but because it will put a spotlight on Bush-era lawlessness.

Serwer views Cheney as a catalyst for turning today’s Republican Party into a mob of “pro-torture conservatives.” His stinging critique of Cheney’s actions is, rightly, accompanied by his disappointment in Obama. “If only Obama actually represented the kind of contrast from the past eight years Cheney seems to think he does,” Serwer laments.

So where does this leave the rest of us? Admittedly, there are few bright spots at which to point, apart from the fact that a bomb hidden amidst a terrorist’s junk failed to detonate. Strangely, by the impression imparted by much the news coverage, you’d think the terrorist had been successful.

I suppose, then, that having the news media do its job would be a good place to start. It’s frustrating to see Cheney’s subjective whims published in their entirety without question. That administration officials are asked to respond to those same unquestioned, disprovable whims is journalistically irresponsible.

Rachel Maddow put it well during her Dec. 30 broadcast:

Again, my friends and colleagues in the media have two choices in covering this. You can just copy down what the Republicans and Vice President Cheney are saying, and click “send,” call it journalism, or you can actually fact-check those comments and put them into context. Your choice. It’s your country.

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