Dick Cheney Wallows in the Mud, And Slings It

When former president George Bush picked Dick Cheney as his running mate, we were pleased with the choice. If we doubted that the young Bush would be able to handle everything that might come his way, Cheney's presence was reassuring. He seemed, then, reasonable, practical, and experienced.

In retrospect he was probably the single largest reason why the Bush administration did not accomplish more, and accomplish more, better. If Iraq took so long, or if Afghanistan was ignored, we can largely lay those difficulties at the feet of Cheney.

Now that he is retired, he has taken it upon himself to attack the current administration, worried as he seems to be by how the record books will acquit him. He pops out of his hole every few months, takes a gander at the lay of the land, decides he isn't liking it one bit, and announces rain, calamity, danger and disaster upon America. This is not the voice of a man concerned about the country; it is the voice of a man concerned with draping his own mental world view atop the present reality. Contradictions abound, and the lying and doublespeak never cease.

If we have observed anything, it's the clear and obvious fact that Obama is no dove as far as military action is concerned. You would have a hard time finding progressives who supported Obama who happy with the  new president's ability to continue lay down the fight, or even kill innocents accidentally via drone and other methods. You can't up the troop count in Afghanistan and be accused of not understanding we are at war.

You can't do exactly what the previous administration has done, except with more coherent philosophy, and be accused of slack when it comes to safeguarding the United States.

How many terrorists did the Bush/Cheney administration bring before military tribunals? Three. And only one of them was sentenced to life in prison. The other two were allowed to serve out their sentences at home—one in Australia, the other in Yemen—both while Bush was still president.

In other words, the vast bulk of terrorist cases were handled by the civilian criminal courts—in the Bush and Obama administrations—in part because they have proved much more successful than the still-fledgling system of military tribunals.

(Slate)

Cheney's rants are kind of inexplicable, but Fred Kaplan in Slate frames it as Cheney's attempt to continue the battle that he actually fought within the Bush administration. Except that we have a new president, and Cheney really should be in Shady Acres, retiring, or playing golf or writing his own fictive memoirs.

People like Cheney, and Rumsfeld (and General Franks) represent the apex of poor thought, bad planning, and obstinate incompetence. There were no WMD. Iraqis were not just "letting off steam" in looting out the country and using looted weapons to kill Americans later. Using local Afghani forces to "seal off" Tora Bora was not the most rational battle plan. Any one of these actions alone is not such a big thing--human error--but the combination of these mistakes and cumulative others do not allow Cheney the right now to predict rain when there is sun, or that the earth is flat. (And pretty much any argument you hear from the irresponsible right is akin to that very thing).

Cheney has been responsible for a certain amount of wasted and misguided effort in the past, and spends his time now disrespecting the current president in an effort to justify his own bad judgment. Never have so many people proclaiming ties to patriotism and Washington and "original intent" demonstrated such a vast disregard for the presidency and the United States. It would be interesting to wonder how much Obama's race plays into this show of disrespect and dishonesty, but we don't even need to venture in that direction to know that Cheney should be ashamed of himself, but never will be.