Attack of the Cheneys

[babylonsister]

Attack of the Cheneys
By Matthew Duss

This article appeared in the April 5, 2010 edition of The Nation.
March 18, 2010


VICTOR JUHASZ


I'm sure not many fathers think about whether their children will defend them one day from accusations that they ordered torture. Dick Cheney would probably be one of the few who has--and how nice that he got that lucky. Since her father left office, Liz Cheney has been his most visible and effective advocate. She's given speeches at conservative gatherings, written op-eds for publications like the Wall Street Journal and made dozens of television appearances, all aimed at defending her father's record and carrying his standard. And occasionally she finds herself having to claim that a technique developed by torturers as a method of torture (waterboarding) was not really torture when her father approved it.

To a lesser extent than his daughter, but still at an unprecedented level for a former vice president, Dick Cheney has also taken a highly public role, popping up regularly to attack the Obama administration's national security decisions. This past May, explaining her father's inordinately high profile, Liz said on MSNBC, "I don't think he planned to be doing this, you know, when they left office in January," but the administration's policy shifts, as well as the concern that "perhaps would even be prosecuting former members of the Bush administration," had necessitated the former VP's re-emergence. During this period, the Washington Monthly's Steve Benen counted "12 appearances, in nine and a half days, spanning four networks" for the younger Cheney.

The right's most famous father-daughter act has also been active behind the scenes. Liz has allied with neoconservative mover Bill Kristol to found Keep America Safe, infamous of late for its ads attacking as traitorous Justice Department lawyers who once "represented or advocated for terrorist detainees." The ad was so scurrilous that even Republican lawyers and Bush administration officials like former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former Solicitor General Ted Olson condemned it. But whatever blowback the neocon attack machine may suffer for this particular overreach, the "Department of Jihad" smear is nonetheless a startling declaration that they just don't give a damn. (After all, what's a bit of rank dishonesty in an effort to head off almost certain Islamofascist doom?) With the Cheneys on board, neocons have become increasingly brazen in their accusations that President Obama is "inviting the next attack" by not sufficiently embracing the fact that "we are at war."

No question about it: Liz and Dick Cheney are on a mission, but just what is that mission? Some of it is clearly personal: in Dick's case, it's about burnishing his legacy; for Liz, there's the possibility of a run for Congress or the Senate. But in order to reposition themselves to retake the reins of power, the Cheneys must rescue the "global war on terror" from the ash heap of history, and they're doing this by playing the one card they've got: fear. Their larger goal, then, is to resuscitate the neocons' post-September 11 vision of a world in which the United States, unbound by rules or reality, imposes its will on friend and enemy alike.

Composer Frank Zappa once said of jazz, "It's not dead, it just smells funny." The same could be said of neoconservatism. The taint of Iraq continues to cling. Despite a sustained public relations effort to promote the Iraq surge as a vindication of the war, a January CNN poll reported that 60 percent of Americans disapprove of the war. Even though the Obama administration has retained elements of Bush's anti-terrorism programs--including a possible decision to try the September 11 conspirators in military tribunals rather than civilian courts--the neoconservative conceit of a "global war on terror" has largely been cast aside by policy-makers and the military in favor of a more nuanced view of who our enemies are, how they operate and how we can stop them.

It turns out, however, that being disastrously wrong on the most significant foreign policy questions of the era is no barrier to continued influence in American politics. Even though their bong-hit theories about transforming the Middle East at the point of an American gun retain about as much popular appeal as E. coli, the neocons continue to impact US foreign policy debates through an entrenched network of think tanks (the American Enterprise Institute, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the Hudson Institute), publications (The Weekly Standard, Commentary, National Review), supportive editorial boards (the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal) and, of course, Fox News.

more...

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100405/duss

[Chemisse]

1. Their bong-hit theories?

I didn't know the Cheneys were such party animals!

[rfranklin]

2. They should die in a small plane crash...

that would prove that there is a God.

[Tutankhamun]

4. I really think Dick's just one more heart attack away from the grave. Any real talk

of any sort of investigation will make him sweat. He will get stressed out and croak before any trial can take place.

It's impossible to bring Dick Cheney to justice. He has a bloated, white, scarred, sliced up, stitched and re-stitched pacemaker encasing, robotic, $6.4 million taxpayer/socialized medicine funded-chest full of built-in cyanide capsules, guaranteed to rupture at the first sign of investigation into war crimes. He'll never stand trial. The bastard will kick over dead first. We won't get any satisfaction. We'll be saddened to hear of Dick Cheney's death.

[bluedeminredstate]

3. I'm all for family loyalty

but I can't understand for the life of me why this shrill, hateful woman is allowed to go on all these shows and lie her ass off with no push back from the various hosts and guests she appears with. One time I saw Lawrence O'Donnell go after her aggressively, but other than that she spews her evil with impunity.

All the rules in place during the Bush administration which labeled dissenters as treasonous, unpariotic, unAmerican terrorist sympathizers have been tossed aside while these neocons call Obama all kinds of things from racist to fascist, accused of commiting treason against America every day he's in office.

I find it absolutely infuriating that Dick Cheney and his spawn are given a platform to lie (again) to the American people while the Cheney family tries to burnish
Crashcart Dick's legacy of deceit, death and warmongering. Think back to the first years of Chimp's administration. In addition to the unconstitutional decision by the Supreme Court which placed Chimp in office, all Democratic voices of dissent were marginalized by the MSM with the clear message that the Dems were the losers and they should just shut up and get over the fact that Chimp was in power. You didn't see Al Gore calling Bush all kinds of horrible things and the MSM gave no weight to any opinion that cast Bush in a bad light. But when Obama was elected Dick Cheney became the voice of the repug party and every utterance was recorded by Politico and then repeated on every news outlet in the country. Every teabagger gathering was given extensive coverage and analysis. Liz Cheney became the favored guest of every talk show in town.

The obvious bias of our media is so frustrating and disheartening. The fact that there is even talk of a Cheney running for federal office while our troops continue to bleed and die in Iraq is astonishing. I think I'm going to have to stop reading stuff like this because the anger it brings up is overwhelming.

[swilton]

5. In a similar vein as bluedeminredstate

This article would carry more weight with me if the Obama Administration would have repudiated some of the Bush-Cheney policies....Although Biden has smacked Cheney down a time or two in a public tit for tat about foreign policy choices - but the illegal wars, the policies of extraordinary rendition, Gitmo, all continue. Impeachment was taken off the table - and the criminal architects of the Bush-Cheney torture policies (Yoo, Bybee, et. al.) have been exonerated by Obama's Justice Department -

The partisan bickering that this article continues is a distraction from the major questions - like why did the Congress let Cheney continue with these policies even after the Republicans lost their majority in the House of Representtatives and why did the Obama Administration sweep this under the rug after the 2008 election?

Sorry, I am tired of the cheap partisan bickering - I would rather see some action to correct the errors of previous administrations to ensure that these errors would not be continued.

[babylonsister]

6. And I'm sick of seeing the Cheneys everywhere, trying to bring

this country down and instill fear in everyone even though they shouldn't be given a platform, so we're even.