Mano-a-Mano

[babylonsister]

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/05/21/mano_a_mano/?ref=fpd

Mano-a-Mano
By Jacob Heilbrunn - May 21, 2009, 11:48AM


It was almost like an episode from Bloggingheads.tv. On the one side was President Obama speaking on national security in a measured and statesmanlike way. On the other side was former vice-president Dick Cheney trying to speak on national security in a measured and statesmanlike way.

It wasn't even close. Obama deftly wove his own personal saga and faith in American values with its future. His indictment of the Bush administration wasn't something that Obama wanted to deliver--as he made it clear, he wants to move on. Cheney's campaign to hail his own record forced Obama to recount, once more, why it was that the Bush administration besmirched America's Constitution, why "enhanced interrogation" didn't enhance American security but directly jeopardized it.

Once again, Cheney, by contrast, offered a deceptively consoling vision of an America that can't lose its moral bearings because any measures that are deemed necessary to protect it are, by definition, just and righteous. Why is anyone even listening to him? The failure of the Bush administration's foreign policy has been patently obvious--a morass in Iraq, a resurgent insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan--note that Obama did not include Iraq as part of the struggle against terrorism--and the collapse of American standing around the globe.

But since even Democratic Senators seem to be cowering before the idea of shuttering Guantanamo, it's worth briefly examining Cheney's modus operandi once again. In his speech at the American Enterprise, Cheney deployed a number of familiar tactics.

First, he revived the bogus claim that Saddam Hussein was working hand-in-glove with al-Qaeda: "We had the anthrax attack from an unknown source. We had the training camps of Afghanistan, and dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists."

snip//

Fifth, Cheney ridiculed the notion that the Bush administration's tactics boomeranged: "This recruitment-tool theory has become something of a mantra lately, including from the President himself. And after a familiar fashion, it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do. It's another version of that same old refrain from the Left, "We brought it on ourselves."

The reference to the "left" is a revealing slip. Cheney began his speech by presenting himself as a simple, plainspoken fellow who had no office to seek, no grudges to settle. But by the end, his mask slipped and the culture warrior appeared. His war isn't against terrorism. It's against Obama.