Cheney's charge up the molehill

[babylonsister]

http://www.theweek.com/article/index/96911/Cheneys_charge_up_the_molehill

Cheney's charge up the molehill
Bob Shrum


Republicans have to say something to fill the time allotted to the opposition. Imagine being trapped in the Republican debris, amid a poverty of ideas, and you can understand why they’ve spent the past week trying to conquer a tactical molehill. Never mind the mountains on the horizon—economic recovery, health care reform and landmark legislation on energy and global warming. The Republicans have nothing credible to say on the first two; and on the climate bill, the party of business is reduced to a faux populist attack on business for daring to agree to a cap and trade system to reduce carbon emissions.

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And has anyone noticed that the Cheney brag that waterboarding saved lives requires a stunning suspension of disbelief? It was George W. Bush who called a halt to this form of torture—despite Cheney’s fervent pleas—before Obama ever took office and explicitly banned the practice. Cheney’s argument asks us to conclude that the President he disserved and the President he now denounces, both of whom saw the intelligence, consciously chose to risk the safety of Americans because they were too squeamish about the near drowning of alleged terrorists.

To John McCain’s credit, he’s warned that Republicans won’t find their way back by becoming the party of torture. His friend, the level-headed former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, has flatly disagreed with Cheney’s unsubstantiated assertion that Obama has made the country less secure. So do the majority of Americans; in the Democracy Corps survey, they say that this President is “doing better, not worse, than his predecessor” on national security. That stands to reason. After all, why would Americans take advice from those like Cheney, who left the world in tatters, respect for America shredded and our alliances strained?

The last recourse of the rear-guard, the only answer they have left, is that at least the nation has not been attacked at home since 2001. This is a blatant shift in their argument that reflects their fall from power. In office, they constantly warned that another attack was inevitable; now, if it comes, the convenient implication is that Obama’s policies will have caused it.

It’s bad enough that they might root for his failure on the economy. That anyone should contemplate the political capital that could flow from another terrorist act on American soil is unthinkable. So I have to believe that this is one instance where Cheney’s patriotism trumps political calculation. Allow me here to return the sentiment: Even though I know that Cheney’s omnipresence is an unmitigated boon to the Democrats, I’ve reached the point where, for the sake of the country, I wish Dick Cheney would just go away.