In This ‘Gut Check’ Moment, It’s Time to Reject Cheneyism

Published on Tuesday, December 09, 2014

by The Nation

In This ‘Gut Check’ Moment, It’s Time to Reject Cheneyism

by John Nichols

The Senate Intelligence Committee had to release the details on its multi-year investigation into how, under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, the Central Intelligence Agency employed tactics that the world understands as torture. To hide the findings of what the 500-plus page summary of the report begins by describing as a "brutal" and "flawed" program that was "in violation of U.S. law, treaty obligations, and our values" would put senators who are elected to serve and advance the public interest at odds with a basic American premise: the idea that a government acting in the name of the American people must regularly seek and obtain their informed consent.

This premise does not deny the necessity of action in an emergency. Nor does it require consultation so constant or picayune that all flexibility would be lost. But it does expect that officials can and shall be honest with the American people about long-term initiatives, about accepted tactics and about the values that guide this country as it engages domestically and internationally. In particular, it expects frankness and cooperation in interactions with the Congress that the people elect to check and balance the executive branch.

The Bush-Cheney administration did not merely abandon this premise; with Cheney taking the lead, the former administration aggressively and repeatedly assaulted it. And the assault continues, as Cheney, in particular, maintains the pattern of denial and defense that characterized his tenure as the most powerful—and secretive—vice president in American history.

Without reading the Senate Intelligence Committee report, Cheney was already attacking it on the eve of the release. With his typical combination of bombastic aggression and refusal to face the facts—especially when those facts reveal the extent to which his own statements have been untrue—Cheney decried the report as “a bunch of hooey.”

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http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/12/09/gut-check-moment-its-time-reject-cheneyism