Cheney's Real Enemy Is Bush

Cheney's Real Enemy Is Bush

by Peter Beinart
Cheney’s real target may be less Obama than his predecessor, George W. Bush.

Bush, and the other people who reined Cheney in, aren’t talking. Cheney is—and the congressional Republicans are parroting his words.

On Sunday, Cheney appeared on ABC’s This Week with Jonathan Karl. His criticisms of the Obama administration were predictable: It shouldn’t have read Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights; it shouldn’t be trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court; it shouldn’t be trying to close Guantanamo Bay; it shouldn’t rule out waterboarding. Also predictable were Karl’s questions, in which he noted that many of these criticisms could be applied to the Bush administration as well.

What wasn’t predictable was Cheney’s response. Usually, when reporters ask politicians why they’re attacking the other party for things their own side has done they deny that there is any double standard, and find some distinction to suggest that what the other guys are doing is much worse. Cheney didn’t do that. To the contrary, he repeatedly acknowledged that his gripes with Obama are also gripes with George W. Bush.

You have to hand it to the guy. He may be an ideological fanatic, but he’s no partisan hack. Time and again, with barely a nudge from the questioner, Cheney essentially volunteered that, “Yes, George W. Bush was soft on terror, too.”

In Cheney’s opinion, clearly, the Bush administration lost its nerve in the second term. (When, not coincidentally, Cheney’s nemesis, Condoleezza Rice, became secretary of State, and shifted power over foreign policy away from the White House). In 2003, the Bush administration abandoned waterboarding. In 2006, it closed the “black sites” around the world where detainees were held beyond the reach of any law. Throughout Bush’s second term, his administration released prisoners from Guantanamo Bay. And in Bush’s final days in office, according to David Sanger of the New York Times, he refused Israeli pleas for help in taking military action against Iran.

more:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-02-15/cheneys-real-enemy-is-bush/?cid=hp:mainpromo2

Bullshit.



Eta: He's both.