Former Vice President Cheney said yesterday President Obama makes “pretty speeches” but that “pretty speeches” do not leave our adversaries in awe of us. In other words, you can talk about being a nation of laws, but if you want to be effective in this “war against terrorism” you have to ignore law and do what you must, including torture. That sort of rationalization could have been used by bin Laden himself by simply saying he hated to do it, but slamming planes into the WTC was effective and thus a fine thing to do.
Mr. Cheney, I urge you to read the speech President Obama delivered yesterday. It was a sober, serious and yes, patriotic speech – perhaps the most important speech of his tenure. It did not lay out a plan in the sense that it did not say, “Tuesday, we will deliver Guantanamo inmates 1-20 to federal prison x.” No, it was far more important than that. It was designed to help Americans understand – again – basic precepts upon which this government was founded and has been governed for 233 years. Much of what President Obama said has been forgotten or ignored in recent years.
President Obama framed his approach to combating terrorism in both American law and values. He outlined the problems as they exist and the challenges to solve them. Most important, he elevated the issues above the current debate. “I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we also cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values,” he said. “…Time and again, our values have been our best national security asset.”
But it is clear Mr. Cheney will never understand that. When he opened his speech, he gave us an indication of the total disdain he has for our President when he said, "It's pretty clear the president served in the Senate and not in the House of Representatives because, of course, in the House, we have the five minute rule." Cheney was complaining about the length of President Obama’s speech. I suspect he did not listen to it. Mr. Cheney, get a copy….please.
BTW, the Obama speech was 6,000 words and the Cheney speech was 5,500.
Another BTW, if there was any doubt about who was President during the last administration, it has been brushed away with Cheney’s full blown attempts in the media to defend actions of the Cheney/Bush administration. Now we know, CHENEY WAS the President. As Cheney would say, “The fact of the matter is, I was the President, and if you will, I liked it.”
2 comments:
Thanks for writing about this. Two points to offer...
I think President Obama had the challenge of addressing the entire country in a thoughtful and comprehensive way, while Cheney was unfettered and free to do another self-serving, truth-defying rant. President Obama had to tell some of us that indeed certain threats may require unusual steps. He had to tell others of us that those unusual steps don't include tossing out our standards altogether. And he needed to help all of us get to a place where we're thinking responsibly about what the legitimate middle ground is.
My second point is a complaint: the media treated the two speeches yesterday as some 'Rocky' boxing match. Now this isn't a big surprise, but it's still a huge disappointment. Not only does Dick Cheney not merit in any sense an equal platform with the president, but, as implied above, their remarks are offered from dramatically different positions. Obama is leading the country; Cheney is attempting to justify the sins of his past. There's no way those two men or their arguments should be presented as the front pages of The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The LA Times, and others did - as equivalents. At least The New York Times' front page billed Cheney in a lesser way (although I'd have put him well inside the paper and below the fold). The media need to stop catering to Cheney's venal caterwauling so (maybe) he'll shut up and go hunting.
The good news from the coverage of yesterday is that Cheney is held in such low regard by most Americans that his exhortations are all the more pathetic and his self serving defenses all the more irrelevant.
As for the media, remember it is not news anymore. It is entertainment, e.g. headlines today read "War of Words, Thrilla on the Hilla, Clash of Titans. Ed Murrow is rolling over in his grave. It is about ratings, drama, money. It has nothing to do with the pursuit of the truth. If you get some of that -- fine, but it is not central to reporting. "If we get it wrong, 'sorry 'bout that, chief.' Now, we really must move on, what's the forecast for tomorrow,Bob?"
Seriously, if it were about news. They wouldn't cover Cheney. They might ask "where is Bush?" and that would be appropriate but the coverage of the day would surely be on the import of Obama's words which were brilliant...and I would say that even if I weren't a partisan. "Houston, we HAVE a President!"
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