Dan

Calabrese

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May 25, 2009

Cheney Shines, So Why Do Republicans Want Him in Hiding?

It’s worth remembering that, while Dick Cheney was helping to lead the first Gulf War effort as one of this nation’s most effective Secretaries of Defense, Barack Obama was teaching welfare recipients in Chicago how to stage demonstrations to get their toilets fixed. While Dick Cheney was helping to craft a successful strategy to prevent a repeat of 9/11, Barack Obama was voting “present” in the Illinois state legislature.

Cheney knows more about national security than Obama probably ever cared to know – at least before he become commander-in-chief and found himself with no choice but to undertake a crash course. And it showed in their dueling speeches Thursday on national security. Cheney, who saw the intelligence and the threat assessments daily for eight years and knew exactly what the nation faced, explained in serious and typically understated tones what the Bush Administration did and why. He took on the phony outrage that has recently taken center stage about “torture,” and obliterated other ridiculous notions – such as the one that claims American aggressiveness somehow became a cherished recruiting tool for Al Qaeda.

Obama had nothing. He meandered through inanities about how we can’t compromise our “values” while protecting ourselves, never quite explaining – as Cheney pointed out – when it became an American value to never inflict discomfort on a terrorist bent on killing us. That would  surely come as a surprise to Harry Truman, who was president when Democrats still took national security seriously, and didn’t even hold back on the annihilation of more than 100,000 innocent Japanese civilians in order to secure victory in World War II and spare the lives of God-knows-how-many U.S. troops.

Obama is making it up as he goes along, trying to fit the square peg of his campaign rhetoric into the round hole of governing reality. He announced on his second day in office that he would close the Guantanamo Bay prison – a perfect place to hold terrorists both for geographic and legal reasons – without the slightest idea what to do as an alternative. He released classified information revealing U.S. interrogation methods, insisted he was banning the methods, but left himself an out just in case he really, really needs to change his mind.

As enjoyable as it was watching the strong, steady Cheney wipe the floor with the poseur Obama, it does raise an interesting question: Why are leaders of the Republican Party squirming at the sight of Cheney suddenly so prominent in the public spotlight? Is it because they buy the conventional wisdom that exposure for the unpopular Cheney only helps the Democrats? Or, as one typically gutless “anonymous” GOP strategist recently told Politico, “It may be the right message, but it’s absolutely the wrong messenger.”

Well, let’s consider both ends of that. Why is it the right message? First, it’s the truth. In spite of the nonsense emanating from Obama and the media, the Bush team was both effective and conscientious about the law as it fought to prevent terrorist attacks. Someone needs to rebut the idiocy that claims otherwise. Second, if this is not understood, we will fall into the same old ineffective pretend-to-act nonsense that set us up for 9/11 in the first place.

As for the “wrong messenger” business, if Republicans fear Cheney’s unpopularity – and that of the Bush Administration in general – they have only themselves to blame. They controlled Congress when Bush tried to address major problems like Social Security reform and the problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They did not have the courage to act. When Bush encountered problems stemming from Hurricane Katrina and Iraq, and his approval ratings fell as a result, these denizens of courage ran from their president like he was an envelope full of white powder.

In the 2006 and 2008 election cycles, they treated an imperfect president who nevertheless had a very defensible record on many issues as if he was toxic waste – all because political wisdom says to run from a president with weak approval ratings, and they know nothing else. What’s more, they nominated a presidential candidate who did the same, and when both he and they got their clocks cleaned, they expressed utter horror that the only Republican willing to stand up and speak the truth about anything was the dreaded Darth Cheney.

Dick Cheney is a smart, capable, serious, selfless public servant who did the right thing and took the heat because duty, not self-interest, motivated him. Now he is answering the nonsensical notions that permeate our current discussions on national security, because someone has to, and no one else has the courage.

Know what? The Republican Party doesn’t deserve such a fine man. But America needs to hear the truths that only he is willing – and so able – to tell.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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