President Obama's speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize this past week has won unlikely plaudits from conservatives, who say he injected a bit of militaristic realism into a committee founded on the lofty notion of world peace.
But not everyone is applauding. Liz Cheney, the daughter of the former vice president and one of the most tenacious defenders of the Bush administration's use of torture, accused the president on Sunday of slandering the CIA during his Nobel address. Her basis: that Obama criticized American actions at GITMO.
From Cheney's appearance on Fox News Sunday:
There were certainly parts of his speech with which I wholeheartedly agree. And I think it was really good frankly to have the president finally enunciate some of these things, talk about the insufficiency of engagement with respect to dealing with terror, or dealing with enemies; talk about the importance of America supporting democracy around the world, and also talk about the role that America has played, particularly in post World War II Europe. I think the key now will be whether the policies follow that. And I certainly hope that they do.
But we still had in this speech, you know, it is almost like it has become reflexive, this notion that America abandoned its ideals after 9/11. And I think that as we see this president repeatedly go on foreign soil, and accuse America of having tortured people, talk about Guantanamo Bay as an abandonment of our ideals, you know, that part of the speech to me really is nothing short of shameful. And it is not just an attack on political opponents. It really is casting dispersions and, I would say, slandering the men and women in the CIA who carried out key programs to keep us safe and the people frankly right now at Guantanamo Bay who are guarding some of the worst terrorists. So I think that part of the speech represents something I hope the president will stop soon.
It had not gone unnoticed that, following Obama's remarks, former vice president Dick Cheney had remained quiet. The political world interpreted this silence as a quasi-endorsement of what the president had to say in Oslo. But, alas, it seems the Cheney family was not content. And, as before, they are defending not just the use of torture, but the whole legacy of the Bush administration in fighting terror.