I thought cockfighting was illegal in this country.
But there, right on TV and web stream, was the President of the US and his now archrival, the former Veep, in an unrestrained rooster pecking match over the most serious of topics, including enhanced interrogation (speaking of euphemisms, Mr. Cheney). That phrase always sounds like war Viagra no matter who uses it. If the dispute lasts more than four hours, call Eric Holder immediately.
The back-to-back speeches were both exercises in a certain kind of nostalgia despite the two men insisting that their thoughts were all on the future: Dick Cheney's waxing about the unique adrenaline of 9/11 and the ensuing public eagerness and his Administration's response for action, and Barack Obama's return to the Jimmy Carter projection of human rights and reason as an international missionary position.
So if the ex-Veep is the new Dick Nixon, does that make Mr. Obama the resurrected Man from Plains (except more likeable?)
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"Obama will be a one term president," a staunch Republican friend told me the other day, "just like Jimmy Carter," though this guy was more concerned with POTUS' "redistribution of wealth" than his Al Qaeda policy. There were a lot of reasons Mr. Carter got tossed in 1980, but his attempts to be warm during the Cold War flew in the face of the old world order and didn't help him get four more years.
Facts on the ground in at least one war involving terror the last few days may be a hint that there's still a dynamic working against the new President's view of "moral authority" and "common sense." Two words for this enhanced interrogation debate: Sri Lanka.
The leader of that country went against many civilized rules of Democratic/Obama warfare in achieving what Mr. Obama, with all his fresh air spirit of friendly engagement has already been struggling with and dancing around in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Iran or almost anywhere else: flat-out victory.
I'm not advocating that any country ruthlessly bomb civilians and, as the New York Times wrote today about Sri Lanka, squelch dissent, block independent reporting, engage in assassinations, put civil liberties in the trunk, jail journalists, harass ethnic minorities or snub the West and buy weapons from China and Pakistan. But that's the formula that allowed Sri Lanka to bury the Tamil Tigers. This was one of the toughest, most enduring conflicts in the world, the Tigers having waged what the Times story called "a pitiless war of terror" for 25 years.
Today, Mr. Obama suggested that the conflict formerly known as the worldwide War on Terror could last at least 10 years. And he has a plan, which he laid out eloquently in his speech.
But right now, President Obama can't even stop the Repubs in his own town from naughty legislation earmarks giving crackpot campers the right to conceal handguns in public parks. (What's the threat, exactly, out there in nature? Next, PETA's going to fight for the right to arm bears, purely as self-defense.)
Hey, if being less CIA-black-bag works, who's going to complain other than maybe the unemployed black-bag professionals Dick Cheney saluted despite a lynch mob view of them elsewhere. If Gitmo is, as the President says, a "rallying cry for our enemies" (Jihad, Si! Guantanamo, No!), we should close it. While there's a NIMBY quality to legislators from maximum security prison states saying no way to a terrorist prisoner transfer, places like Pelican Bay seem tough enough to handle it. I'm sure the Aryan brotherhood is rubbing its hands in anticipation. We'll see if Mr. Obama's use of "our values as a moral compass" in war policy actually works. That's the compass Bush critics say he used as a ceiling fan.
The Obama-Cheney faceoff was gladiator vs. gladiator, a war of its own for the soul of national security policy and the judgment of history.
But there was one battle both men seemed to agree on: the war against the press. Talk about merciless! And Mr. Obama was more militant than Mr. Cheney on the topic.
"The New York Times didn't serve the interests of our country or the safety of our people," by printing national security wiretap stories, Dick Cheney said. But President Obama stomped on the media for going "silent" on the rush to war after 9/11. Then he said a contradiction in his own policies for releasing/not releasing sensitive material was "in the press' mind.." Then he accused our "media culture" of needlessly causing fights in the name of getting "good copy."
Ouch. Where's the humanity in kicking the press while it's down?
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The mere fact that there is a "debate" over the efficacy of torture illustrates -- in start relief -- just how far we have descended as a culture and as a nation.
After 100+ years of subverting democracies all over the world, this is what we've come to.
Anyone who can't or won't connect the dots is either ignorant or malevolent and given the reticence to investigate and prosecute this latest band of war criminals, they will no doubt enjoy the faux statesmanship afforded previous bad actors. They'll have airports named after them (Dulles), be invited to speak at commencement ceremonies of major universities and to be interviewed in the cosy confines of the Charlie Rose show (Kissinger) or make nearly successful runs for US Senate seats (North).
It is to vomit and while the vast majority of Americans remain embarrassingly ignorant of their country's crimes over more than a century now, the world does not. As our stature in the world inevitably declines (do the math), so will the tolerance of the wanton, irresponsible, hegemenous narrow interests who instigate and prosecute these crimes.
There needs to be a Nuremburg type tribunal to suss all of this out. These crimes and criminals need to be prosecuted and sentenced. Period. Anything less will only facilitate the next great American atrocity.
President Obama is not debating dick cheney.
He is doing as he promised, talking to America, keeping us in the loop.
Cheney's delusions of relevance and power vs. President Obama's policies is not much of a debate.
And the disgraceful media should be publicly flogged (and their cracker-jack-box jounalism degrees used as toilet paper) for keeping this President Obama vs. cheney myth alive.
This is what should be happening:
1) Military and former Military Dems attacking Cheney's lack of military service, lack of intelligence experience and his propensity for constantly drawing faulty conclusions from information that he is given.
2) Political Dems- need to be constantly remind the American public of the failures of the Bush/Cheney adminstration including failure to protect US on 9/11.
3) Some Democratic Senator (s) needs to suggest (over and over) that Dick Cheney is potentially a war criminal - staying focused on the legal arguments against torture.
Speaking of history, I don't know enough about the civil war in Sri Lanka but I'll be surprised if the Tamils now just roll over. the intense hatred of decades of conflict will take a long time to cool, even if the dead are buried.
Cheney deserves no one's respect...
LMAO
Don't equate President Obama with creeepy crawly Dink Cheney.
Hmmm, you're a journalist....and you're kicking at Obama while he is struggling to make way through the mess left to him, so if he kicks journalists, guess it looks fair.
If YOU can defend MSM and what they helped do to this country for the last 8 years, and they're still at it, then you stand alone.
There were hundreds of Pulitzer quality stories left uncovered by the media during the Bush years, and hundreds more of propaganda laden stories they did print, which totally misinformed Americans, so the demise of the newspaper industry is their own fault for sure.
It wasn't as though we didn't know some of the truths, we wanted fully investigated stories of the crimes our govt was perpetrating and we were left wanting.
Yes, true, but Obama is no soldier either...maybe in words, but not in deeds...still, his arguments were excellent in counterpoint to Cheney's mindless lies.
Well maybe the humanity ran off when the humanity read that comparison between Obama and Carter.
There is no comparison.