Cheney's Reign of Error

"The administration seems to pride itself on searching for some kind of middle ground in policies addressing terrorism....But in the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed."
-Dick Cheney, on the offensive.

Then lock 'em all up. Lock everybody up -- not just the ones with a strange-sounding name or an odd way of speaking, but everyone. Every last one of us. The native sons as well as the foreign born. The old as well as the young. The rich, the poor, the city dweller and suburbanite and farmer -- we all go behind bars, locked away forever.

That's the only way to be sure, you know. Anything less would be a half-measure.

Put cameras in every cell, and hidden microphones. Keep track of everything we say, even in a whisper, and every expression, no matter how fleeting, that ever crosses our faces. Ankle bracelets and motion detectors, of course. Waterboards. And as soon as they can figure out the technology, brain chips, too, so they'll always know exactly what we're thinking.

"You cannot keep just some nuclear-armed terrorists out of the United States," says the former vice president. "You must keep every nuclear-armed terrorist out of the United States."

Then close all the borders -- nobody goes in, nobody goes out. From this day forward, no immigrants from anywhere. No business travelers. No vacationers. The walls go up, and they stay up. Because you have to be sure.

Anything less would be a half-measure.

Ground all the airplanes. If you need to be sure that nobody ever again hijacks an airplane and flies it into a tall building, prohibit airplanes. For that matter, take down all the tall buildings. And while you're at it, rip up the rails, and shut down the ports. They're targets, too -- get rid of them.

"There is never a good time to compromise," says Dick Cheney, "when the lives and safety of the American people hang in the balance."

Except that we compromise all the time, even when "the lives and safety of the American people hang in the balance." Barack Obama will compromise as he struggles to get it right -- and so did Dick Cheney.

We'd be better protected against the smuggled-in weapon in a container ship if we banned all container ships. But we don't, because we've balanced the risk of the danger against our need for all those imported goods -- machine parts and furniture, bananas and Toyotas.

We don't shut down the airlines either, because we've balanced the risk of another hijacking against the need to keep the nation's commerce flowing. So we keep the airlines flying, but we make travelers pass through metal detectors and take off their shoes. We don't make them take off the rest of their clothes -- even though somebody might have a plastic knife hidden under her blouse -- because we balance the risk of violence against the need for individuals to have some privacy, some dignity. Likewise with the cameras and microphones, or midnight raids, or cattle prods.

If there were no "half-measures," there'd be no spending on schools, or traffic lights, or concert halls, or football fields. There'd certainly be no tax cuts -- the government would have a prior claim on every available dollar, and every available dollar would go for national security. Anything else would be a "compromise."

But it's not that simple. Governing has always been about choosing, about balancing competing interests. There's security -- but there's also liberty, and privacy, and commerce, and justice. Some things that we could be doing, we choose not to do, because of the time, the effort, the cost, the level of intrusion involved.

Because there are offsetting considerations. Values in conflict. Because -- Dick Cheney's certainty notwithstanding -- these are tough choices.

And anyone who insists otherwise is a fool, or a fraud, or a fanatic.

Rick Horowitz is a syndicated columnist. You can write to him at rickhoro@execpc.com.