Dick Cheney's Cynical Bet

by Taylor Marsh

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What motivates Dick Cheney?

It's not what people think, though Mr. Cheney should be worried about his role in U.S. torture policy, even if he'll likely never be held to account. So, it's not that. Though we may get the "holy grail" evidence Cheney keeps talking about soon. What Cheney, Dick or Liz, won't talk about is the detainee who gave false information (under Egyptian torture) that sent us to war in Iraq, and disgraced Colin Powell. Because Al-Libi just committed suicide in a Libyan prison.

If we get hit again it's going to be blamed on torture, Rush said on his show yesterday.

So why is Dick Cheney on this media tour?

Mr. Cheney wants to draw a line in the sand where Pres. Obama began dismantling the torture policies of Bush-Cheney, which Cheney postulates is making us "less safe."

"That means, in the future, we will not have the same safeguards..." - Vice President Dick Cheney

Cheney knows that we will be hit at some moment in the future, something experts have said is inevitable, whether it's before Obama is out of office or not isn't the issue. Cheney's bet is that when this happens the legacy of Bush-Cheney must be solidified as the Administration who after 9/11 "kept us safe." He wants Americans to remember the moment those policies were dismantled. It happened on the Democrats' watch.

Mr. Cheney along with his fan club, headed by Rush Limbaugh, is betting that the American people need to be reminded of who kept us safe and when those safety policies were destroyed, believing that Americans won't care about torture anymore when the next attack lands.

Nothing Dick Cheney does is by accident. This is a calculated plan to weave a narrative before it happens into the political blood stream, with the attempt of casting blame in advance. Call it preemptive marketing.

It's the same tactic with a new twist, with Cheney finding a new line of attack on the old standard that Democrats are weak on national security. Considering what Bush-Cheney has cost us internationally this takes incredible gall. But when you think of how low Dick Cheney is thought of in this country, what has he got to lose? Since the Obama administration doesn't have the stomach to do anything about what has gone before, the answer is nothing. Considering the Cheneys are the strongest advocates on TV today for a policy that should have us all hanging our heads in shame, it makes you wonder who's really in power.

So, even as Cheney draws a line that he believes will eventually lead the Republicans back to power, Cheney's cynical bet that Obama and the Democrats will be blamed is one he's more than willing to let ride.

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Comments

[Aaror]

There is a risk for Cheney though...
He is out in public saying that torture kept america safe, that means he is going on the record endorsing it.
This puts pressure on the White House internationally to do something to denounce it (starting with releasing the memo's Cheney hoped wouldn't get out about how useless it was). The more Cheney squaks, the more Obama folks will be tempted to leak Cheney memo's and documents to the world court.
If the world court finds Cheney guilty of ordering torture in violation of the geneva conventions, we are required by treaty to turn him over!

[research]

No, if we get attacked again,

it will be because we didn't sacrifice a virgin at the harvest moon.

Or we didn;t throw anyone into the volcano,

or some other superstitious barbarity.

BushCo pissed off the world

and now wants to blame the blow back on Obama!

[alcibiades77]

Cheney might have called to "serve" by the Bushes, son and father and other oil barons, for this reason:

He has to be the fall guy, there has to be one,so why not Dick? He's prone to heart attacks, so let him expend himself on making the case that torture is just ok, if a few highly paid(off)judges and attorneys said so and Mr. Bush, kinda thought it was a swell idea

Maybe the strategy is to wind him up and let him go for as long as he has some breath in his body.

[alwqb]

This guy has been on the operating on the "Dark Side" for a long time. With all of the money made during the gasoline price fix, there is a lot of it sitting around somewhere. Let's look at the oil guy, Mr Hailiburton now known as Blackwater. Look how he concocted the "yellow cake" stories. Other governments were involved. All terrorist need financing. I don't trust this guy as far as I could throw him. Anthrax anyone?

The only thing that will keep Cheney out of jail is another attack.

[DRaymond]

The neat thing about Cheney's tactic is that is that it can be incredibly long lived. Another attack could come decades from now and the political descendants of Cheney will be saying ' If Obama hadn't crippled what we put in place after 9/11 this wouldn't have happened'.

The last attack allowed them cynically to consolidate and expand power. They are already planning on using the next one to someday return to power.

[StevenevetS]

I guess I have to admire a daughter who can argue so well in her father's defense. Unfortunately, some of her talking points are misleading at best and her logic is flawed.

In the end, I agree that all of the information should come out to the Congress and the courts. I'm not sure that it should all come out to the public. But certainly enough information should come out to demonstrate to the American people that justice is being served.

Wounds can't heal until they have been cleaned, disinfected and bandaged. And even then special care has to be taken while the healing process takes place.

[SocialistDistortion]

Cheney's relevance is in it's "last throes" if you will....

[doug108]

Compelling analysis. It's distressing that, if true, Cheney's gambit will probably work.

[dwillisno1]

Why did the Bush Adm quit torturing at least two years before the end of the Term? What kept us safe during that period?

[research]

Cheney wants to claim that if even one out of hundreds of tortures revealed even one little scrap of info, it's worth the evil and corruption. "the 1% doctrine"

[enriquecaliente]

After the 1993 World Trade Center Bombings, there were no further attacks on American soil and that was under Clinton's watch.

FACT: 9/11 happed on his watch end of story.

[erikhiga]

I don't believe a single word Dick Cheney has to say. This is just a P.R. stunt. He's just trying to save face. The facts will all come out. The people demand it.

[HST]

Dick Cheney cynical? Say it ain't so Joe. (Wink wink).

[iyamchazz]

Liz should go back in the closet.
She would make more sense and
Mika is a woos.

[doug108]

Mika realized when she was thirteen that her intellect would never compare to her father's. She stuck to looking pretty, and now she's on Morning Joe.

[Woofer58]

Good commentary, as usual, Taylor. You rock.

Yeah, it does seem like Cheney is positioning ahead of anything 'bad' happening during Obama's watch. Sure seems pathetic to play it that way. He just loves paranoia.
I guess that an administration that will attempt a dialogue with a less-than-wonderful country just bugs the daylights out of Cheney. He sure doesn't seem to enjoy peace very much.

Well, here's hoping that Obama's policies pay off....

[andycan]

THE CHENEY NEO-CONS: A BLACK STAIN IN AMERICAN HISTORYI

t is the duty of all those who helped elect Obama and of lucid media such as the Huff Post to discredit the Cheney gang and firmly plant in the American psyche the notion of their malfeasance.

If Obama could be elected- whatever his faults and weaknesses - then it is also possible to continue the struggle for truth and justice and convince public opinion of the true colours and evil intentions of the Neo-con crooks, so that they shall never be remembered as anything other than a black stain in American history.