The Anti-Cheney Campaign

Herd mentality at the Washington Post is a wonder to behold.  Following former Vice President Richard Cheney's appearance on Face the Nation the Post mounted its latest anti-anti-propaganda mission.  Richard Cohen leads off wondering if Mr. Cheney might actually be right, perish the thought, about the effectiveness of the enhanced interrogation techniques.

'Cheney, though, is adamant that the very measures that are now deemed illegal did work and that, furthermore, doing away with them has made the country less safe. Cheney said this most recently on Sunday, on CBS's "Face the Nation." "Those policies were responsible for saving lives," he told Bob Schieffer. In effect, Cheney poses a hard, hard question: Is it more immoral to torture than it is to fail to prevent the deaths of thousands?'

Cheney has repeatedly asked for the release of CIA memos that he says describe terrorist attacks that were in the works and how they were prevented.  Obama's refusal to release them argues forcefully that the memos do exist and that they say what Mr. Cheney says they say.  Their release would not reflect well on the sanctimonious scolds who would rather risk American civilian deaths than endure the stain that pouring water on a guy's face might inflict upon their delicate consciences. 

Mr. Cohen, though, says he would like the memos released.  From the tone of his columns I suspect he wants an early start on the task of parsing the sentences so that a plausible counter narrative can be constructed.

'The Obama administration ought to call Cheney's bluff, if it is that, and release the memos. If even a stopped clock is right twice a day, this could be Cheney's time.'

Next out of the gate we get Eugene Robinson performing mental gymnastics.  He don't need no stinking memos.  He's got his story and he's stickin' to it.  In fact, as far as Mr. Robinson is concerned those memos simply do not exist.

'Cheney added that "to the extent that those policies were responsible for saving lives, that the administration is now trying to cancel those policies or end them, terminate them, then I think it's fair to argue -- and I do argue -- that that means in the future we're not going to have the same safeguards we've had for the last eight years."

This is the crux of Cheney's "argument," and I put the word in quotation marks because it isn't really a valid argument at all. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration approved programs and methods that previously would have been considered illegal or unacceptable: arbitrary and indefinite detention of terrorism suspects, waterboarding and other abusive interrogation methods, secret CIA prisons, unprecedented electronic surveillance. Since 2001, there have been no new attacks on what the Bush administration creepily called the "homeland." Therefore, everything that was done in the name of preventing new attacks was justified.

The fallacy lies in the fact that it is impossible for Cheney to prove that anti-terrorism methods within the bounds of U.S. law and tradition would have failed to prevent new attacks. Nor, for that matter, can Cheney demonstrate that torture and other abuses were particularly effective.'

In the topsy-turvey world of Eugene Robinson the irrefutable fact that there have been no successful attacks on American soil since September 11, 2001 pales beside the slender speculative possibility that Bush administration anti-terror policies may not really have been responsible for our safety.  Instead what Mr. Robinson touts as hard fact is that you can't prove that the information couldn't have been gotten in other ways. 

Well, he's actually right.  We can get this kind of information in other ways.  Let's imagine us congratulating ourselves as we admire the wreckage of a smoldering office tower.  "Aren't we just swell.  We didn't have to torture anybody to find out about this plot."  The problem is, there are those who would want us to find these things out a little sooner. 

Meanwhile Dana Milbank in the midst of his attack on Rush Limbaugh, perfectly captured Washington Post attitude toward Dick Cheney.  The irony is priceless.

'As he assumes ever-greater command over the American conservative movement, the high road has not been a common route for Limbaugh. On his show yesterday, he compared Cheney favorably with Bill Clinton: "He is not hot for interns." He discussed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's looks: "She wears Armani clothes -- fashionable. Botox shots -- fashionable." He hurled epithets: "Compliant sycophantic slavish drive by media." He made caricatures of Democrats' positions: "There's just a genuine dislike for this country . . . certainly by a lot of Democrats." And he continued his personal assault on the president's character: "Barack Obama has yet to show in any way how he will control the cost of anything, including his ego."

Though the recent attacks went unmentioned, El Rushbo exulted in his notoriety. He read a quote by H.L. Mencken: "The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth."'

Exactly.  They all detest Dick Cheney for daring to tell them the truth.

Afterthought:  It is an indisputable fact.  In the opinion of Washington Post writers, waterboarding is torture.  That opinion is not universal.