Cheney as Secretary of Defense of Bush policies

NY Times:

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In the three months since leaving office, Mr. Cheney has upended the old Washington script for former presidents and vice presidents, using a series of interviews — the first just two weeks after leaving office — to kick off one last campaign, not for elective office, but on behalf of his own legacy. In the process, he has become a vocal leader of the opposition to President Obama, rallying conservatives as they search for leadership and heartening Democrats who see him as the ideal political foil.

Even before Mr. Obama released secret memorandums on the interrogation techniques approved by the Bush administration, Mr. Cheney, as part of researching his memoir, had asked the National Archives to declassify two other documents he contends would show that harsh interrogations produced useful information, according to his daughter Liz, who is helping him organize and write the memoir. The documents do not reveal specific tactics, Ms. Cheney said.

When the Obama administration released the memos, Mr. Cheney asked the archives to expedite his request and made a splash this week by announcing it on Fox News in an interview with Sean Hannity.

Former President George W. Bush has said that Mr. Obama “deserves my silence,” but Mr. Cheney, who told Mr. Hannity he has spoken with Mr. Bush just once since leaving office, does not share that view.

“I think he feels compelled to make clear why, particularly related to national security issues, it is so important that we don’t abandon those policies and that we remember the fact that we are at war,” Ms. Cheney said Thursday. “When he sees the current administration making decisions that he believes are making the nation less safe, he does not believe there is any obligation under those circumstances to be silent.”

At a time when his party has no high-profile leaders on Capitol Hill, Mr. Cheney is in effect the ranking Republican speaking out against Mr. Obama. His message has been amplified — on television, in op-ed pieces and elsewhere — by an informal band of supporters, including Ms. Cheney.

Mr. Obama has repeatedly repudiated the Bush administration; in the interviews, Mr. Cheney has hit back. Speaking to Politico in February, he warned of a “high probability” of another terrorist attack. On CNN, he suggested that Mr. Obama was using the economic crisis to justify a big expansion of government. On Fox, he agreed when Mr. Hannity asked if Mr. Obama was “telegraphing weakness.”

To Democrats, Mr. Cheney is the perfect person to remind the nation of all the reasons Republicans were turned out of office. “I think the country has rendered a pretty clear verdict last fall on Cheney and Cheneyism,” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod.

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That last quoted paragraph tells you much about the dishonest debate the Democrats have been pushing for the last nine years. They don't want to debate the issues. They want to demonize and marginalize individuals. Note that Cheney never makes personal attacks. He attacks judgment and issues and he attacks with facts.

Axelrod on the other hand attacks Cheney personally as Democrats have since Cheney's election. Ever since Newt Gingrich the Democrat playbook has been to demonize any spokesman for Republican ideas. After Newt they did the same thing to President Bush and Cheney.

This low road politics has rarely been challenged by the media or even the Republicans, but it should because it has delivered to the US a left wing government that is incapable of making sound political decisions. They rely on emotion based talking points which are not supported by the facts.

I am glad to see Cheney speaking out and defending policies that helped us defeat a wicked enemy. The problem with the Democrats is that they see Cheney and Bush as the wicked enemy in stead of al Qaeda. They would rather see the people who kept us safe punished than the enemy trying to kill us.

We must speak out about the administrations attempt to return us to the failed policies of the Clinton administration and its lawfare approach to terrorism.