Cheney policies adopted by Obama

Rich Lowry:

DICK Cheney is getting vindication from an unlikely source -- the very Obama administration he's bedeviling in all his TV interviews.

The former vice president has dared to defend the Bush administration from charges that it ran a torturing, Constitution-shredding criminal enterprise for years under the guise of the "War on Terror." He's been duly subjected to the Two Minutes Hate -- on an endless loop -- from all the people who want him to slink to an undisclosed location never to emerge again.

Cheney's defense is so notable because he's so lonely. As the Bush administration is accused of war crimes, other Bush stalwarts have fallen silent. Where is Condi Rice (who at least defended herself when challenged on waterboarding by a fourth-grader the other day)? Where is former National Security Adviser Steve Hadley? Where is George W. Bush, who wants to maintain post-presidential decorum but might bestir himself to stand up for the people who pro- tected the nation during his presidency?

No, this is a job for a man with a stomach of steel, who can take satisfaction in President Obama's Cheney-like turn. Obama has decided to "delay" the release of photos of detainee abuse -- maybe secrecy does have an important role in national-security affairs. Obama is considering indefinite detention of terrorists on US soil and reviving military commissions -- maybe the system of detention and trials the Bush administration created wasn't so lunatic after all.

The photo reversal brought thunderous denunciations on the left. The American Civil Liberties Union, whose Freedom of Information Act request seemed set to force the release of the photos, huffed that Obama had adopted "the stonewalling tactics and opaque policies of the Bush administration." Human Rights Watch decried "a blow to openness, accountability."

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So why release more ads for the enemy? It's not necessary for accountability, since abuses at detention facilities can be investigated without splashing the photographic evidence on every front page in the Middle East. Images are uniquely powerful. Jane Mayer's indictment of Bush interrogation policies, "The Dark Side," could be translated into Arabic and given to every male age 18-24 in the Middle East, and the terrorist dial would barely move. Publish one humiliating picture, and it becomes the recruiting poster from hell.

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With all the gripes from the media and the left about Cheney's interviews, he is getting results as the administration is having to adjust its policies to the realities of what Cheney is saying. Not only is he providing a defense of the Bush administration's policies, he is doing the new administration the favor of pointing out their mistakes and screw ups in time for them to correct them.