American torture: Gul Rahmân and Dick Cheney

By Infidel753 

I don't actually know who Gul Rahmân was, and neither do most Americans, which is unfortunate. One salient fact about him is known, however -- he was not a terrorist. Nevertheless, due to an error, he was apparently arrested on suspicion of being one. He later died under torture in CIA custody.

Take a moment to let that sink in. An innocent man died under torture, torture inflicted by Americans, as part of a program officially sanctioned by the American government at the time.

The horror of the situation goes beyond that, however.  Here is part of an interview with Dick Cheney, in which the case came up: 

CHUCK TODD: Let me ask you, what do you say to Gul Rahman, what do you say to Sulaiman Abdula, what do you say to Khalid al-Masri? All three of these folks were detained, they had these interrogation techniques used on them. They eventually were found to be innocent. They were released, no apologies, nothing. What do we owe them? 

DICK CHENEY: Well -- 

CHUCK TODD: I mean, let me go to Gul Rahman. He was chained to the wall of his cell, doused with water, froze to death in C.I.A. custody. And it turned out it was a case of mistaken identity. 

DICK CHENEY: -- right. But the problem I had is with the folks that we did release that end up back on the battlefield. Of the 600 and some people who were released out of Guantanamo, 30% roughly ended up back on the battlefield. Today we're very concerned about ISIS. Terrible new terrorist organization. It is headed by named Baghdadi. Baghdadi was in the custody of the U.S. military in Iraq in Camp Bucca. He was let go and now he's out leading the terror attack against the United States. I'm more concerned with bad guys who got out and released than I am with a few that, in fact, were innocent. 

CHUCK TODD: 25% of the detainees though, 25% turned out to be innocent. They were released. 

DICK CHENEY: Where are you going to draw the line, Chuck? How are -- 

CHUCK TODD: Well, I'm asking you. 

DICK CHENEY: -- you going to know? 

CHUCK TODD: Is that too high? You're okay with that margin for error? 

DICK CHENEY: I have no problem as long as we achieve our objective.

And there you have it. Leave aside the consensus, among most who understand the issue, that torture almost never produces reliable or useful information. Cheney has "no problem" with using torture even though a quarter of the victims were innocent, even though at least one innocent person (and I certainly don't believe he was the only one) died under torture. This is a former Vice President of the United States, but the words coming out of his mouth sound better suited to Lenin or Himmler.

Cheney justifies the use of torture on the basis of the 9/11 attack, which was indeed a horrific atrocity. The problem is that almost every regime we have ever condemned for using torture could advance a comparable argument. North Vietnam, for example, lost a lot more than 3,000 innocent civilians to American bombing during the war in which it tortured John McCain. There are certain lines which a civilized state doesn't cross, even under that kind of provocation. Such standards are what distinguish us from a communist dictatorship or a fascist gangster-state.

Or used to.

McCain, the only Republican to really distinguish himself honorably in the wake of the torture report's release, understands this. The many members of his party who continue to defend the program and attack its detractors do not.

And this means that I owe some people an apology. In the past I've been very critical of bloggers who compared the Republican party to the Nazis. I believed that they were weakening a strong case against the Republicans by making an absurdly overblown comparison. Yes, there is much evil in the Republican Party, but comparing them to the Nazis was going much too far, offensively so.

Those bloggers were right. I was wrong. Not that the Republicans are guilty of everything the Nazis were guilty of, of course, but if a politician of Cheney's stature can defend torture, even torture of the innocent, and if a broad range of political figures from the party can continue to support that position, then yes, they are straying onto the same ideological turf.

These people have no idea what they've done. This program, and the continued defense of it by a major part of our political establishment, have done damage to our country's moral authority and global standing that can probably never be repaired.

A lot of ordinary Americans don't yet understand it either. As commenter Tommykey observed in response to last weekend's link round-up over at my blog: 

Of course, my Facebook feed was filled with people posting pictures of the Twin Tower burning with captions like "Waterboarding is fine with me" or some variations of approval for torture juxtaposed with a picture of 9/11, as if that automatically justifies it.

And, of course, from Pakistan to Morocco there are probably millions of people reading the revelations of the torture report and thinking, "Terrorist attacks on the United States are fine with me -- now."

(Cross-posted at Infidel753.)

Obama's bad bet on Republicans

By Frank Moraes

Last weekend, Jane Mayer wrote about "Torture and the Truth." I know that many people are thinking, "Torture! Again?! That's so last week!" Actually, this article is not about torture. But the truth of the matter is that, for me, torture will never be so last whatever. It's not that I ever thought that the United States was lily white, but I was appalled when Cheney started talking about the "dark side" and people began to discuss when torture might be okay. From grammar school on, I always thought that the willingness to torture was the prime thing that separated the "good guys" from the "bad guys." So I'm never getting over this. But that's not what I'm going to discuss here.

In Mayer's article, she discussed how Obama blew the response to this issue. By leaving it for so long to be dealt with by the Senate, he allowed it to become just another partisan issue. She quoted political science professor Darius Rejali: "It's becoming a lot like the death penalty." (I find this terrifying; I really do think that the Republicans have devolved into nothing short of fascism.) But it isn't like the issue was off the table. Mayer explained that in early 2009, pretty much all of Obama's advisers were in favor of "the formation of an independent commission." It wasn't done. "Obama, however, said that he didn't want to seem to be taking punitive measures against his predecessor, apparently because he still hoped to reach bipartisan agreement on issues such as closing Guantánamo."

I recently quoted Garry Wills's "The Problem With Obama." In it, Wills said that Obama is so keen to maintain continuity that he often (usually?) does the wrong thing. I think that is at work here. But there is a political aspect here as well — one that gets to the heart of why Obama was exactly the wrong president for this period. He was so eager to placate to stop people from attacking him as a foreign radical. And what he got for that was absolutely nothing. And that will continue going forward.

Can anyone doubt that if Ted Cruz is elected president in 2016 he will prosecute the previous administration for any actual scandal that turns up? The Republicans — almost twenty years ago when they were a hell of lot more reasonable than they are now — impeached a president because he lied about an affair with an intern. I'm not even convinced that if the Republicans control all of Washington in 2017 they won't continue on with their Benghazi and IRS fake scandal-mongering.

As I mention a whole lot around here, I'm not that ideological. I'm a pragmatist. That's why I gave the Democrats a pass on the CRomnibus. But there is a huge difference between knowing what is possible and pretending that you live in a world of fairies and elves where you can have all the candy you want. And that was certainly the world that Obama used to live in. And to a significant, but reduced, degree, I think he still does.

Politics is about power. Smart power. It isn't about rubbing your opponent's nose in his defeat. In fact, providing face-saving concessions to your enemies is a big part of correcting wielding power. (This is something that the United States is famously bad at internationally.) But it is not about cajoling. All Obama's efforts to entice and prove that he is a moderate (by our far-right-skewing system) have only hurt his efforts to get things done. If he had called for a single-payer health-care system, he would have been called a socialist. So he didn't call for a single-payer health-care system, and he was called a socialist.

Well played, Mr. President!

Afterword

For the record, I know that the reason we couldn't have a single-payer health-care system is because of all those Blue Dog Democrats — like Obama himself! I should point out, however, that the vast majority of those conservative Democrats were swept out of office in 2010, so I don't really know what they thought they were buying. And that was as predictable as anything in politics. Conservative Democrats get elected in nominally red districts. Outside of a wave, Democrats won't get elected there, so they are sure to lose the next time. So they might as well stand up for liberal policy.

(This is assuming that they believe in liberal policy. And I have to admit that I just don't know anymore.)

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)

Obama's cautious pragmatism is the best approach for dealing with Syria and ISIS

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There's a lot of talk today, the Friday before a long weekend, about President Obama's remark that "we don't have a strategy yet" regarding ISIS and the deteriorating situation in Syria and Iraq. The remark has identified as a "gaffe" by the press, Republicans jumped all over it (because they'll do or say anything to score political points at the president's expense), and the White House has gone into damage-control mode (because of course).

Now, to be sure, it was an inartful way of explaining the situation. The president was clearly talking about what to do about ISIS, not broadly about the region, but that hardly came across clearly. But it makes sense not to know quite what to do at this point. It's easy to be an armchair militarist like John McCain or Bill Kristol, much harder to the one who has to make the tough decisions, decisions that will result in significant loss of life, particularly when there are no clear answers to a problem that in and of itself is difficult to understand. How far do you go in dealing militarily with ISIS? Do you put troops on the ground? Do you rely solely on airstrikes, or on airstrikes with support for allies on the ground? But, then, who are those allies? ISIS is at war with Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime, but that regime is hardly an American ally. Does the U.S. really want to get into yet another protracted war in Iraq, one with no clear outcomes? And what would airstrikes against ISIS accomplish anyway, particularly without clear allies on the ground?

And so on, and so on.

At a time like this, as most times, caution is a virtue, and President Obama's cautiousness, which very much defines who he is and how he governs, stands in stark, pragmatic contrast to the "bomb bomb bomb" recklessness of Republicans. Besides, it's not like the president has been soft on America's enemies -- just consider the extra-judicial drone war that he has been waging against various threats throughout the Middle East. Indeed, as Peter Beinart writes at The Atlantic, and I think he's right on this, President Obama is both a hawk and a dove, or neither, or somewhere in between: 

So was Obama more dovish than Clinton or more hawkish? The answer is both. On the one hand, Obama has shown a deep reluctance to use military force to try to solve Middle Eastern problems that don't directly threaten American lives. He's proved more open to a diplomatic compromise over Iran's nuclear program than many on Capitol Hill because he’s more reticent about going to war with Tehran. He's been reluctant to arm Syria's rebels or bomb Basher al-Assad because he doesn't want to get sucked into that country's civil war. After initially giving David Petraeus and company the yellow light to pursue an expanded counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, he's wound down America's ground war against the Taliban. Even on Libya, he proved more reluctant to intervene than the leaders of Britain and France.

On the other hand, he's proven ferocious about using military force to kill suspected terrorists. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, he's basically adopted the policy Joe Biden proposed at the start of his administration: Don't focus on fighting the Taliban on the ground, since they don't really threaten the United States. Just bomb the hell out al-Qaeda from the air. Compared with George W. Bush, he's dramatically expanded drone strikes, even though they're unilateral, legally dubious, and morally disturbing. And, as promised, he sent special forces to kill Osama bin Laden without Pakistan's permission, even though his vice president and secretary of defense feared the risks were too high. When it comes to the Middle East, in other words, Obama is neither a dove nor a hawk. He's a fierce minimalist.

A minimalist. A cautious pragmatist, I'd say. And therein lies his strategy for dealing with the region, with ISIS, and with other such problems facing the United States, and indeed his strategy for dealing with pretty much everything. It's not good enough for Republicans, but, then, nothing he does is ever good enough for Republicans. And it's not really good enough for the media either, because it's not a clear, simplistic strategy, or, rather, not a clear, simplistic worldview. In contrast to the "bomb first, think later, if ever" approach preferred by McCain, Kristol, and their ilk, as well as to the "America as global hegemon" worldview espoused by Kristol and his neocon ilk and embraced by the likes of Dick Cheney, President Obama's approach is really the only approach that makes sense, and that could actually produce positive, lasting results, given the crazy state of the world today, given the challenges the country faces, given the complexities of the problems in places like Iraq and Syria.

No, you don't get that rush of bloodlust that comes with, and underpins, right-wing militarism, and you don't get that sense of purity that comes with pacifism and/or isolationism, nor the perceived, and self-deceiving, moral clarity that comes with any sort of absolutism, but what you do get is a chance of achieving some sort of success in a world where, given the choices available and outcomes likely, success is awfully hard to come by.

Maybe President Obama's "minimalism" won't work in this case, but it's far more preferable than the alternatives, because at least it recognizes that there are no easy solutions and that missteps could lead to catastrophe. As occasionally frustrating as his cautious pragmatism may be, he knows what he's doing, even when the words don't come out as artfully as desired.

Mike Enzi way up on Liz Cheney in Wyoming

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Question: Who's even less popular than Dick Cheney? (Please answer in the form of a question.)

Answer: Er, how about Liz Cheney?

Bingo.

Liz Cheney's support has faded in Wyoming since the summer, according to internal polling conducted for a super PAC that's been running ads against her and shared exclusively with POLITICO.

Sen. Mike Enzi (R) has expanded his lead over the former vice president's daughter by 12 points among likely primary voters since August. The three-term incumbent was up 52 points, 69 percent to 17 percent, in a survey conducted by Bob Wickers of The Wickers Group at the end of October.

Okay, this is an Enzi-friendly poll, but still. (Other polls show pretty much the same.)

It was always going to be an uphill battle for Liz to unseat a fairly popular incumbent, but maybe it also has something to do with the fact that she's completely crazy, absolutely nuts, and downright insane.

Saying something nice about W.

By Richard K. Barry

As one who probably never said anything nice about George W. Bush during his disastrous tenure as president, I don't mind throwing the man a bone now that he is far from the levers of power. In this case, W. was asked by Fox News to comment on whether or not Obama should intervene militarily in Syria, to which he responded, "the president has to make a tough call," adding that he "was not a fan of Mr. Assad." He also said some things about President Obama having the best armed forces in the world at his disposal should he choose to act, and other such platitudes. 

The point is that in an overheated partisan environment, the former president has kept his head down while others in his administration, notably Dick Cheney, have been obnoxious in the extreme. I am not suggesting that former presidents can't or shouldn't be partisan. They continue to be members of a political party once they leave office, and have every right to support whatever and whomever they like. But, and I'll be a bit of a traditionalist here, once having held the highest office, I think they have an obligation to dignify the experience by keeping their partisan comments respectful of the efforts of those who currently lead. You know, the old "disagreeing without being disagreeable" thing. 

For my money, George W. Bush has done well on that score since going back to Texas. Yes, if we occasionally praise respectful dialogue, we might actually see more of it. And now you can tell me that Bush is the last person to deserve our respect given the fact that he lied so easily to justify invading Iraq where so many have died as a result, which would be another way of saying that there never will be a good time to be respectful in politics. Too bad. 

Forgiving torture

By Frank Moraes 

I am often reminded that I'm not a very nice person. Most recently, this came to mind because Jonathan Bernstein wrote at PostPartisan, "How Do We Keep from Torturing Again?" This is coming off the Constitution Project report stating unequivocally that after 9/11, the United States, as a matter of government policy, tortured people in our custody. As I reported in an update to that story, Andrew Sullivan has called for a truth commission or something similar to address this unacceptable behavior.

Bernstein said much the same thing, but with a political scientist's eye: the only way we can prevent future episodes of government torture is to admit what we did. We can't be a nation where one party is against torture and the other is for it. In fact, that is exactly what we now have for reasons that should be clear to readers of this site. But this gets to the point about my not being a nice person. Bernstein wrote:

I've argued -- against many torture opponents -- that a Truth Commission, combined with blanket pardons and generous expressions of understanding for those who were responsible, as odious as what they did was, is actually the best way to proceed.

I think he is right, and yet I have trouble offering those generous expressions of understanding. But it isn't because I'm not forgiving -- I am very forgiving. It is just that I remain resentful as long as the wrongdoer does not admit his error. I think most people are like this.

Read more »

Hubris

By Mustang Bobby

I’ll be a little late for work, but I’m watching the re-run of “Hubris: Selling the Iraq War” on MSNBC. It’s based on the book by Michael Isikoff and David Corn.

A decade ago, on March 19, 2003, President George W. Bush launched the invasion of Iraq that would lead to a nine-year war resulting in 4,486 dead American troops, 32,226 service members wounded, and over 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians. The tab for the war topped $3 trillion. Bush did succeed in removing Saddam Hussein, but it turned out there were no weapons of mass destruction and no significant operational ties between Saddam’s regime and Al Qaeda. That is, the two main assertions used by Bush and his crew to justify the war were not true. Three years after the war began, Michael Isikoff, then an investigative reporter for Newsweek(he’s since moved to NBC News), and I published Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, a behind-the-scenes account of how Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and their lieutenants deployed false claims, iffy intelligence, and unsupported hyperbole to win popular backing for the invasion,

Read more »

Jonah Goldberg calls for more lying

By Frank Moraes

Jonah Goldberg has written the kind of article that liberals just love, "Compassionate Conservatism Redux." In it, he admits that this election has taught him a valuable lesson: as much as he and the other evil men at National Review may love their "Give me low tax rates and give them death" ideology, they need a kinder, a gentler conservatism if they are going to convince the rubes to vote for them. And what is the kinder, gentler conservatism? Certainly not George Bush Sr. He wants to take us back to George Bush Jr. and his idea of "compassionate conservatism."

Quick: what made Bush's conservatism compassionate? Bmmpth! You couldn't think of it quickly, because he never actually governed that way. But let's go back to the way that he claimed he would govern. Goldberg reminds us:
 

People forget that Bush was elected during the [post-Cold War period] and had the [War on Terror] thrust upon him. But at the end of the 1990s, he was one of many voices on the right trying to craft a political rationale to deal with the changing electoral and demographic landscape. He campaigned on a "humble foreign policy" in 2000 and promised something very, very different from a "leave me alone" domestic policy.

Let's see here: would a man who cared about, say, seniors, pass a law that was first and foremost a giveaway to drug companies? Would a man planning on a "humble foreign policy" have Dick Cheney as vice president? It doesn't really matter. The truth is that I have no memory of a Republican ever governing based upon his campaign. Sure: they all promise tax cuts and they almost always pass them. But other stuff? Not really. Remember Reagan? Remember how terrible the federal deficit was and how he was going to knock it out with those three 10-percentage-point tax cuts? I do.

When a Republican promises something like fiscal restraint or human compassion, I know they are lying. So when Jonah Goldberg says that the Republicans need to revisit "compassionate conservatism," what he means is that they need to sound more compassionate. And once in office, they can devastate the poor and start a bunch of new wars. In other words, what Goldberg is really saying is that he's been too honest in the past.

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)

Republicans gaming Intrade and feeding "the momentum myth"

By Frank Moraes

In Blinded By the Right, David Brock talks about conservative operatives buying huge numbers of conservative books in New York City. They did this (and presumably still do), in order to game the New York Times Best Seller List. If a book makes this list, the author will be invited on talk shows and the (mostly vile) ideas in the book will get more attention. Well, it appears the conservatives are doing this with polling data.

Other than Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight predictions, no polling data source gets more attention than Intrade, the political betting market. On Wednesday, Silver wrote that Intrade's prediction for Mitt Romney was way out of line with not only models like his, but with other political betting markets. In general, Silver's model has given Obama a chance of winning in the high sixties.[1] Markets other than Intrade put the number in the mid-sixties. Intrade is predicting a 55% change of an Obama win.

Silver suggests that people may be trying to game the system, although like a good statistics nerd, he is very careful not to make any concrete claims. This idea is bolstered by an $18,000 purchase of Romney stock Tuesday morning. This single purchase caused Romney's Intrade predicted chance of winning to rise from 41% to 49%.

As Silver says, there is no way to know what is behind this $18,000 bet. But we do know a few things. First, if the bettor had real information that indicates Romney is more likely to win than the models predict, he could have made far more money investing in regular stocks (e.g. coal). Second, the return on a Romney bet would have been substantially more if he had placed his wager on one of the other betting markets where Romney was going for 10 percentage points less. To me, this says that the bettor was either an idiot or a political operative.

Combine all of this information with what we know about how conservatives approach winning elections. It isn't just gaming the bestseller list. Republicans have a long and disgusting history of political dirty tricks. Think about it: would a party that suppresses votes in legal and illegal ways really shy away from this kind of behavior? Of course not. I think there is almost no question that Republican operatives are gaming Intrade.

Up to now, this kind of thing has worked pretty well for them. The mainstream media are reporting that Romney has "momentum" -- a term that has no meaning in this context. (Nor is Romney surging in the polls, which I guess is what they mean to imply.) And all of this is coming from the Romney campaign claiming that they are, like Charlie Sheen, "Winning!" They are even claiming that they will win Nevada. So what is a poor reporter to do when he wants to back up this narrative? He can't look at the polls: they're a mess. He can't look at the models: they all show Obama winning handily. But Intrade? The only betting market they know about? It supports the narrative!

The fact that the Romney campaign's claims and the Intrade betting [2] all come from the same guys reminds me of the lead up to the Iraq War. Cheney tells The New York Times that Iraq was WMDs. The New York Times reports it. Cheney goes on TV and quotes The New York Times. Luckily, elections are a little more fact-based than justifications for war. A little more.

**********

[1] Silver notes that other models like his predict a substantially higher likelihood of an Obama win. So if anything, Silver's model is tilted toward Romney.

[2] The Intrade prediction was way off before the $18,000 bet, so I suspect that Romney supports have been gaming it for a while.

**********

Update 1

All good nerds think alike. Ezra Klein on the "momentum" question:

The past week has seen a bit of a media meme that Romney has some hard-to-quantify thing called "momentum," but it's difficult to find it in the polls, which have been stable since then... My view, as explained here, is that the momentum narrative is essentially a conspiracy between the two campaigns, as the Romney campaign sees a margin in making their voters more confident and the Obama campaign sees a margin in making their voters more anxious.

Update 2

I hope it is obvious why I'm focusing on electoral "momentum." If not: it is this meme that the Romney campaign is pushing because they are hoping for a bandwagon effect. Here is Jonathan Bernstein on "The 'momentum' myth":

The real question isn't so much whether Romney -- or Obama -- has "momentum," but whether there is any such animal when it comes to presidential elections. For the most part, it's just a term campaigns use to excite their partisans and to fool gullible reporters into writing stories that create the illusion of momentum that never existed in the first place.

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)

Mitt, Cheney, and the auto rescue

By Frank Moraes

I like Mitt!

Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic has a very evenhanded column about Romney's position on the GM rescue, "What Romney Wants You (and Ohio) to Forget About the GM Rescue." The title makes the article sound a lot more critical than it is. Let me briefly lay out Cohn's argument:

Romney's New York Times op-ed was far more nuanced than its title "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" would indicate. He was not calling for the liquidation of GM and Chrysler. What's more, it isn't clear whether he was for or against Obama's decision to rescue the auto makers. During this period, Romney indicated elsewhere that he did support it.

And then came the primary season, and Romney -- quelle surprise! -- changed his position. This is from a CNBC debate:

My view with regards to the bailout was that whether it was by President Bush or by President Obama, it was the wrong way to go. I said from the very beginning they should go through a managed bankruptcy process, a private bankruptcy process.

We have capital markets and bankruptcy...

My plan, we would have had a private sector bailout with the private sector restructuring and bankruptcy with the private sector guiding the direction as opposed to what we had with government playing its heavy hand.

And then he changed his position back during the Michigan primary. And now we hear from him all the time, "Of course I supported the auto bailout!" It's easy to be on the right side of history when you simply change your opinion to whatever history says.

This is not an isolated incident, of course. Consider Obama's position on Osama bin Laden. When Obama said that he would go into Pakistan to get him, everyone attacked him. This included Mitt Romney. But after Obama did exactly what he said he would, Mitt Romney was totally on board. "Even Jimmy Carter would have made that call."

I don't mind inconsistency; I'm one of its greatest practitioners. But there is a real problem with Mitt Romney's inconsistencies. It doesn't come from the shifting tides of his moods and facts. Instead, it comes from his decision about whatever is expedient. But even this I wouldn't mind if he hadn't surrounded himself with all of Bush's people on foreign and domestic affairs. There is no doubt that if Romney is elected president, there will be a group of neocons and "free" marketeers who will play him like a fiddle. And we don't need another Cheney administration.

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)

The latest smear: Republicans dishonestly accuse President Obama of "skipping" intelligence briefings

By Michael J.W. Stickings

President Obama, on a secure iPad, with Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Intelligence Integration Robert Cardillo -- January 31, 2012.

Basically, Republicans can say anything they want, and make any ridiculous accusation to try to make President Obama look bad, and suddenly the accusation becomes part of the national discussion, with the media treating the accusation like a legitimate point worthy of serious coverage and consideration.

I'm fucking tired of it. Fucking, fucking, fucking tired of it.

The latest accusation, given prominence initially by Dick Cheney (who made it in an interview with the right-wing Daily Caller the day before 9/11 last week), comes in the context of the Times's remarkable report, published the same day, that the ignorance, incompetence, and stunning gross negligence of the Bush-Cheney administration prior to 9/11 was even worse than we knew -- "The Deafness Before the Storm."

Suddenly on the defensive, Cheney lashed out at Obama, saying that the president wasn't "participating in his intelligence briefings on a regular basis," the implicaton being that Obama is less engaged than his predecessor and possibly even a threat to national security.

And it didn't stop with Cheney. After the Times report and a terrible week for Romney on the foreign policy front, Republicans, with Romney-booster Karl Rove right out in front, are going all-in on this ridiculous accusation, and the media are playing right along.

Consider the title of a piece at ABC News: "Is President Obama 'Skipping' Intelligence Briefings?" Yes, the piece provides the White House response, quoting Press Secretary Jay Carney and noting that the president "religiously reads a written version of the same prepared material, often on a secure iPad (as seen in this official White House PHOTO). He often receives an in-person briefing in addition, aides note, as well as real-time national security updates during the day, both in the office and on the road." But not before taking the Republican accusation seriously and turning the issue into a Crossfire-style debate between two supposedly equal, and equally valid, sides:

Conservative critics of President Obama are accusing him of "skipping" daily intelligence briefings throughout his first term and in the days leading up to this week's deadly attacks on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Libya.

The anti-Obama super PAC American Crossroads levels the charge in a new Web ad HERE.

Right-leaning bloggers and American Enterprise Institute scholar and Washington Post columnist Marc

Thiessen make the case HERE and HERE.

But the substance of the charge, aimed at undermining Obama's credibility as commander in chief, appears to be more a matter of semantics than hard fact.

Uh, no. It's not a matter of semantics, it's a matter of Republicans being dishonest and smearing the president, accusing him of shirking his responsibilities and weakening the country, putting Americans at risk.

Of course, if you look at the facts, he's doing nothing of the kind. President Obama is highly engaged, significantly more so than Bush. And he isn't just consuming information, he's actively questioning the information and analysis he's given, pressing to make sure it's right and asking for alternative analyses and additional information so he can understand what's going on in a highly complex world as fully as possible and make the informed decisions one should expect from the president of the United States.

Indeed, far from shirking his responsibilities and weakening the country, he's taking his responsibilities with the utmost seriousness and strengthening the country by providing mature, responsible leadership, understanding in detail the issues and options he confronts each and every day.

Bush may have preferred oral briefings, but Obama, like Clinton before Bush, takes a more diverse approach -- one that, it seems to me, leads to greater engagement with the challenging issues of the day. He doesn't just want to be told what's going on, he wants to read the materials for himself and push back as required:

"He does both all the time, all the time," White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters [yesterday]. "And when he is here in Washington, he has briefings in person in the Oval Office with his national security team regularly. And when he is on the road, he has phone conversations that supplement and augment the briefings he receives on paper that are specific to the so-called PDB. I hardly think that is different from previous presidents."

Actually, I'd say that makes him quite a bit more engaged, and quite a bit more responsible, than his predecessor. He likes to read, and he wants to know more, and he wants to be able to make decisions based on as much information and with as much comprehensive analysis as possible.

Cheney, other Bush apologists, and the various other Republicans now attacking the president, partly to defend their own massive incompetence and partly to help the struggling Romney, are adding to the Republican narrative that Obama isn't up to the job.

But the record is clear, and even clearer following the Times report: It was Bush and Cheney and their minions in the White House and Pentagon who were negligent and irresponsible, and it's Romney who is unqualified, unprepared, and unfit for the presidency.

Meanwhile, President Obama is doing his job -- and doing it extremely well.

All just bluster

By Mustang Bobby

In case you missed this piece from Kurt Eichenwald in the New York Times the other day:

The direct warnings to Mr. Bush about the possibility of a Qaeda attack began in the spring of 2001. By May 1, the Central Intelligence Agency told the White House of a report that "a group presently in the United States" was planning a terrorist operation. Weeks later, on June 22, the daily brief reported that Qaeda strikes could be "imminent," although intelligence suggested the time frame was flexible.

But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat. Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives' suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day.

In response, the C.I.A. prepared an analysis that all but pleaded with the White House to accept that the danger from Bin Laden was real.

"The U.S. is not the target of a disinformation campaign by Usama Bin Laden," the daily brief of June 29 read, using the government's transliteration of Bin Laden's first name. Going on for more than a page, the document recited much of the evidence, including an interview that month with a Middle Eastern journalist in which Bin Laden aides warned of a coming attack, as well as competitive pressures that the terrorist leader was feeling, given the number of Islamists being recruited for the separatist Russian region of Chechnya.

That makes this more than just a tad ironic:

A day before the 11th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, former Vice President Dick Cheney jabbed President Barack Obama over a new report that he opted not to attend a number of presidential daily briefings, a decision that Cheney claims is indicative of his aloofness on national security.

"If President Obama were participating in his intelligence briefings on a regular basis then perhaps he would understand why people are so offended at his efforts to take sole credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden," a Cheney spokeswoman told The Daily Caller in an email.

So the next time you hear a Republican natter on about being "strong on defense," the most polite response would be derisive laughter.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

For Dick Cheney, the best defense is to be offensive

By Richard K. Barry

Is it possible to imagine a more vile person than former Vice President Dick Cheney? Oh, I'm sure one can think of a few, but it wouldn't be a very long list. 

Think Progress reports that on the eve of the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Cheney accused President Obama of taking "sole credit" for killing Osama bin Laden and of ignoring his daily intelligence briefings.

In an interview with The Daily Caller, a notorious right-wing rag, Cheney said this:

Careful. Your face will stay
like that. 

If President Obama were participating in his intelligence briefings on a regular basis then perhaps he would understand why people are so offended at his efforts to take sole credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden.

On the issue of "taking sole credit," Think Progress offers this direct quote from President Obama, made earlier in the year:

[L]ast year, when we delivered justice to Osama bin Laden, I made it clear that our success was due to many people in many organizations working together over many years — across two administrations. That's why my first call once American forces were safely out of harm's way was to President Bush. Because protecting our country is neither the work of one person, nor the task of one period of time, it's an ongoing obligation that we all share.

As for the other absurd claim that the president isn't adequately briefed up on national security matters, it notes this:

Obama also continues to receive intelligence information on a daily basis, even if he prefers to read the analyses himself rather than have it read to him. As National Security Council spokesperson Tommy Vietor told Politico, Obama "receives and reads his [Presidential Daily Brief] every day, and most days when he's at the White House receives a briefing in person. When necessary he probes the arguments, requests more information or seeks alternate analysis. Sometimes that's via a written assessment and other times it's in person... [Former Bush speechwriter] Marc [Thiessen] basically wrote a story culled from our public schedule that shows how Marc's old boss, President Bush, structured his day differently than President Obama."

I suppose Cheney must be feeling pretty exposed given yesterday's damning piece in The New York Times about the Bush administration's reckless disregard for intelligence that warned about an imminent attack by al Qaeda in 2001. 

No doubt the best defence is still a good offence, even it is based on a pack of lies. 

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Sarah Palin's lame anti-Cheney zinger ruined by Sarah Palin

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So you remember how the other day Dick Cheney, emerging from his evil lair to give an interview to ABC News, said that John McCain's tapping of Sarah Palin as his running mate four years ago was "a mistake"?

("That one, I don't think was well handled. The test to get on that small list has to be, 'Is this person capable of being president of the United States?'... I like Governor Palin. I've met her. I know her. She – attractive candidate. But based on her background, she'd only been governor for, what, two years. I don't think she passed that test... of being ready to take over. And I think that was a mistake.")

Well, that obviously didn't sit well with the self-aggrandizing cult of personality known as Sarah Palin, and you knew a response was coming, probably on Fox News to Greta Van Susteren. It was just a matter of when.

And when turned out to be Tuesday night -- yes, on Fox News; yes, to Greta Van Susteren.

Now, I'll provide the full quote in a moment. First, though, here's the brilliantly hilarious headline to Dan Amira's post at Daily Intel:

Sarah Palin's Comeback to Dick Cheney

Marred by Sarah Palin's Inability to Form a Coherent Sentence

That pretty much says it all.

And just what was the incoherence? Here you go:

Well, seeing as how Dick — excuse me, Vice President, uh, Cheney — never misfires, then evidently he's quite convinced that what he had, uh, evidently read about me by the lamestream media, having been written, uh, what I believe is a false narrative over the last four years, evidently Dick Cheney believed that stuff and that's a shame, so he characterized me as being a mistake.

Um... what? A lame joke about Cheney's hunting accident from 2006? A typical attack on the media? A refusal to be in any way self-critical?

The ramblings of a blithering idiot with limited communication skills and absolutely no genuine self-awareness whatsoever?

Here she is, in all her glory:

No one cares what you think, Dick

By Richard K. Barry

Former Vice President Dick Cheney recently said in an interview that he thought Barack Obama was "one of our weakest presidents." That is so shocking. I really did not see that one coming.

He also took full credit for killing Osama bin Laden, saying that: 

A lot of the intelligence that laid the groundwork for what ultimately led to the capture of bin Laden was a result of programs we had in place in the Bush administration.

I'll admit it was funny to hear the big dick crap all over Sarah Palin as a VP choice, but who really cares what this corrupt bastard thinks about anything. I mean, if you consider that he left office with a 13 percent approval rating, not even many Republicans are interested in his musings. Now that's sad.

Mitt Romney's position on same-sex marriage defines the GOP's new campaign slogan: Backward!

By Richard K. Barry

The news of the day yesterday was obviously the culmination of President Obama's evolution on marriage equality. Great news. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney is sticking to his guns, so to speak. As The New York Times reports:

Asked by Fox News's KDVR-TV about a bill that would have allowed civil unions for same-sex couples in Colorado, which died late Tuesday night, Mr. Romney reiterated his belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

"Well, when these issues were raised in my state of Massachusetts," he said, "I indicated my view, which is I do not favor marriage between people of the same gender, and I do not favor civil unions if they are identical to marriage other than by name. My view is the domestic partnership benefits, hospital visitation rights and the like are appropriate, but that the others are not."

We have watched as the Republican party has steadily marched itself back to the 1950s. Steve Benen at The Maddow Blog writes:

As President Obama breaks new political ground, Romney is now positioned to the right of Bush/Cheney on legal recognition of same-sex partnerships - Dick Cheney endorsed marriage equality and George W. Bush backed civil unions.

I noticed this past February Dick Cheney was even lobbying in Maryland for same-sex marriage rights as that state debated marriage equality.

Ah, to return to the good old days when the Republican Party was marginally less obnoxious than it is today. Truly proof of the implicit GOP campaign slogan: Backward!

See for yourself: George W. Bush on his support for civil unions in 2004.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

The benefits of being Dick Cheney

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

Via twitter: 

I don't want to live in a world where Dick Cheney has access to healthcare and working women don't. 

-- Andy Borowitz (@BorowitzReport)

Depending on what the Supreme Court says about "Obamacare," then, you might want to say goodbye to the blessed US of A, a land where rich and powerful white men can get  whatever their minds, hearts, and penises desire while women are largely discarded, in GOP-speak, as "sluts."

It's the land of the free, baby! You just have to have what it takes to buy your freedom.

**********

Cue Mitt Romney -- who instituted proto-"Obamacare," aka "Romneycare," in Massachusetts, but who is sucking up to the right, aka the Republican mainstream, by hating on "Obamacare" -- grinning with all the plutocratic douchebaggery he can muster.

Terrifying Canadians

By Mustang Bobby

Here's another entry in the Not From The Onion files:

TORONTO — Former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney has cancelled an April appearance in Toronto citing concerns Canada is too dangerous.

"He felt that in Canada the risk of violent protest was simply too high," said Ryan Ruppert, president of promotions company Spectre Live Corp., which had booked Mr. Cheney for an April 24 appearance at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

"They specifically referenced what happened in Vancouver," Mr, Ruppert added.

In September, Mr. Cheney was speaking at a private club in Vancouver when protesters massed outside the front door harassing ticket holders and in one instance, choking a security guard.

The former vice-president was reportedly held inside the building for more than seven hours as Vancouver Police in riot gear dispersed the demonstrators.

Cheney, who along with former President George W. Bush remains unpopular in Canada, had been slated to talk about his time in office and the current U.S. political landscape.

"God forbid there was ever an emergency," said Ruppert, noting Cheney's history of heart problems.

Yeah, some hoser might sneak up on him and yell "Boo!"

Do I really have to defend our friends in the True North? I know it's a stereotype that the Canadian people are the nicest people on the planet, but that's because it's basically true. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that while they are a strong and free people with a national pride second to none -- and a lot to be proud of -- they don't go around like a big bully presuming to know best how to run everyone else's business.

The only reason Mr. Cheney is afraid to go to Toronto is that he won't be treated with the sycophantic slobbering that he's used to from his toadies here in the U.S.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

End of the world or just the Republican Party?

Guest post by tmcbpatriot 

Ed. note: His first guest post, on how it's about the vagina, stupid, was on Monday, and two days later we're running his second. I'm a big fan of his blog and we're happy to have him on board. -- MJWS

********** 

tmcbpatriot's informative and always entertaining blog, Take My Country Back, emanates from somewhere out in the Midwest. He writes passionately and as often as possible about a confused, mindless right wing hopelessly lost in the abyss of endless lies and misdirection.

So I'm reading the news the other day and I see this: "Dick Cheney lobbied for Maryland gay marriage bill." I stared at it for a while in disbelief. Is the world ending? Did that pastor finally get it right? Then I did a Google search to find out just what the hell was going on.

We know from his Bush days that Cheney has a gay daughter. But as it turns out The Evil Emperor is also a huge supporter of gay rights! Yes, it's true! While it's hard to believe, and while Cheney has said he would never have gone against a Bush push for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, Cheney did publicly voice his disagreement with the idea back in the day. You can read about it here, here, and here.

The recent story has it that the Dark Lord lobbied GOP legislators in Maryland to "urge their support for the same-sex marriage bill that squeaked through the state's House of Delegates Friday." This was all too much for me to take in and it made me wonder, why are we reading about this now? News like this does not just happen by coincidence. This is really a big deal. How did this story make it into the current news cycle, a news cycle filled with anti-gay, anti-contraception, anti-women headlines? A news cycle that saw Rick Santorum become the frontrunner in the neverending campaign for the Republican nomination.

After giving it a think, I came up with three possible scenarios, laid out in random order... or are they? 

Scenario #1: Cheney is at death's door.

Darth Cheney has not been looking well recently. He looks gaunt, thin, a shadow of his shadowy self. And this is a man who has survived five heart attacks! Perhaps the time is nigh for him to return to the crossroads and pay the devil his due.

It got me thinking that maybe this Maryland gay lobbying thing is perhaps Cheney's last attempt to right all the wrongs in his gay daughter's eyes and to prove to her that he does in fact have a heart and a soul. I know, it's a long shot, but nevertheless...

Scenario #2: The GOP establishment REALLY wants Romney.

Let's be real for a moment. I don't care what the polls say or how few caucus voters actually vote for Mitt Romney. At the end of the day the GOP establishment is not as dumb as the people who vote for them. They live to see Obama voted out and they know that Rick Santorum has no chance of beating Obama in a general election.

Perhaps the Cheney gay lobbying story was leaked last week as a way to prove to the general voting public that conservatives are not as extreme as Santorum has been suggesting. If Santorum were to become the nominee, it would prove to so-called "independents" and especially to women that the GOP has in fact been taken over by the Tea Party.

While in most elections Republicans count on white, old, racist men and dimwitted suburban housewives at the polls, this past week we heard things like this: 

-- Rick Santorum on rape: "I believe and I think that the right approach is to accept this horribly created, in the sense of rape, but nevertheless, in a very broken way, a gift of human life, and accept what God is giving to you. As you know, in lots of different aspects of our life we have horrible things happening. I can't think of anything more horrible, but nevertheless we have to make the best out of a bad situation. And that is making the best of a bad situation."

-- Rick Santorum on states outlawing contraception: "The state has a right to do that, I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a constitutional right, the state has the right to pass whatever statues they have."

-- Rick Santorum on sex in general: "I think the dangers of contraception in this country... It's not okay because it's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be."

This type of rhetoric plays great to the religious nuts, but telling women that your candidate thinks rape is God's gift to you? That is not a good plan for the Republicans to go with in any year. That said, Romney is still the only candidate who can compete over the long term. Sure, he is a horrible candidate, but as Grover Norquist said recently: "We don't need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go." And when Romney is compared to Santorum he still has an ace in the hole with his choice for VP. My money has always been on Chris Christie, and Romney is the only candidate who could pull that off.

As John McCain said recently: “We’re dumb, but we’re not stupid.” So true, John, so true. 

Scenario #3: The GOP has seen its future, and it doesn't wear shades.

If you have been following this Republican nomination circus or just been paying attention to the last few years, you might be wondering if the Republicans plan for November is to simply hope for a landslide victory of white, male, rich, middle-aged, senior citizen, racist votes.

Let's also review what the GOP has taught us it hates this election season. The answers that quickly come to mind are health care, illegals (aka Mexicans, or anyone with dark skin in general), gays, abortions, environmental protections, the unemployed, the poor, anyone having sex, black people, Muslims, and, of course, black presidents. Did I miss anything/anyone?

Following this train of thought, what will the GOP look like in the next twenty years when the majority of our citizens are Latino, black, and/or Muslim? Or perhaps when all three are married to their same-sex partners? And provided global warming doesn't make New England into a tropical region, all those young hip northerners will eventually age and move southward for warmer climates. Goodbye, Southern Strategy. It is already happening.

In our world of political correctness, Occupy movements, and information from multiple sources 24/7, the GOP's go-to base of racist ignoramuses is inevitably going to give way to acceptance by a more tolerant and more skeptical society. When that happens, the GOP will be a quaint memory, like smoking on airplanes. And what about Latinos? You think illegal immigrants are all going to be kicked out of this country? Ha! Call me when an American citizen is willing to do the work that these poor people do for their pittance. We will scream and shout about illegals until the moment our food is not at the supermarket, our lawns are not mowed, or we decide that washing dishes for less than minimum wage is a respectable career. By then many of them will have either found a path to citizenship, or have had so many children while in this country who will grow up to not only vote but also be staunchly anti-Republican. Finally, last I checked we have a black president who is going to have a second term. Unless the GOP succeeds in its current effort of voter suppression, they will be, and are already, outnumbered. So you see, it's hopeless.

What, then, is the correct scenario? Who knows? It could be a little of all three. What is certain is that what we are now seeing within the Republican Party are baby steps. With the Dick Cheney revelation, the GOP is trying ever so slightly to get on board with an already unstoppable movement. It is a tiny chance for them to say they are not as hateful and intolerant as someone like Rick Santorum. It is a chance for them to say that one of their most beloved, and one of our most hated, Republicans supports gay marriage. In other words, "please stop supporting Rick Santorum... please!" Once that problem is solved, over the next twenty years they can get the gays to hate some other group, at least until they find a way to include the Mexicans, too. That may take a bit more time, though. Hell, it worked with the Irish and the Jews. Why should this be any different?