Analysis: Obama debating Cheney is a plus for GOP

AP via SFGate ^ | 5/22/9 | WALTER R. MEARS, AP Special Correspondent

[SmithL]

Chapel Hill, N.C. (AP) --

In political debate, the side that keeps its arguments simple and repeats them again and again is likely to gain the advantage. It is an easier sale, especially when the topic is as scary as terrorism.

That's how Republicans got the edge in the dispute over President Barack Obama's planned closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison. And it put former Vice President Dick Cheney on a separate but almost equal platform with the president of the United States, which is a plus any time the party out of power can manage it.

Their back-to-back speeches on Thursday gave Cheney "a lot of credibility" and put Obama on the defensive, said Republican pollster David Winston.

"From a political standpoint, I think Cheney wins on points," said GOP strategist Rich Galen. Long-term, the former vice president's premier role may have a downside for the Republicans, given his 25 percent approval rating and his status as the most unpopular top figure in an unpopular administration. But Galen said that at this point, "It's either Cheney or who else. There's no who else, so you take Cheney."

In the Guantanamo argument,Obama's critics didn't worry about legalities, court decisions or complexities. They invented an argument about letting terrorists move next door to Americans.

Although no one had ever suggested such a thing, it worked, and the Democratic Senate voted overwhelmingly to deny Obama an $80 million appropriation to close the prison camp by eight months from now, as he had promised.

[Iron Munro]

Cheney is a game changer.

Aren’t there any other patriots with access to the media and the stature to withstand Obama administration retaliation willing to challenge Obama?

[PhiKapMom]

In fact, Cheney would have loved to speak out earlier but he deferred to Bush and took it day after day. Now with the shackles off, we are seeing the REAL Dick Cheney. This is the Dick Cheney that told Bush #41 that he would never trust the Russians as the only member of the cabinet to do so.

Cheney IMO is head of the Republican Party with a spine and speaks for me along with his daughter, Liz!

[SmithL]

The AssPress is whining:

In the Guantanamo argument,Obama's critics didn't worry about legalities, court decisions or complexities. They invented an argument about letting terrorists move next door to Americans.
Although no one had ever suggested such a thing, it worked, . . .

[Red Steel]

The AssPress is whining:

As opposed to the BS that Gitmo is a huge recruitment tool for terrorists against us spoken ad nauseum? What's more likely you AssPress is that the attack on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon is more of a huge propaganda recruitment tool for the Al Qaeda terrorists.

[EDINVA]

An apologia courtesy of AP.

[freespirited]

In the Guantanamo argument,Obama's critics didn't worry about legalities, court decisions or complexities. They invented an argument about letting terrorists move next door to Americans. Although no one had ever suggested such a thing,

Another crock from the dishonest and stupid Associated Presstitutes. The Obambi Administration not only planned to release some detainees to live freely in Northern Virginia but to support them with our tax dollars!

[Chode]

DEBATE??? please, that jackazz stood behind the damn TOTUS...

[lentulusgracchus]

I wonder which token moderate they’ll trot out telling us how wrong Cheney is and how embarrassing it is to the ‘party’?

Good call, but they've already had David Brooks come out to discount Cheney on Charlie Rose last night.

[lentulusgracchus]

Either way, Obama loses something.

You're right, he's clueless, and now he's also stuck at the top of the political ladder.

A successful terrorist strike, a substantial one, would be politically devastating to the Obamarrhoids in the MSM and Administration (remember they overlap: Begala-Carville-Emanuel-Clintonopoulos all on speed dial together).

And I think that is what Cheney is doing, engaging Obama and getting him on the record, setting a marker against which Obama's future failures will be measured whether Obama and his pressbots like it or not.

Point.

[ABQHispConservative]

David who? No, just kidding. I know he’s the token ‘conservative’ at the times. I guess their token-conservative bench must be pretty thin.