Recap of the Obama-Cheney Speech Feud

Flopping Aces ^ | 05-24-09 | Mike's America

[Starman417]

Plus: Obama tells the big lie in Annapolis speech. Promises America will be safe if only we follow his lead!

The big news story of last week was the contest of dueling speeches between President Obama and Vice President Cheney. Video and text highlights of Cheney's speech are found here.

I've already pointed out how Obama hastily announced his speech at the National Archives standing in front of a copy of the U.S. Constitution at the same time as Cheney's long planned address at the American Enterprise Institute. In the wake of Democrats in Congress refusing to grant Obama a blank check on the disposition of terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Obama was clearly in a weak position. Made even weaker by the comparison to Dick Cheney's steady, solid speech.

While the cheerleaders in the Obama "news" media were full of praise for Obama's speech, there was plenty of counterpoint. Some highlights are posted below. If you read only one, read Rich Lowry's:

President Above-It-All By Rich Lowry Real Clear PoliticsMay 22, 2009 Put Barack Obama in front of a teleprompter and one thing is certain - he'll make himself appear the most reasonable person in the room.

Rhetorically, he is in the middle of any debate, perpetually surrounded by finger-pointing extremists who can't get over their reflexive combativeness and ideological fixations to acknowledge his surpassing thoughtfulness and grace.

This is how Obama, whose position on abortion is indistinguishable from NARAL's, can speechify on abortion at Notre Dame and come away sounding like a pitch-perfect centrist. It's natural, then, that his speech at the National Archives on national security should superficially sound soothing, reasonable, and even a little put-upon (oh, what President Obama has to endure from all those finger-pointing extremists).

But beneath its surface, the speech - given heavy play in the press as an implicit debate with former Vice President Dick Cheney, who spoke on the same topic at a different venue immediately afterward - revealed something else: a president who has great difficulty admitting error, who can't discuss the position of his opponents without resorting to rank caricature, and who adopts an off-putting pose of above-it-all self-righteousness.Obama has reversed himself since becoming president on detaining terrorists indefinitely and on trying them before military commissions. Once upon a time, these policies were blots on our honor; now they are simple necessities. Between the primary and the general election, candidate Obama changed his mind and embraced Pres. George W. Bush's terrorist-surveillance program. In recent weeks, he countermanded his own Justice Department's decision not to contest a court decision that would have led to the release of photos of detainee abuse.

A less self-consciously grandiose figure might feel the need to reflect on the fact that his simplistic prior positions had not fully taken account of the difficulties inherent in fighting the War on Terror. Not Obama. On the commissions, he explicitly denied changing his view, instead trumpeting cosmetic changes he's proposed as major reforms that will bring them in line "with the rule of law."

For all his championing of nuance, Obama comes back to one source for every dilemma: Bush, as though without his predecessor every question about how a nation of laws protects itself from a lawless enemy would be easy. Under Bush, according to Obama, we set our "principles aside as luxuries we could no longer afford." Even now, there are those - are you listening, Mr. Former V.P.? - "who think that America's safety and success require us to walk away from the sacred principles enshrined in this building." What a shoddy smear. ... Excoriating Bush is good politics for Obama, which is what makes his repeated exhortations to look ahead so disingenuous. In his speech, he rued that "we have a return of the politicization of these issues." In other words: Dick Cheney, please shut up. But when did the politicization of these issues end? Has the Left ever stopped braying about Bush's war crimes?

Obama bracingly politicized these very issues on the stump, staking out unsustainably purist positions because they suited his momentary political interest. Now that's he's president, he wants the debate to end. He's above the grubbily disputatious culture of partisans and journalists. And he's above contradiction because, as ever, he occupies the middle ground, one "obscured by two opposite and absolutist" sides: those who recognize no terrorist threat and those who recognize no limits to executive power.

And there Obama stands, bravely holding his flanks against straw men on all sides.

Charles Krauthammer also weighs in:

Obama's Deeds Vindicate Bush By Charles Krauthammer Real Clear Politics May 22, 2009

Observers of all political stripes are stunned by how much of the Bush national security agenda is being adopted by this new Democratic government. Victor Davis Hanson (National Review) offers a partial list: "The Patriot Act, wiretaps, e-mail intercepts, military tribunals, Predator drone attacks, Iraq (i.e. slowing the withdrawal), Afghanistan (i.e. the surge) -- and now Guantanamo."

Jack Goldsmith (The New Republic) adds: rendition -- turning over terrorists seized abroad to foreign countries; state secrets -- claiming them in court to quash legal proceedings on rendition and other erstwhile barbarisms; and the denial of habeas corpus -- to detainees in Afghanistan's Bagram prison, indistinguishable logically and morally from Guantanamo. ... The genius of democracy is that the rotation of power forces the opposition to come to its senses when it takes over. When the new guys, brought to power by popular will, then adopt the policies of the old guys, a national consensus is forged and a new legitimacy established.

That's happening before our eyes. The Bush policies in the war on terror won't have to await vindication by historians. Obama is doing it day by day. His denials mean nothing. Look at his deeds.

Jay Cost writing at the Real Clear Politics HorseRace Blog goes line by line through the Obama speech pointing out how the man who campaigned as a post-partisan ideal filled the National Archives speech with the same polarizing rhetoric and attack politics he used to complain about. It was bad enough when Obama made a subtle reference to those who disagree with him on enhanced interrogations as un-American. It got much worse:

[GOP Poet]

Thanks for the post.

[jeffc]

I've already pointed out how Obama hastily announced his speech at the National Archives standing in front of a copy of the U.S. Constitution at the same time as Cheney's long planned address at the American Enterprise Institute.

Now, now. The media say it's the other way around. I know. I saw MadCow(disease) say it on her program along with her "non-partisan" interviewee!

[mrsmel]

When rats tell outright lies, it’s just “good politics”. They chuckle and snigger at their own audacity and duplicity.