President Obama vs. former Vice President Cheney

[SubGod22]

Compare and Contrast. A nice breakdown of the two with similar points put together.

[shoxilla]

Crawford, Texas would make a good SuperMax site (once the brush is cleared).

[Maggie]

Since I referenced McCarthy in a prior post, I decided to check National Review Online. McCarthy posted the following in the Corner this morning:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzNjODhjZjc1YTE1Y2RjMjE3YTA1ZGY1YmVjZDNmMDY=

He provides a link to Jack Goldsmith's piece in The New Republic (which I missed yesterday) in which he writes in support of the President as well several links commenting on Goldsmith’s argument.

[wsushox1]

There are terrorists in US Federal Prisons already. It is just that America doesn't not about it. The ADX in Florence Colorado houses about 30 terrorists from the 90's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADX_Florence

[JohnnieBallgame]

I don't think former VP Cheney gives a rip about preserving a legacy. It is my guess that he and GWB always had the safety of the American people at heart.

I think that since he is now a private citizen and does not have to mince his words for political purposes, he is saying what he believes. Quite frankly, he sounds an awful lot like most of the people I have talked to.

Our current leader and teleprompter reader extrordinaire appears to be operating under the assumption that every single decision the former administration made was wrong. IMHO this is exactly why he is an arrogant jackass! Only an idiot makes that assumption, and the only reason to do so is to try to buy politcal capital with the extreme left wing of his own party.

When I look at the gravity of the two speeches and contrast them, I am thankful that Dick Cheney was in his position when he was. I feel much less safe and secure now that PBO is apparently making national security decisions based on politics.

It is my hope that Dick Cheney inspires someone on the right to quit "*****-footing" around and hoping to curry favor with the left leaning media to come out and wage the battle against the apparent Obama campaign/administration.

[Maggie]

You make some good points JohnnieBallgame and happy Memorial Day, in advance.

President Obama’s speech does not read (I didn’t listen to it) like it came from a “leader”. I suspect that if you take the names away and the increasingly annoying references the President makes to his personal narrative (which his apparent faith in, in my judgment, highlights his manifest naiveté and arrogance, with regard to foreign policy) and allow the average person to read each speech in a vacuum – they would naturally assume Cheney is the “leader”.

I think is editorial in National Review entitled The Buck Stops Elsewhere, is spot on:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZWY1OTA3YzNhZDFiMDQwNjhiYzk0OTFkYjliYzRmMTQ=

President Obama wants you to know that nothing is ever his fault.

He gave a speech on national-security matters Thursday the gist of which was: George W. Bush left me a mess, and I’m doing the best I can to clean it up. A more forthright theme would have been: Radical Islam has thrust the United States into a defensive war, and it’s now my duty to protect the nation — despite legal complications created by left-wing lawyers, many of whom are now working in my administration (emphasis added).

The president insisted in his speech that the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and enhanced interrogation techniques (which he characteristically referred to as “torture,” a term both legally inaccurate and morally obtuse) increased terrorist recruitment. In fact the leading driver of terrorist recruitment is successful terrorist attacks. That is what convinces the fence-sitters that radical Islam can win, and that Osama bin Laden is correct when he argues that the United States is a weak horse that will retreat when things get tough enough. The counterterrorism policies of the Bush administration prevented new terrorist attacks and assured the world’s bin Ladens that the United States was committed to their defeat. We hope that assurance still holds; if it does, it is only because President Obama, for all his unseemly disparagement of his predecessor, has picked up the tools George W. Bush left him and made them his own. (emphasis added).

[Maggie]

I knew there was a reason the folks at NRO often post Krauthammer’s remarks without comment:

Krauthammer’s Take [NRO Staff]
From last night’s “All-Stars.”

On Obama’s speech at the National Archives:

Well, Obama really didn't really want to give this speech. He had to. I mean, he wasn't elected to be a national security president. He is a domestic president, and that's his agenda.

But his hand was forced because there was an open rebellion in Congress over the Guantanamo issue. The senators wanted a decision, and he gave them an essay. The senators wanted a president, and he gave them a professor. (emphasis added)

What he did was he outlined the five categories of prisoners in Guantanamo, an interesting exercise that you would expect out of a graduate student, in which you have got those who can be tried in regular courts and those who have to be in military tribunals, and those that will not be taken by allies, as if any allies are taking them, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, a freshman in college could tell you that.

And then he says the fifth category, those whom you cannot try, either because the crimes are committed but the evidence is tainted, or because they have not yet committed a crime but they sure as hell will if released, there are those whom you cannot try and you cannot release. And then he says, "And that's the really difficult issue."

No kidding. I mean, who would have thought that was the problem about these prisoners? Of course everybody knows that.

So what was his answer? He doesn't have an answer. What he says is he is going to work with Congress and work out a framework of detaining these people.

OK, but it's no answer at all. And what you saw in the reaction in the Senate and the House is they were not extremely happy. But all that took a hit and said OK, we're encouraged, and we're waiting on details.

Look, rhetorically, it was a brilliant speech. He got around the issue. He dressed it up as a defender of the constitution and everything that's American. But in essence, it was a punting, and it was essentially obscuring the absence of a decision in a lot of excellent, interesting, but in the end futile rhetoric, I would say.

On the Obama administration’s refusal so far to release the “effectiveness memos:”

Well, this is a really important challenge to the president.

And that, I think, was the heart of the Cheney speech. He spoke almost entirely about interrogations because he has been excoriated about that, and the people who supported him in the administration are having their reputation, their livelihoods, even their freedom threatened as a result of those actions. So he feels he is obligated to rise in defense.

And I thought his speech was strong, decisive, unapologetic, and convincing.

On the issue here, he is saying, look, the administration is making a big deal of its transparency. "If I don't release information, I'll tell you why." So tell us why you're going to release the memos that you know are going to embarrass the Bush administration, and describe unpleasant interrogations.

Why do you not release memos which might show how these interrogations helped save American lives?

And we know from Obama's own director of national intelligence, he has said in writing that these interrogations yielded information of high importance about Al Qaeda. So let's see them.

And I think Republicans ought to focus on this and not on Pelosi resigning. I want to keep her in office twisting slowly in the wind. But this is an issue that Republicans ought to rally on. Release the memos.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTBhZTA4MjEyNmQyZjdkNDhmMTJlNjZkY2ZlOGZkOTY=

[SubGod22]

Obama Debating Cheney Is a Plus for GOP