Liberal voices, especially Glen Grenwald, have criticized Obama for maintaining the majority of Bush’s anti-terrorism policies. Now on the other side of the spectrum, conservative columnist David Brooks is making very much the same argument. According to the recent Brooks’ article in the New York Times, Cheney is actually continuing the internal debate he had within the Bush White House — and lost — during Bush’s second term, and Obama is now only continuing, with some added rhetorical improvements, the Bush second term dismantling of Guantanamo, rendition, and torture.
In other words, both Obama and Cheney are both hoping to define the entire Bush administration as belonging to its first term, and not the second one where more moderate influences reigned in on Cheney. Obama does so because he only gains points by reminding people of the unpopular Bush. Cheney, on the other hand, has a much more concrete personal interest in the matter. To stay out of jail. Cheney’s speech about the threats of a nuclear armed terrorist on U.S. soil if we close Guantanamo are offensive to our intelligence — how does transferring the unarmed Guantanamo detainees to U.S. supermax prisons create the threat those same prisoners will access nuclear weapons along the way? And his claim that Obama, not the repeated conservative dominated Supreme Court decisions and the final Bush years, is the one making us unsafe is contrary to the record. Finally, were those measures necessary, wouldn’t it have been better to legalize them instead of creating an extra-judicial detention facility and secret interrogation policy with the specific purpose of circumventing the law?
Grave Error 
Is Cheney in any real danger of being incarcerated? After shooting a man in the face with a shotgun, while inebriated, and then evading police until the alcohol cleared his system … is he even touchable at this point?
The Supreme Court has been bought; the Constitutional Authority no longer has even an iota, scintilla of integrity … hasn’t the Government become “the law” in whatever it decides is justified? Can anyone really say that law exists in this country any longer?
Obama = Bush + tailored suit + vocabulary + polished rhetoric.
Good one! Cheney is not in danger of being incarcerated, but he will most likely be indicated and maybe even tried in absentia by a foreign or international court. Consequently, not being able to leave the U.S. for fear of being extradited is of course just a minor annoyance for a hater of all things not-American like Dick. But still it is a major embarrassment.
Re the Supreme Court, that is precisely what is interesting, now a politicized Supreme Court in three different decisions with conservative majorities voted against the conservative White House. It was perhaps the only sign of integrity we’ve seen for a long time.
Seriously? He could indicted and tried if he left the country? Hrmmmm. How do we get him on a plane … or a ship with bad leaks?
I have zero faith in the Supreme Court any longer. Eminent Domain, Tax Payer Bailouts, continued loss of liberty through any/all terrorist legislation … pffft. They’ve been bought.
Hey, you have a background in law, why aren’t the gangs/drug dealers considered domestic terrorism??? It qualifies, doesn’t it? Why can’t we just put the “bin Laden” tag on all of them and go to war?
That’s MUCH too funny!
Why don’t we treat drug dealers as terrorists? Because there is money for politicians in the drug trade. Ka-ching.
Ahhh, valid point, I should have thought of that before posting.
Spot on, well done.
I can’t take too much credit. It would have been Louie’s answer. I’ve been hearing him say that all my life.