by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n What is strange about the furor over the Cheney interviews is that so many of the arguments against them simply have no precedent or logic.<\/p>\n If one were to say the vice president emeritus, as a matter of understood decorum, should refrain from criticism of the subsequent administration, then why did former vice president Al Gore \u2014 to the delight of much of the media \u2014 go on a virtual barnstorming crusade against the Bush administration in language far more partisan and hysterical (e.g., “He [Bush] lied to us! He betrayed this country! He played on our fears!”)?<\/p>\n If one were to say that the vice president was representing some fringe position on the status of detainees at Guant\u00e1namo, then one need only review the transcript of Attorney General Eric Holder\u2019s 2002 CNN interview when Holder explicitly said those at Guant\u00e1namo could be held indefinitely for the duration of the war and were without the benefit of the protections offered by the Geneva Convention Accords.<\/p>\n If one were to argue Cheney is simply covering his tracks on the subject of waterboarding, then one need only be reminded that Cheney admits he was briefed and approved the techniques and now candidly tells us why he did so \u2014 while the Speaker of the House was likewise briefed, and by her silence as a congressional overseer approved de facto the techniques, but now quite disingenuously denied such complicity at the very time she seeks to ruin the careers of lawyers who merely offered opinions rather than set or oversaw policy.<\/p>\n If one were to believe that Cheney was selectively trying to refashion the past, then consider that (a) his points are clearly in reply to the Obama\u2019s administration\u2019s own prior selective release of Bush-administration legal counsel briefs, done for partisan political purposes and over the objections of career CIA officers, and (b) Cheney is asking for full, let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may disclosure in his requests to make the entire record public of both the interrogations and their relevance to preventing further attacks.<\/p>\n In short, while pundits still believe Cheney is a marginalized figure and an easy target of scorn, in fact, his methodical defense of the past is both logical and principled, and is beginning to illustrate, in quite painful fashion, the utter hypocrisy of the entire Democratic position on enhanced interrogations techniques and Guant\u00e1namo Bay. The American people more likely agree with Cheney than not; and even if they did not, they still prefer a candid and honest opponent to a disingenuous and self-serving ally.<\/p>\n As a footnote: In these Machiavellian times, it almost seems that the White House and some in the Democratic Congress who are still calling for hearings are at ease embarrassing Nancy Pelosi, whose prior value to the party as anti-Bush bomb thrower has now been eclipsed, since she appears as a looney, undisciplined partisan that can do far more damage to the cause than she ever did to Bush.<\/p>\n \u00a92009 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner What is strange about the furor over the Cheney interviews is that so many of the arguments against them simply have no precedent or logic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[716],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-IT","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1515,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/think-about-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":2783,"position":0},"title":"Think About It!","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media 1.\u00a0Some vice presidential wisdom: most might now think it to be safer to go hunting with Dick Cheney than to be in a hotel room with Al Gore. 2. Not since the era of Earl Butz and James Watt have cabinet members been as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "July 2010"","block_context":{"text":"July 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/july-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6766,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-tenth-life-of-and-obamacat\/","url_meta":{"origin":2783,"position":1},"title":"The Tenth Life of an Obamacat","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 18, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner\u00a0 An Obamcat administration is given nine, but not ten, lives: 1) The dismal economy 2) Guantanamo, renditions, and tribunals that were to be relegated to the Bush-Cheney ash heap 3) Fast and\u00a0Furious 4) The \u201clead from behind\u201d fiasco in Libya 5) Benghazi 6)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/commentary-obama-administration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1824,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/some-thoughts-on-the-war-on-terror\/","url_meta":{"origin":2783,"position":2},"title":"Some Thoughts on the War on Terror","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's The Corner The New, Upside-Down War on Terror Is there any logic in the confusion of the Obama administration's actions and statements on fighting the war on terror? On the one hand, we had a two-year campaign (2007\u201308)\u00a0of damning the Bush protocols, from renditions and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "February 2010"","block_context":{"text":"February 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/february-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1460,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-unbound\/","url_meta":{"origin":2783,"position":3},"title":"Obama Unbound","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Richard Nixon went to Red China with political impunity. Had a Democrat tried that, he would have been branded a Commie appeaser. To this day, liberals cannot conceive that during the two world wars, progressives like Woodrow Wilson, Earl Warren, and Franklin Delano\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Foreign Policy"","block_context":{"text":"Foreign Policy","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/foreign-policy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5919,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-baffling-logic-of-barak-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":2783,"position":4},"title":"The Baffling Logic of Barak Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 5, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner When President Obama virtually ceases all new federal oil and gas leasing on public property, why would he then brag that despite his efforts, private companies on private land increased U.S. oil and gas production to new highs? Is the logic something like, \u201cThank\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Political Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Political Culture","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/political-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3834,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/goodbye-to-all-that-2004-2007\/","url_meta":{"origin":2783,"position":5},"title":"Goodbye to All That: 2004-2007","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Days of Rage In times to come, the period between the failed campaign of John Kerry and the Democratic control of the Congress, coupled with the beginning of the successful surge, should be known as \u201cThe Insane Years.\u201d This was the era in which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Retrospective"","block_context":{"text":"Retrospective","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/retrospective\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2783"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2783"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2784,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2783\/revisions\/2784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}