That line from the Godfather, where Pacino laments his ties to organized crime, “every time I try to escape it, they keep pulling me back.” Well, Cheney's little daughter has taken parsing to a new level of obfuscation. To hear her on this week is to listen to the same old tired lies that her father was so adept at telling.
Let us take their central theme. The Bush/Cheney era kept us save for seven and a half years. Hmm, let's us look at their entire stewardship, which was eight years.
Now, let us examine their record of security. First, the most devastating attack on this nation from an outside source (that is, after the successful break from England) occurred during the administration of Cheney/Bush. So, the claim that their polices made the country more safe is really quite ludicrous. Their stewardship was a glaring abject failure.
Second, to assume your policies of torture were justified by the safety factor doesn't even make sense. The ad hoc proctor hoc argument, that the country was safe because we tortured prisoners and no terrorist acts follow is sheer folly. Of course, logic and rational arguments were not hallmarks of an administration who had to follow failure with rhetoric of patriotism and other jingoistic bull to justify its ineptness.
The Cheney attempt to justify its acts with the same old tired cliche that to be strong you need to be evil hearkens back to every two-bit tyrant who subjected people to atrocities in the name of their own sickening policies. The country was safe because the entire considerable operations of multiple departments and agencies were on high alert and were directing their attention to areas that Bush/Cheney folks had previously ignored.
In a slight of a hand, Cheney has taken a failed policy and possible criminal activity and made it an achievement. It is beyond belief that no news operation hasn't picked up this laughable excuse of wrongdoing. Wrong is wrong. The only way to get at the truth is to investigate fully. I would suspect given the degree of suspicion surrounding the Vice President's office and a convicted chief of staff, the efforts of Cheney are little more than a criminal trying to defuse his acts by claiming he was serving a higher purpose. The same two bit defense of every tyrant that has been caught.
