Peter Beinart: Cheney's Real Enemy Is Bush
[Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is associate professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. His new book, The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, will be published by HarperCollins in June.]
Soon after 9/11, Foreign Affairs published an article arguing that the struggle between al Qaeda and the United States was just a byproduct of the struggle among Muslims themselves. It was titled “Someone Else’s Civil War.”
As it happens, that’s a pretty good title for the escalating struggle between Dick Cheney and the Obama administration. On the surface, the sides are clear: Republican versus Democrat, liberal versus conservative, hawk versus dove. But the more you examine Cheney’s attacks on Obama, the more it looks like Obama has simply gotten caught in the crossfire of an intra-Republican civil war. Cheney’s real target may be less Obama than his predecessor, George W. Bush....
In Cheney’s opinion, clearly, the Bush administration lost its nerve in the second term. (When, not coincidentally, Cheney’s nemesis, Condoleezza Rice, became secretary of State, and shifted power over foreign policy away from the White House). In 2003, the Bush administration abandoned waterboarding. In 2006, it closed the “black sites” around the world where detainees were held beyond the reach of any law. Throughout Bush’s second term, his administration released prisoners from Guantanamo Bay. And in Bush’s final days in office, according to David Sanger of the New York Times, he refused Israeli pleas for help in taking military action against Iran.
It’s almost as if there have been three presidencies since 9/11: 1) The Cheney administration (2001-2003 or 2004), in which the vice president—aided by his old friend Donald Rumsfeld, and his key aides Scooter Libby and David Addington—got Bush to pursue a war on terror largely outside the law. 2) The Bush administration (2004-2009), in which Bush, aided by Rice, Robert Gates, chief of staff Joshua Bolton, and the rulings of the supreme court, reign in Cheney and some of his policies. And 3) the Obama administration, which tries to bring Bush’s second term policies even more under the rule of law....
It’s a case study in the arbitrary way policy positions emerge. Obama, while continuing many of the policies of the second Bush term, is under attack from Republicans who, in following Cheney’s line, are implicitly calling Bush an appeaser. It’s quite a political accomplishment for a former vice president whose approval ratings rival O.J. Simpson’s. Maybe the next time Cheney mouths off, the Obama administration will give Joe Biden a rest and put in a call to Crawford instead.
Read entire article at The Daily Beast
Soon after 9/11, Foreign Affairs published an article arguing that the struggle between al Qaeda and the United States was just a byproduct of the struggle among Muslims themselves. It was titled “Someone Else’s Civil War.”
As it happens, that’s a pretty good title for the escalating struggle between Dick Cheney and the Obama administration. On the surface, the sides are clear: Republican versus Democrat, liberal versus conservative, hawk versus dove. But the more you examine Cheney’s attacks on Obama, the more it looks like Obama has simply gotten caught in the crossfire of an intra-Republican civil war. Cheney’s real target may be less Obama than his predecessor, George W. Bush....
In Cheney’s opinion, clearly, the Bush administration lost its nerve in the second term. (When, not coincidentally, Cheney’s nemesis, Condoleezza Rice, became secretary of State, and shifted power over foreign policy away from the White House). In 2003, the Bush administration abandoned waterboarding. In 2006, it closed the “black sites” around the world where detainees were held beyond the reach of any law. Throughout Bush’s second term, his administration released prisoners from Guantanamo Bay. And in Bush’s final days in office, according to David Sanger of the New York Times, he refused Israeli pleas for help in taking military action against Iran.
It’s almost as if there have been three presidencies since 9/11: 1) The Cheney administration (2001-2003 or 2004), in which the vice president—aided by his old friend Donald Rumsfeld, and his key aides Scooter Libby and David Addington—got Bush to pursue a war on terror largely outside the law. 2) The Bush administration (2004-2009), in which Bush, aided by Rice, Robert Gates, chief of staff Joshua Bolton, and the rulings of the supreme court, reign in Cheney and some of his policies. And 3) the Obama administration, which tries to bring Bush’s second term policies even more under the rule of law....
It’s a case study in the arbitrary way policy positions emerge. Obama, while continuing many of the policies of the second Bush term, is under attack from Republicans who, in following Cheney’s line, are implicitly calling Bush an appeaser. It’s quite a political accomplishment for a former vice president whose approval ratings rival O.J. Simpson’s. Maybe the next time Cheney mouths off, the Obama administration will give Joe Biden a rest and put in a call to Crawford instead.