The Chris Matthews Show: Has Cheney Influenced Obama's National Security Decisions?
Centuries from now, when historians want to know how it all went so terribly wrong for the United States, all they need to do is look at this clip. They'll listen how these talking heads--people allegedly employed for the purpose of informing the public--these supposed erudite and informed members of the pundit class just yawned and shrugged at the notion of the torture of human beings, preferring to look at it from a political point of view.
Think about that for a second. The issue is not horror that these events happened--and happened often. It's not outrage that it was done ostensibly to gin up a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda to justify the illegal invasion and occupation of the country. It's not shock that we have moved so far afield from our own laws and signed treaties, much less morals. No, instead, these "journalists"--save for Andrew Sullivan--express some mild curiosity over whether Dick Cheney's recent verbosity is trying to "guide" Barack Obama's national security policy.
FINEMAN: With Dick Cheney, it’s hard to separate the apocalyptic from the political, and he really believes that Obama was out, from the first day in office, to dismantle what Bush and Chemey had done, on tribunals, on Guantanamo, on enhanced interrogations techniques. He took it as a personal affront as well as a danger to the country. So he’s fighting back on it on a personal level and has been practically from Day One.
MATTHEWS: Well, you say on a personal level, but is this to help Obama or to hurt him?
FINEMAN: Well, he thinks it’s to hurt Obama, and thereby, make the country safer. I don’t think anybody questions his belief in the efficacy of the policies that he, Cheney, put in. It’s just everybody else in the world who has questions about whether those policies in fact did make us safer.
Like how Fineman frames this? Nobody should question Cheney's motives, the only question is whether the end justifies the means. It's a variation on the Jack Bauer justification--if Cheney could somehow quantify that we have been made safer, then it's all good to Howard.
MATTHEWS: This administration has been very careful, I think Rahm Emanuel had something to do with it, and the President, to pick its enemies. They like Rush Limbaugh. They like Sean Hannity, people like that. Middleweights, they can handle. Do they want Dick Cheney as their enemy and do they see him that way right now?
GUTHRIE: I think they don’t mind at all if Cheney is front and center on this issue. They think, you know, if he’s the messenger, that’s great for them. But what they have to worry about is that he doesn’t land any punches, that this argument doesn’t have greater resonance. That somehow we are less safe, because that potentially could hurt them. But anytime we’re talking aobut Dick Cheney, people in the White House are delighted.
Methinks that Rush is going to be screaming for an apology from Matthews for calling him a "middleweight", something that cannot possibly be used to describe Limbaugh with any honesty. But beyond that, how insulting is it that Matthews strictly sees this as a political issue? Does Obama want Cheney as an enemy? What is this, high school? In fact, when Sullivan gives him an impassioned speech on what this really is about, Matthews gives him a halfhearted "yeah" and then redirects the discussion back to politicking.
SULLIVAN: We know the man who interrogated Zubaydah to begin with said we got everything we want, and Cheney came in and said torture him to prove the Saddam/al Qaeda connection. That is an unbelievable abuse of government power.
MATTHEWS: Okay, let me ask you what Cheney’s up to politically. Is he trying to set up a situation whereby when and if this country’s hit at any point in the next several years, he can say I told you so?
Ugh...but Sullivan isn't above pulling the partisan card on this either, bemoaning where the real conservatives are to protest, a tactic he's used before.
SULLIVAN: He authorized—and we now know this—the torture of human beings. We know this from the Red Cross; we know this from the Office of Legal Counsel memos. We know this from the Senate Armed Services Committee report. We know the policies that he enforced and pioneered and insisted upon led to the torture of hundreds…thousands of human beings. Now those are war crimes. If the government…if the government has the power to torture evidence…where are conservatives on this? Where are conservatives who believe in restraining executive power and the dangers of torturing people? This is a very profound issue; it’s the biggest issue of the last eight years. This man is very afraid and he has every reason to be afraid. What are we going to do about it?
Well, I know one thing we aren't going to do. We're not going to get anything approaching an honest discussion about the real issues on The Chris Matthews Show.
And the mindless news cycle continues.... I wish Dick Cheesy would walk into the sun and evaporate like a good little hollywood vampire. I have to wonder who is deciding to give so much air-time for his redundant and monstrous spewtum.
yes obama follows directions by cheney obediently!
Not good if Obama starts to be seen as Dick Cheney's lap dog.
..........one little spoonful at a time, see, he LOVES torture. Just like the Chinese water torture, drip, drip, drip, ......Keep Cheney talking, he'll eliminate the GOP by the end of the week and he's already self-incriminated itself many times over. A sociopathic meglomaniac, no less.
"Right and wrong", "good and evil" are such outmoded, medieval concepts. Kissinger helped guide us to the enlightened, adult world of Realpolitik which these pundits proudly endorse. It doesn't matter if someone does "wrong" it only matters what happens the electoral, power-balance politics.
"...people allegedly employed for the purpose of informing the public..."
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I thought that was the purpose of American Idol...
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
Has anyone considered that by being the face of the opposition to Obama, Cheney can claim that any prosecution for war crimes is actually retaliation for his being so vocal and opposed to Obama? This gives him the ability to argue that any attempts to hold him accountable for his use and promotion of torture is actually the Democrats playing politics against their foes (much as happened under Bush).
Bobwurst Says:
On to the issue of Obama [...] And if you think that repubs won't investigate his failure to uphold the Geneva Conventions by not prosecuting the bush administration for war crimes you're not paying attention to what is happening to pelosi right now.
May 17th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
another, can't win for losing...
Maybe living in an age when nuclear annihilation of cities has been done (without legal consequence) and is contemplated as a routine retaliatory option, people find the idea of a few dozens or hundreds of people suffering to be rather "quaint."
In one sense it really is.... in another sense of course it's a symbol.... and then in a deeper sense it's a "measure" of how unhinged we have become in the nuclear age.
We live routinely with the possibility of so much worse, and Americans have been trained and militarized to accept such massive levels of killing by their soldiers and leaders, that people just aren't really touched or disturbed MORE than they already are by reports of war crimes. Criminality has been normalized. Life in a criminal empire has left us numb to the idea that crime is wrong at all. If torture is wrong, then so much else that we do as a nation, through our government and its corporations is also wrong, that the whole edifice of national identity is threatened... together with the cushy media jobs, Washington jobs, Corporate jobs, System jobs, Military jobs etc. This "establishment" creates an intellectual force field that cannot object to torture because to do so would be to object to so many powerful interests that are participants in a much larger network of violence organized to benefit so many Americans.
Why is nuclear annihilation of cities worse than conventional annihilation of cities?
Sure, no better or worse, just more possible... although nuclear annihilation leaves radioactive side effects that torture the survivors, so in that sense, it's a particularly bad way to kill 100,000 people because it also leaves 200,000 or a million victims of radiation poisoning. So in that sense, people have been normalized to an even greater level of horror.
radioactive side effects that torture the survivors
This, and the sheer psychological terror to 'melt' an entire city out of existence, along with every living creature, with one neat bomb. Everything destroyed and left radioactive.
The Japanese people are very anti-nuke!!!! (Of course, that is subject to change, with all the hawks they elect over there. Disgusting.)
far left loon >.<
As the old adage goes, "The ends always justifies the means." Never mind we executed people after WWII for this. That was the losers in the battle.
Candideinnc
Torture the poor; give tax cuts to the rich!
"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative.”
- John Stuart Mill
obama is letting this unravel with a life of it's own. cheney has chosen to take the offense as his defense.
i don't believe it influences obama at all maybe some of obama's surrounding people but i doubt it.
alibis, excusess , simple explainations , genius subterfuges, devious plans!
wonder if Cheney has influenced the President. Look at recent events, the withholding of pictures and the possibility of tribunals once again. These are indeed Bush era policies which he is implementing.
Obama's starting to look like Bush in black face.
911 Happened on Cheney's watch! Obama has kept us safe for over 100 days!
And the PNAC Mafia Gang:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3776...
I can't look at Andrew Sullivan without imagining him in a bear bar in a leather harness and nipple clamps.
I think this is the sort of loaded question that is intended to promote the stereotype that liberals are inherently weak, and are prone to caving to alpha dogs.
It's all content-free.
Or as some people may call them "Freedon Fighters",If you dicide to go on a shooting spree or something to just make sure those weapons are pointed at the enemy and not your fellow human beings.
?
good luck buck
...a perfectly legitimate question from the corporate media.
Obama/Cheney is turning out to be quite an effective team. It's so good to see Obama following the advice and continuing the effective policies of Pres Bush. Biden the doofus must be so jealous. Obama invited Biden to the prom and then decided to leave with Cheney. As long as Obama continues making decisions based on the advice of Cheney we should be allright.
May 17th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
interesting new meme... pathetic, but interesting...
really advising Obama, it wouldn't be publicly. His haunting of the cable shows and networks is an attempt to hang on to some of that intoxicating power he abused for 8 years. Maybe he wants to taint the potential jury pool, maybe its publicity for his autobiography, who knows?
I think he cannot accept that he is a nobody now. Or rather, he's just a cowardly criminal.
Okay, then POUR ON MORE DISTRACTION.
Obama could learn something from the republicans. Use torture as a HUGE distraction. Appoint special prosecutors, let the whole country go all agog over it. Let people think of nothing else.
THEN, maybe Obama could get a whole lot of stuff done sort of "under the radar."
That's how Bushco (CheneyCo?) got things done. Eight years of one idiotic distraction after another, while they dismantled the USA and paid off their buddies.
How 'bout using the same technique to accomplish something positive for a change?
This is a very disturbing meme Matthews is trying to put out. Not to mention the obvious Uncle Tom analogy but just the fact anyone would follow in the footsteps of war mongering neocons and imperialists is very disturbing indeed. Obama has proven to be a leader with no new ideas, his change promise a fading memory. I'm saddened but not surprised as the corporate media made sure early in the primary debates to destroy our only Progressive candidate, Dennis Kucinich.
Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity. Albert Einstein
Okay look, I remember Rumsfield's photo on that wall. (You know that wall) and I remember saying, it needs to come down, it eventually did, but then Cheney went in the slot.... omfg it was just as bad, then he shot some dude in the face and called him a friend.
Frankly I am sick of all these freaking 1970's death squads. Every one of them olly north, negroponte, kissinger.. Blagh!!! Yank their fscking security clearance. They are done. and IF obummer won't do it, i really don't think theres much hope left for us.
PS: on my third edit here... o;)
I see some folks talking about mainstream media.
As far as I am concerned they are officially discredited. Gonna tell me ABC covered BradBlog topics? CBS maybe? NBC? PBS? Fox? blagh... They are artists just like me now. Not journalists, and their freaking press passes mean squat.
The MSM doesn't know how to handle a criminal former president and his or her cohorts. It's never happened before. there's no playbook for it, and there's no show without republicans. Oh, what is the MSM to do?
Hard ball is about politics and that's ok if they had a show about law, but they don't.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Your last sentence says it all:
Well, I know one thing we aren't going to do. We're not going to get anything approaching an honest discussion about the real issues on The Chris Matthews Show.
I can't believe that there is even a discussion going on here about Tweety's show (!!)
Gotta see who's making tweety sing.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Um,no that would be the people that just met in Greece. Cheney's just a toady.
OK, but rather than watch the video clip, I'll just point out for the nth time that Matthews is a clown who should never be watched and always be ignored. He's more or less the Left's version of Glenn Beck.
Note: It's hard to imagine anyone being as big a clown as Beck.
just follow the money...
corruption.....rampant..
http://www.wanttoknow.info/corruptiongovernme...
I am deeply offended by the media talking heads who say that they believe that Chenney is being"honest" about his beliefs of America's safety
bogus
Chenney is out there to save his ass and to sway other potential people who were involved to feel his fear and to get into line and play his game.
Irak was all about Oil and Private Contracts to their buddies... Chenney wanted to falsely link 911 to Irak to solidify his case
Chenney does not care about National Security to make America Safe.
Chenney actually proffits from insecurity
To all MSM Media talking heads who say "Chenney really believes that we are less safe", just STFU!!
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