Thank you all very much.  It’s a pleasure to be here, and especially to receive the Keeper of the Flame Award in the company of so many good friends.  

I’m told that among those you’ve recognized before me was my friend Don Rumsfeld.  I don’t mind that a bit.  It fits something of a pattern.  In a career that includes being chief of staff, congressman, and secretary of defense, I haven’t had much that Don didn’t get first.  But truth be told, any award once conferred on Donald Rumsfeld carries extra luster, and I am very proud to see my name added to such a distinguished list.  

To Frank Gaffney and all the supporters of Center for Security Policy, I thank you for this honor.  And I thank you for the great energy and high intelligence you bring to as vital a cause as there is – the advance of freedom and the uncompromising defense of the United States.

Most anyone who is given responsibility in matters of national security quickly comes to appreciate the commitments and structures put in place by others who came before.  You deploy a military force that was planned and funded by your predecessors.  You inherit relationships with partners and obligations to allies that were first undertaken years and even generations earlier.  With the authority you hold for a little while, you have great freedom of action.  And whatever course you follow, the essential thing is always to keep commitments, and to leave no doubts about the credibility of your country’s word.

So among my other concerns about the drift of events under the present administration, I consider the abandonment of missile defense in Eastern Europe to be a strategic blunder and a breach of good faith.  

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I was emailed a link to this 2007 article by getting-to-be-beleaguered ’safe schools czar’ Kevin Jennings:

This isn’t a fight where neutrality is an option, Mary. As Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel has said, “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” Whether you like it or not, politics does play a role here. So get with the program.

I wish Mary’s fantasy, that we could ignore politics, were true. But her baby will find out that her Mom is just deluded soon enough. Children of the “Greatest Generation” routinely asked their Dads “What did you do during the war?” As Antonin Scalia and Pat Buchanan are so fond of pointing out, we’re in a cultural war right now over whether or not LGBT people are entitled to the same level of dignity and respect as other Americans. Some day little Cheney is going to ask, “What did you do during the war, Mom?” Mary (to date) has sat on the sidelines - helping the oppressor. Too bad some day little Cheney will realize her Mom could have been part of the solution, but instead obstinately stuck her head in the sand over and over and thus was just part of the problem. I hope little Cheney can some day forgive her.

Smug fellow, isn’t he?  Since then, of course, Mary Cheney’s father former Vice President Dick Cheney has forthrightly and openly repeated* his support for same-sex marriage; while Kevin Jennings went on to serve a man who’s too much of a coward to follow suit.  The term ‘irony’ is often misused in this culture, but I believe that we have a legitimate opportunity here to use it.’

Also ‘hypocrisy,’ but that’s common with the Democrats on this issue.  Right down the line.

Moe Lane

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Moe has posted about the DNC’s pushback to the Cheney interview. But there is much more to former Vice President Dick Cheney’s interview than Cheney’s statement that the enhanced interrogation techniques worked.

During an interview on “FOX News Sunday,” Chris Wallace asked former Vice President Dick Cheney if he thinks Democrats are soft on national security? Cheney responded affirmatively, then added that in recent years the Democrats didn’t have as strong of advocates on national defense or national security as they used to have — the pro defense wing of the Democratic party isn’t as strong as it once
was.

The video and transcript of the interview are available below.

A “Terrible, Terrible Precedent”

This was Cheney’s first interview since the Obama justice Department named a prosecutor to investigate possible CIA abuses of terror detainees. Asked about that action against CIA personnel, Cheney called it a terrible, terrible precedent:

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(Via Hot Air Headlines) Explicitly, and as part of the pushback to the Cheney interview where the former Vice President weighed the current President in the balance, and found him wanting.

Democrats hit back just minutes after Cheney’s interview aired. The Democratic National Committee fired off an e-mail to reporters disputing Cheney’s argument that the CIA records released last week showed the enhanced interrogation techniques under the Bush administration were effective in gathering intelligence about Al Qaeda. The e-mail, which cited various news reports, also accused the former vice president of being a “strong and vocal proponent of torture,” and pointed to polls that show “American’s don’t agree with Cheney on national security.”

Leaving aside for the moment the wanton cruelty done to the English language with that rogue apostrophe - grammar-boarding, perhaps? - I have to ask: will this official accusation by the Democratic National Committee be acted upon, or even officially noticed, by the President of the United States?  And if not: well, why not?  After all, I assume that he agrees with the accusation - no competent party leader would let his organization go so off-message like this - so you’d think that he’d want to do something about it.

You’d think.

Moe Lane.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Rowan Scarborough has the top story at Human Events today.

The CIA’s harsh interrogation techniques saved countless American lives by forcing al Qaeda chieftains to disclose a string of sophisticated terror plots to infiltrate the United States with cold-blooded killers.

That fact is established in two documents released Monday by the Justice Department, hours after they released the CIA Inspector General report which Attorney General Holder has used as a basis to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the CIA interrogators.

I’m on record that this story is a distraction designed to take the heat off Nancy Pelosi lying about and smearing the CIA. It is also a distraction for conservatives who tend to focus on national security issues instead of things like socialized healthcare.

Nonetheless, while Democrats are screaming that evil Dick Cheney did not tell them about a CIA program, the former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency says Congress did know about it.

Former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden angrily struck back Saturday at assertions that the Bush administration’s post-9/11 surveillance program was more far-reaching than imagined and was largely concealed from congressional overseers.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Hayden said that top members of Congress were kept well informed all along the way, notwithstanding protests from some that they were kept in the dark.

It is worth nothing that Michael Hayden, when appointed Director of the CIA, was a career military guy. He was not a Republican or Democrat partisan, unlike Leon Panetta, a long time Democrat partisan now in charge. Panetta has decided to play political games at the behest of the Obama administration to distract Americans from Obama’s legislative policies.

Remember, it was only a couple of months ago that an Obama administration official told David Broder of the Washington Post that Obama was suffering because Bush was not in the news any more. This is a way to get him back in the news as a distraction.

How many Americans are going to get killed while the Obama administration plays games with our national security?

There is a game of distractions being played in Washington, D.C. right now. It is both intentional and designed to minimize conservative strengths.

We must not play the game as the left would have us play it.

Here is how the game is played.

The President pushes cap and trade to the Senate while also advancing socialized healthcare.

As those balls advance, the Attorney General makes rumblings about prosecuting individuals who engaged in enhanced interrogation techniques.

While conservatives get distracted by the Attorney General, the administration claims Dick Cheney refused to disclose a CIA program and the Democrats will investigate.

Tomorrow Sonya Sotomayor begins her confirmation hearings.

By throwing all of these balls around, the left hopes to distract the right. Our natural inclination is to be distracted by the shiny national security balls. Some of us will fixate on Sotomayor.

Meanwhile, the leftist agenda makes it way further through Congress. Already, some Blue Dog Democrats are leaning toward supporting socialized healthcare. And the right is suddenly intrigued by the Cheney story, which is as much about distracting us from Nancy Pelosi’s lies about the CIA as it is to distract us from coming policy.

Don’t play the game.

Sonya Sotomayor will be confirmed. Ignore that ball as best you can.

Dick Cheney will need some help, but we don’t all need to focus on that ball.

The interrogators will not be prosecuted. It is a ruse. Do not be distracted.

Cap and Trade and Obamacare are the balls in play. Keep focusing on them.

We cannot afford to be distracted from these two policy initiatives. They are trying to distract us. We must target Congress on healthcare and cap and trade.

It is a telling point of the game’s existence that the Democrats have not revealed the terms of their healthcare legislation. They want us fully distracted by these other matters before they do and rush it through.

Our singleminded focus right now must be on defeating healthcare reform. These other balls can keep bouncing off the walls.

One would expect the current American DCI, at any point in time, to be the most informed person in the world. OK, probably the heads of Mossad, the Chinese Army, and MI-6 all come in front. But hey, work with me, my friends.

Alas. No.

Panetta, whose previous intel experience seems to consist of having helped Hillary run Bimbo Eruption Eradication Patrols (BEEP program, henceforth), is terribly confused about exactly who is who in the American political landscape. Of Real-Man Dick Cheney he says “it’s almost as if he’s wishing that this country would be attacked again”.

Mm-kay, let’s look at that a bit, shall we?

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The year is 2003. Tom Ridge is chatting, explaining what’s going on with Homeland Security, having a seemingly good time. His good natured counterpart in the conversation lets Ridge run with the conversation.

The other party in the conversation is Rush Limbaugh. Ridge had called into Rush’s show.

Over the past twenty years Rush has been on the air, people like Powell, Ridge, and others have had no problem using Rush to air their policy views, defend themselves, and chat.

And in those twenty years, as anyone who has regularly listened to Rush can tell you, the substantive coverage of issues has increased, not decreased. As Rush has become better educated over the last two decades on issues, we all have too. But Rush’s consistency of principle, conservatism, and humor have not changed.

Now, twenty years after Rush began, some Republicans who once fell all over themselves to get on the air with him, have decided he is too shrill, too conservative, and too harmful to the cause.

What they do not seem to notice is that Rush has not changed. They have. The ground has not shifted to the left. They have shifted to the left. They have become Vichy Republicans — not Republicans in Name Only. The difference is that they stand on their bona fides as Republicans, patted on the back by other Republicans of unquestioned party affiliation, to sell out the party by collaborating with the Democrats.

During World War II, the Vichy Regime arguable ran France as an independent nation, but were puppets of the Axis powers. In Norway, a similar situation occurred under the illegitimate regime of Vidkun Quisling. Today we use the word “quislings” to refer to those who collaborate with and help the enemy.

Call Powell, Ridge, etc. quislings, Vichy Republicans or whatever you like, but one thing is clear — these respected men have chosen to use their positions and media adoration to take on not Rush and Dick Cheney, but conservatives. Like Obama using various bank executives as a proxy to fight the free market, these men and others are using Limbaugh, Cheney, and others as proxies to fight conservatism in general.

Why? Because Cheney, Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, Coulter, and others are burning down their potemkim village — their facade of being both reasonable and on the right.

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I’d front Lords86’s diary, but then it’d break his links and you wouldn’t be able to recommend it.

Ok, so your brother-in-law is lining up his putt tomorrow.  He’s beating you badly on that front nine, even giving you strokes, so you resort to the oldest trick in the book.  Greenside chatter - ol’ fashioned trash talkin’ - NEVER in his backswing, that would be a breach of etiquette, of course - but enough crap to get him thinking as he hops in and out of the cart.  If it works, he yips that next putt and then stares at you - you shoot back that quiet smirk and say “good putt.”  If it doesn’t work, he chuckles and snaps up that ball from the cup.  You immediately retort that he is playing well and add, “if you just smooth this drive, you’ll break 40 on the front.”  You’ve just guaranteed he won’t.

Welcome to his kitchen - you’re in it.

Dick Cheney is in President Obama’s kitchen.

Go read the whole thing.

Note by Jeff: You can Digg Lords86’s original post here, and vote for it on Reddit here.

It is fitting that President Barack Obama’s much-hyped and anticipated speech on his plan for the detainees currently held at Gunatanamo Bay was delivered in the rotunda of the National Archives building.  Throughout his speech, the argumemts of a petulant child stubbornly refusing to accept any responsibility for his actions could be heard echoing around the marble hall. The president’s speech was not courageous, uplifting, or forward looking. It was a small speech, especially in comparison to former vice president Dick Cheney’s address immediately after, and revealed the true stature of the man giving it.

President Obama is the master of the political trick of decrying a given act while engaging in it. Throughout this speech, Obama made overtures to looking ahead all the while dwelling on the past. He said he did not want to engage in refighting the battles of the last eight years over enhanced interrogations and Guantanamo Bay, then proceeded to do just that, explicitly and implicitly criticizing decisions of the Bush Administration as misguided, illegitimate, and “hasty.”

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…(care of the much more interesting Jen Rubin) for two reasons. One, people like Dowd really do think that we think and talk like this:

“I hear Poppy Bush is furious at you,” he says. “He’s telling folks he put Junior in your care and you stole his presidency and destroyed the Bush name and derailed Jeb’s chances to ever be president, and P.S., you wrecked the country and the Atlantic alliance to boot. He has it in for Lynne, too. Thinks she spun you up, like she did in high school with her flaming batons. He thinks you got loopy from all the heart procedures. And Colin’s mad at you.”

“He can go to yoga with Pelosi for all I care,” Dick growls.

Bizarre to contemplate, but true. There are people out there who apparently just can’t function in life unless they’ve convinced themselves first that the opposition has a Deep, Dark Conspiracy in place. I suppose that it’s a motivation exercise, or something.

Moe Lane

PS: The second reason? I thought that I’d give whoever she might have ripped off to write this piece a better chance of seeing it.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

In a recent Washington Times editorial, former Clinton Special Council Lanny Davis has decided that former vp Dick Cheney should be brought up on charges even though he has formerly spoken against such prosecutions. Why the sudden flip flop? Apparently his only reason is that Cheney has had the audacity to appear on a few TV talk shows to defend himself.

It is somewhat ironic that Davis, with Clinton a man that appeared all over TV during the Lewinski scandal to defend themselves, is upset that Cheney is appearing all over TV to defend himself. But the sad thing is that Davis has had to twist himself into a pretzel to excuse his revenge against Cheney. Davis’ legal logic leaves quite a bit to be desired with this about face.

Here is what Davis claimed changed his mind from opposing these destructive truth commissions to now accepting them:

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…because now they have an acceptable devil figure to blame it all on. Via @vermontaigne (and Protein Wisdom):

Cheney’s torture trap for Democrats

[Note: Salon defines 'waterboarding' as 'torture' throughout this article. Please calibrate your semantic filters accordingly. - ML]

You might have thought getting torture back in the news would be a bad move for any Republican; after all, it was the Bush administration that authorized the torturing. But the last few days have shown Dick Cheney knew exactly what he was doing when he went on TV last week and started talking about “enhanced interrogation”: It was a masterstroke of bureaucratic warfare.

[snip multiple paragraphs that dance around the fact that Pelosi Knew All Along.]

Cheney, safely ensconced in his McLean, Va., mansion, must be chortling all the way to his cave every night. After three decades in the top levels of U.S. government, he knows better than most how to set his opponents against themselves.

You have to understand that this sort of thing is the product of a certain kind of mindset. Let’s say that you’re a person who has adopted a particular set of beliefs - for whatever reason - that you have come to depend on as being an integral part of why you consider yourself to be a good person. And let’s say that these beliefs have been reinforced and validated by certain outside individuals, through a series of deliberately provocative statements and actions. And let’s finally say that it becomes clear that those people have been lying to you with those statements and actions - and without them, the set of beliefs that you’re relying on now come into serious question. You have two options at this point. The first is to critically examine your beliefs, and be prepared to change them; the second is to find something else that would validate them.

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Thanks to my chairmanship of the Executive Roundtable for the Republican Governor’s Association, I have had the privilege of knowing some of the party’s most influential leaders. This, plus concerns on the current Administration’s direction (think assault on free enterprise and march toward socialism) have led me to some early thoughts on who might both lead our party back and who might be our nominee in 2012.

So, for better, or for worse, based on my personal experiences, here are my top ten who are leading the debate today, some of whom we should be looking to for 2012. Given that I believe the solutions to most of our country’s problems aren’t found in Washington, you will find few on my list who serve in Congress.

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Did you know that former vice president Dick Cheney is speaking out only because he is trying to protect his legacy? Well just in case you wondered about it Steven Hurst for the Associated Press wants to assure that he has read Cheney’s mind and it’s all settled. This is what passes for “analysis” at the AP.

The AP has also decided that Cheney speaking out causes “chagrin” in a GOP trying to “rebuild the tattered party.” Additionally, he AP throws out that much bandied liberal canard that Cheney is dishonoring “protocol” by speaking out because, you see, former chief executives always remain silent about presidents that follow them. Right Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore? Riiiight?

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Dick Cheney has given a lashing to both Colin Powell and Barack Obama.

Put me in the Cheney-Limbaugh camp. Heck, put me in the Cheney-Limbaugh 2012 camp.

If not a Presidential ticket, at least they should be the listened voices on the right — the ones whose advice guides the direction our candidates go.

Yes, the left may laugh at that and encourage it, but they would be wise to think about it.

Mr. Powell recently said that Republicans need to more move to the center politically and that Mr. Limbaugh’s polarizing far-right rhetoric hurts the party’s image.

Mr. Limbaugh retaliated by accusing Mr. Powell of being “just another liberal” and that he should become a Democrat.

“I think my take on it was Colin had already left the party,” Mr. Cheney said. “I didn’t know he was still a Republican.”

Colin Powell, Meghan McCain, and others would have the GOP become more Democrat to compete on the playing field of American politics. Cheney and LImbaugh both urge a clear, distinct brand. The money is on them. The GOP will never win by being Democrat-lite.

It is the essence of what Jim DeMint recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal. The GOP needs to refine its message and actually stand on principles instead of trying to be all things to all people.

One way to do that is to maintain consistency on a strong defense, which is right where Cheney is aiming going after Obama.

Mr. Cheney said that administration’s dismantling of many of the policies and protections instituted by President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks — including the planned closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba and halting controversial prisoner interrogation techniques — have made the country more vulnerable to future attacks.

This is an important point to keep repeating because it has the virtue of being true and of lingering in the public conscience. If we are attacked again, and with Obama in charge it is more than likely that we will, the public needs to remember what it was like to have grown ups running the show.

The newest false meme invented by the Old Media is this claim that ex-presidents and ex-vice presidents have some sort of “tradition of silence” where it concerns commenting on those that take residence in the White House after they leave. The reason the Old Media is pushing this false claim is because Dick Cheney has been commenting on Obama’s security mistakes and the Old Media wants to scold Cheney for his efforts to get the truth to the people.

Certainly it is true that some ex-chief executives have maintained silence after they left office. Still, it isn’t really true that there has been any long tradition of staying silent out of some sort of respect for the new president. But, no matter how many past presidents/vice presidents have remained quiet, the one glaring exception to that so-called tradition is the vp just before Cheney: Al Gore. And this man has been absent in the Media’s attack on Cheney.

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Eric Holder, President Obama’s Attorney General, has shamelessly adopted the tactics of the disgraced prosecutors of Senator Stevens.

Holder has now released 11 formerly classified legal memoranda. These cherry picked legal opinions have been seized upon by left-wing extremists to call for prosecutions of those involved in interrogations of terrorists such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was “the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks.” The terrorist has also admitted involvement in some 30 other terror plots.

The left’s call for the political retribution of show trials over a disagreement over War On Terror policy was given a green light this week by President Obama.

Like the Stevens’ prosecutors, Holder didn’t bother releasing documents that could be used to defend the War on Terror policies the left, Holder and Obama now find so abhorrent. Former vice president Cheney called for the Obama Administration to release the exculpatory files as well.

Holder, to his great discredit, claims he isn’t aware of memos Cheney says should now be released. Watch the following exchange between Holder and Congressman Frank Wolf:

As Wolf said, Holder has an “obligation to release the rest of the memos.” Holder’s obfuscation that he is “not familiar with those memos,” that he has “not seen them,” and that he doesn’t “know
that they exist,” simply does not cut it.

Holder, having released the documents he and the left find so damning, must find and release the documents which Cheney says will detail the valuable intelligence gained from the use of the now objectionable policies. Holder’s failure to do so would be no different than what was done by the prosecutors, or is that persecutors, of Senator Stevens.