Obama vs. Cheney – Round Two

ABC reports this evening that the CIA has released redacted copies of the reports requested by former Vice President Dick Cheney regarding enhanced interrogation techniques. They report that the information gleaned did in fact save many American and foreign lives. They also affirm President Bush’s  statements that terrorist attacks were in fact thwarted.

According to these reports, one of the plots revealed by Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind who was waterboarded two of the three times the technique was used according to other CIA reports, was to obtain and use anthrax spores and disperse them in heavily populated areas. Another was to commit another 9/11 event by flying hijacked airliners into London’s Heathrow airport. Other information gleaned was extremely valuable in identifying and mapping Al Quaeda’s financial network and hierarchy.

So where now are Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and Silvestre Reyes and Alcee Hastings and Maxine Waters and Jan Schakowsky and Adam Schiff and Anna Eshoo, who all castigated the CIA for what amounted to a a great big ball of nothing a few months ago? Their dark suspicions and accusations crashed and burned, and now we find that the President’s assertions, when he knew the facts all along, were an outright lie to the American People. So he responds with a witch hunt.

“Plausible Deniability” has re-entered the lexicon once again. As the president leaves town, Eric Holder, the Attorney General, appoints a special prosecutor to investigate “CIA terror tactics”, according to AP. Four former directors of the CIA, as well as current Director, Leon Panetta, have emphatically expressed their objections to such politicization of national security issues.

The President himself has said repeatedly “he wants to look forward not back” and yet Mr. Holder, who works expressly upon the president’s orders, has gone ahead with his inquisition. How can anyone think the president didn’t know of this beforehand and approve?

The issue has been investigated repeatedly and state secrets leaked by leftist members of Congress, and yet now, being criticized  from all sides for many of his policies, the President and his Attorney General decide to pour gasoline on the fire of an already alarmed electorate.

What is very strange indeed is that this President has embraced wholesale the tactics of his predecessor. On rendition, on Guantanamo, and on interrogation tactics, President Obama has simply renamed them and continued with the same policies.

Naturally, AP’s primary headline followed the Obama party line. “Inhumane CIA Terror Tactics Spur Criminal Probe”. We know where they stand on the issue. This will be published worldwide and further damage our country’s reputation.

Mr. Cheney has shown us that the Emperor wears no clothes, and the Emperor reacted with the most base of politically motivated inquisitions to deflect blame. Round two to Mr. Cheney, but it up to us to count the president out on a TKO.