Dateline - An undisclosed location
As for the former Vice President, the only word that comes to mind is despicable. What else do you call someone who deliberately encourages America's enemies to attack this country? In case you missed it, Cheney was interviewed after the inauguration and stated flatly that the policies of Barak Obama will almost certainly bring about an attack by our enemies. In other words, if we don't continue to incarcerate people indefinitely without trials, if we don't torture suspected terrorists, if we don't strip American citizens of every conceivable civil right in the search for bad guys, we can expect something to blow up in America very soon. Are you listening, Osama?
This is a first. No ex-President or ex-Vice President in modern times has ever attacked a new administration in such a visceral and mean-spirited manner. Even Nixon kept his trap shut. Not only is it bad form, (like that ever stopped Cheney before) it's reckless. Cheney is an insider. If he asserts that the country is more vulnerable why wouldn't the terrorists take him at his word?
This is not a Republican position, nor does it conform to the standard definition of Conservative. This is a twisted, misguided illusion that safety only possible if Dick Cheney is at the helm. according to his rules it is perfectly permissible to destroy the country in order to save it. This isn't patriotism, it's megalomania. You don't get to wrap yourself in the flag here because nothing is more anti-American than the suspension of Constitutional rights. We allow Nazis to march in the streets because freedom of speech has real meaning in America. We allow guilty criminals to escape justice because laws designed to protect all of us, also protect them. We permit citizens to burn the American flag because , even if we must hold our collective noses, freedom in America has the force of law.
The country that reveres the 400,000 Americans dead in World War II nevertheless shrinks from the idea that more lives might be lost here at home because we are a free society. Rights and freedoms have a price and that price might very well include the additional loss of civilian life in America. Our laws protect us to a point but they also allow freedom to our enemies. I can think of no law or restriction that would have prevented the destruction of the World Trade Center and the notion that George Bush and his Patriot Act has prevented another disaster is wishful thinking. Of course, we should do everything possible, within the framework of the Constitution, to prevent another 9-11, but shredding the body of laws under which we live to achieve a modicum of safety is an unacceptable compromise.
Believe me, you don't want to live in Dick Cheney's America.
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