Liz Cheney's At It Again

Guess who was talking about “the nobility of public service” on This Week last weekend. Why it was Liz Cheney paying tribute once again to her father’s efforts on behalf of the nation, accomplishments that leave many of us in something less than a celebratory frame of mind.

The discussion of the moment turned on Attorney General Holder’s decision to appoint a special prosecutor to examine possible CIA misconduct in the interrogation of terrorist suspects. The questions that have been raised over the issue aren’t just about the methods used by subordinates but rather more importantly, who authorized them and to what purpose. Ms. Cheney stuck to the party line as do her father and his allies that vital information was derived, lives saved, plots thwarted and the nation kept safe because of Bush policies. And, oh yes, she was quite certain that “waterboarding isn’t torture.”

However opinions inside and outside military and intelligence circles differ on whether or not “enhanced interrogation techniques” did in fact produce “actionable intelligence.” Wellsprings of information had already been extracted from suspects, and one has to wonder how relevant additional declarations from them could be after extended periods of incarceration. But logic isn’t one of the Cheney long suits.

As E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post noted, interest in the subject is driven by questions about how far up “the food chain” decisions to employ what most rational people define as torture went. Cheney’s daughter et al maintain that truly criminal acts have already been adjudicated and punishment meted out. And she says the matter had been addressed by career professionals at the Justice Department - - that is the Bush Justice Department and its cadre of compliant advocates. In oddly contradictory positions daughter Cheney said bad actors had been punished, while father Cheney’s appeared to suggest in an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox that there were no bad actors, no boundaries, and that ‘stepping over the line’ of normative behavior was okay by him - - a seeming admission that interrogation policies were fixed at the highest levels.

Cheney, the father constantly inveighs against the “dangerous precedent” that is set when an incoming administration questions policy decisions made in a previous White House. Yet he finds it acceptable to accuse President Obama of making the country less safe, an assertion that some suggest gives aid and comfort to our enemies and is hardly the measure of a true patriot. How, in any case, can a nation recover its equilibrium if it fails to at least examine the wrongs in its past?

For his part President Obama has said repeatedly that he wants to move on, not look backward, and he’d obviously prefer not to become embroiled in what might be construed as playing politics with the interrogation issue. But that ship has sailed. And though a determination of criminal conduct may not be the end result of an investigation, the public is entitled to know what its government undertook in its name and whether it was consistent with our national commitment to human rights. All too often government keeps secrets not to fend off enemies but to avoid public scrutiny.

A Bush supporter recently proclaimed Dick Cheney “brilliant” and insisted he had kept the country safe, and that Clinton had “neutered” the CIA. One can take an educated guess as to where such people get their talking points, but it is unsettling to realize they have been so effectively seduced by the voices of unreason. Too bad George Bush and his arrogant entourage ignored Clinton’s admonition that the new administration’s most daunting challenge would be terrorism. Had they taken that warning seriously pre-emptive measures might have averted the 911 attacks. After all, planes had been used as suicide weapons as far back as WWII at Pearl Harbor. That they could be flown into buildings was a total surprise only to Condoleezza Rice and the administration.

Actually the greatest challenge we face today is finding answers to the nation’s most intractable problems. Ideological differences exist of course, but trying to undermine the president as if he were the devil incarnate is an immoral, politics-as-usual exercise that weakens the country and inflames an already disillusioned public. Sowing confusion for political gain may seem a useful gambit to partisans who lust after power, but the harvest is meager and the people are left to inherit the wind.