David Brooks: Cheney Lost to Bush

Posted by Kendall Harmon

President Obama and Dick Cheney conspired on Thursday to propagate a myth. The myth is that we lived through an eight-year period of Bush-Cheney anti-terror policy and now we have entered a very different period called the Obama-Biden anti-terror policy. As both Obama and Cheney understand, this is a completely bogus distortion of history.

The reality is that after Sept. 11, we entered a two- or three-year period of what you might call Bush-Cheney policy. The country was blindsided. Intelligence officials knew next to nothing about the threats arrayed against them. The Bush administration tried just about everything to discover and prevent threats. The Bush people believed they were operating within the law but they did things most of us now find morally offensive and counterproductive.

The Bush-Cheney period lasted maybe three years. For Dick Cheney those might be the golden years. For Democrats, it is surely the period they want to forever hang around the necks of the Republican Party. But that period ended long ago.

Read the whole piece.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • Office of the President • President George Bush • President Barack Obama • Terrorism

2 Comments
Posted May 27, 2009 at 4:31 pm [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. libraryjim wrote:

And now Obama is losing to Cheney.  At least on ONE issue. I didn’t realize how good a speaker Cheney was in comparison to Obama until I saw him on tv the other night.

Even with the all-knowing teleprompter, Obama still stuttered and stammered and couldn’t seem to put two ideas together.  What happened to the ‘great orator’ that convinced so many to vote for him because he “sounded presidential”?

May 30, 9:43 am | [comment link]
2. Katherine wrote:

Cheney knows his subject thoroughly and believes strongly in what he says, and there’s the difference.

The election is over, so it doesn’t matter at this point, but I was inclined to believe the guy who said Obama had major ghost-writing help with his Dreams From My Father because there is no sign of the imagery and eloquence in his unscripted speech.

May 30, 10:30 am | [comment link]
Registered members must log in to comment.



Next entry (above): Job Losses Push Safer Mortgages to Foreclosure

Previous entry (below): Katharine Jefferts Schori: The ACC meeting faced challenges

Return to blog homepage

Return to Mobile view (headlines)