Posts Tagged Obama Administration
Can Liz Cheney Really Keep America Safe?
Posted by Lance Haley in 9/11, Conservatives, Crime & Punishment, Dick Cheney, Fox News, Legal & Justice, Media & Communication, National Security, Politics, War in Afghanistan, War on Terror, al Qaida, foreign policy on March 11th, 2010
ATTICUS FINCH (Gregory Peck) in “TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD”
Hardly!
Why? Because she advocates the use of fear that rises to the level of McCarthyism, as demonstrated in the recent video released by her political organization, Keep America Safe.
A significant number of well-respected Conservatives have deeply criticized the video’s characterization of current Justice Department lawyers as Un-American because of their previous legal representation of suspected terrorist detainees. One of the greatest callings in the American legal system is defending both the unpopular and the guilty. This role is epitomized by the lawyer Atticus Finch in the movie “To Kill a Mockingbird“, rated as the best courtroom movie of all time by the American Film Institute.
Liz Cheney is a lawyer. If she attended her classes in law school, she should have a basic understanding of the Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court precedent, as well as the principles of American Jurisprudence, all of which ensure due process for everyone who is charged with a violation of the laws of the United States, regardless of citizenship. Her failure to grasp those most fundamental principles of the American justice system only further undermines any semblance of credibility regarding her legal or political opinion.
One of her former law professors, the esteemed Richard A. Epstein, of the University of Chicago School of Law. said it best: “There’s something truly bizarre about this.” Which only begs the question: Is she a moron, or just pathologically shameless and void of any conscience? Maybe it runs in the family?
Most importantly, however, is the real reason why Liz Cheney cannot “Keep America Safe”.
If she relies on the argument that America was much safer from an attack by terrorists during her father’s tenure with the Bush Administration, one need look no further than the Presidential Daily Brief of August 6, 2001, titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”, in order to completely discredit this notion. Her father publicly admitted in May of 2002 on Fox News that he read the brief, and then attempted in vain to dismiss it’s warnings as inconclusive, while simultanously advocating that the brief not be released for public disclosure. Interesting . . .
As this author has pointed out in the post titled “Failing to Connect the Dots: The Lights Were Blinking Red“, that evidence is the most damning indictment of Dick Cheney’s part in the collective negligence of the Bush Administration’s failure to prevent the attacks on 9/11. No wonder he did not want you to read it’s contents. To compound matters even further was their colossal failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden at the battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in December of 2001. Simply put, Dick Cheney obviously has no valid standing to criticize the Obama Administration’s policies regarding terrorism and the prosecution of terrorists.
By extension, as well as by her own volition, neither does Liz Cheney.
Case closed.
Memo To Dick Cheney: Me Thinks Thou Doth Protest Too Much
Posted by Lance Haley in 9/11, Conservatives, Dick Cheney, Politics, War in Afghanistan, War on Terror, al Qaida, foreign policy on February 14th, 2010
Shoe Bomber Richard Reid – Poster Child for Dick Cheney’s Hypocrisy
This morning on NBC’s Meet the Press, Vice President Joe Biden responded to former Vice President Dick Cheney’s attacks on the Obama Administration’s handling of accused Christmas Day terrorist bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. As Biden accurately stated, Cheney is “”not entitled to rewrite history. He’s not entitled to his own facts“, correctly pointing out that the Bush Administration also prosecuted shoe bomber Richard Reid in a civilian court. This author just commented this past week on the duplicity with which you and other Republicans are terrorizing the American people over this nonsense, after your Administration tried over 150 terrorists in civilians courts – including one of the 9/11 co-conspirators.
This blog contains a number of entries addressing Cheney’s constant attacks on the current Administration, and why he has absolutely no standing to criticize Obama; particularly because of the hypocrisy pertaining to the decisions and policies of the Bush Administration – specifically, their failure to prevent the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and the subsequent blunder that led to Osama bin Laden’s escape from Tora Bora, Afghanistan ninety days later.
Playing armchair psychologist is fraught with dangers of misdiagnosis, as well as the tendency towards over-generalization of certain symptoms as definitive indicators of a specific pathology. Nevertheless, and admittedly at the risk of the cognitive dissonance in ignoring my own advice to the contrary, I will venture a psychological explanation on why Dick Cheney’s persistent revisionist history reveals the depth of his pathological dissonance. Which may be why Cheney is rated the most unpopular Vice President in modern history – even surpassing Dan Quayle (say it ain’t so Dick).
“If an action has been completed and cannot be undone, then the after-the-fact dissonance compels us to change our beliefs.” What most often occurs in the aftermath of undeniable factual evidence of an action that betrays our personal beliefs or opinions is a growing increase in dissonance in direct relationship to “the importance of the subject to us, how strongly the dissonant thoughts conflict, and our inability to rationalize and explain away the conflict.
In other words, when we cannot reconcile our beliefs and opinions with the undeniable existence of facts that contradicts them, we defend our position even more zealously. Denial of the Holocaust by people like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – who ironically may be Jewish - is a stark example of this behavior.
It is William Shakespeare’s often misquoted poetic commentary [as in the body of the subject line of this entry] that is the most famous historical observation on this human condition:
“The lady doth protest too much, me thinks.”
Homer Simpson Republicans Terrorize U.S. Over Terrorists’ Trials
Posted by Lance Haley in 9/11, Conservatives, Dick Cheney, How and Why We Get Screwed, Politics, Sarah Palin, War on Terror, al Qaida, foreign policy on February 7th, 2010
Terrorism is about creating fear.
Republicans are now clearly trying to create fear in the minds of the American public about the Obama Administration’s prosecution of terrorists in civilian courts. They are insinuating several things: one, that terrorists are “enemy combatants”, and therefore should be tried in military courts; two, that allowing them to be tried in civilian courts will only invite another attack on U.S. soil; third that these defendants are not entitled to any constitutional rights; and finally, that Obama is soft on terrorism.
These constitutional law geniuses include half-term Governor Sarah Palin (R-Alaska), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), former Vice President Dick Cheney (Chief Republican Hypocrite – Washington, D.C.), and Chief Conservative spokesman Rush Limbaugh (former drug addict, and college drop-out).
Amazing how incensed these Conservatives are about this “recent” decision to take accused terrorists to trial in civilian courts, particularly after the Bush Administration tried over ONE HUNDRED FIFTY terrorists in the same federal courts, including such high-profile cases as 9/11 co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and shoe bomber Richard Reid.
Just in case any of you other hypocrites out there have also conveniently forgotten, Reid was going to blow up a plane on an international flight bound for the U.S.
“D’oh“!
P.S. Since yesterday, when this was posted, Senator Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) has proposed cutting off federal funding for terrorists trials in civil court. Add his name to the rapidly growing list of Homer Simpson constitutional law geniuses and conservative hypocrites.
HIP HIP HOORAY!!! The LOSER is the U.S.A.
Posted by Lance Haley in Conservatives, Economics, Government, Politics, Uncategorized, United States on October 5th, 2009
Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh think of themselves as the consummate Americans. So do members of Americans For Prosperity. Nothing could be further from the truth. They all cheered when the U.S. lost the 2016 Olympic bid on Friday (I won’t even dignify Beck’s and Limbaugh’s pathetic declaration of joy with relevant links from this site – it’s shameful and degrading).
Would they have cheered against their country for losing an Olympic bid when Bush was President? None of them obviously realize the bid was placed by the U.S. government when Bush was in office. Anyone who would have cheered for such an outcome back then would have been labeled a traitor, a subversive, a Communist, Un-American.
They may wrap themselves in the American flag while they spin this whole agenda of “Wishing failure on Obama” as isolated and differentiated from wishing failure on the United States.
That dog just won’t hunt.