{"id":8321,"date":"2006-08-29T09:46:13","date_gmt":"2006-08-29T13:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8321.html"},"modified":"2006-08-29T09:46:13","modified_gmt":"2006-08-29T13:46:13","slug":"cheney-never-quits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/cheney-never-quits\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheney never quits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dick Cheney addressed<\/a> the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention in Nevada yesterday — no, the lengths Cheney went to in order to avoid military service<\/a> didn’t come up — and explained his administration’s amazing success in defeating enemies around the globe. At least as he sees it.<\/p>\n

Because we’re likely to hear most of his rhetoric repeatedly between now and November, it’s probably worth taking a moment to give it a closer look.<\/p>\n

“I know some have suggested that by liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein, we simply stirred up a hornet’s nest. They overlook a fundamental fact: We were not in [tag]Iraq[\/tag] on September 11th, 2001, and the terrorists hit us anyway.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cheney has been using this one quite a bit, and it’s a fascinating example of multi-layered dishonesty. First, relying on the straw-man tack the White House is so found of<\/a>, Cheney insists critics of the war in Iraq believe the U.S. “simply stirred up a hornet’s nest.” Has anyone actually made this argument? No matter; Cheney can’t be bothered with details.<\/p>\n

Second, you’ll notice, of course, that the VP is once again subtly connecting the war in Iraq and 9\/11. He’s quite fond of doing so<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And third, the more I think about Cheney’s argument, the more wanton it appears. To follow the VP’s logic, the Middle East has been a [tag]hornet’s nest[\/tag] for a while, long before 9\/11. As he sees it, does this mean there was nothing wrong with invading Iraq under false pretenses and hitting the hornet’s nest with a stick for a while?
\n
\nCheney also added a new line to his standard stump speech.<\/p>\n

“I realize, as well, that some in our own country claim retreat from Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone. But the exact opposite is true.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are those dastardly “some” again, always up to no good.<\/p>\n

Look, is there a single example of anyone ever saying that we should get out of Iraq so the terrorists will “leave us alone”? Surely, even Cheney realizes that most critics of the war want a real<\/i> counter-terrorism campaign, instead of creating a terrorist breeding ground in Iraq, doesn’t he?<\/p>\n

I’ve long wondered whether [tag]Cheney[\/tag] is hopelessly, almost pathologically, dishonest or whether he’s simply clueless. It’s a tough call, but I’m leaning towards Door #1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dick Cheney addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention in Nevada yesterday — no, the lengths Cheney went to in order to avoid military service didn’t come up — and explained his administration’s amazing success in defeating enemies around the globe. At least as he sees it. Because we’re likely to hear most of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}