Politico is reporting that President Obama has scheduled a speech on terrorism at the same time as Vice President Cheney [emphasis added in red].
President Barack Obama will attempt to regain control of a boiling debate over anti-terrorism policy with a major speech on Thursday — an address that comes on the same day that former Vice President Dick Cheney will be weighing in with his own speech on the same theme.
The dueling speeches amount to the most direct engagement so far between Obama and his conservative critics in the volatile argument over what tactics are justified in detaining and interrogating suspected enemy combatants.
Engagement? That’s not engagement, it’s confrontation.
Oh well, the seated President gets priority over the Vice-President from the previous administration. It makes sense because during any administration, the President swings the biggest political…um…’member’ in the room.
Does it really matter though? The President is probably going to deliver boilerplate Obamafied doublespeak talking points. Vice-President Cheney will probably make news by addressing reality.
Plus, by linking his speech to the Cheney speech in this way, President Obama has drawn more attention to it. The Vice-President will be seen by many more people now that the White House has done this. Cheney should send Axelrod a thank you note.
President Obama’s scheduling move also betrays a fear within the administration regarding the potential damage Vice-President Cheney can do by exposing Democrat moral cowardice on this issue.
No matter what eloquence President Obama or House Liar Pelosi use to make their case, they will never answer the question central to the substantive issue at hand.
As we have previously written:
The Left wraps itself in the grand moral cloak of anti-torture, implying that anyone who supports waterboarding is sadistically immoral, no different than the terrorist. The Left rises above all this ugliness and rejects it all on principle.
That is both convenient, and an immoral coward’s cop-out. Which American or allied city would you sacrifice at the altar of your unstained moral suit of armor? Think of it this way: imagine you are charged with interrogating someone who you know has information about impending attacks. In order to ensure that you maintained your moral high ground, no waterboarding is allowed.
Would you feel as comfortable in your moral clarity if a devastating terror attack as big or bigger than 9/11 followed? What if you could have prevented the attack by waterboarding the Jihadi who had planned it?
If the position of the Left is going to be that the infliction of extreme physical/mental distress on a foreign enemy terrorist is not to be permitted – even when American lives are in imminent jeopardy – they should be compelled to say that out loud on the record.
President Obama and the Progressive-Democrat revolutionaries will never admit that this is what his policy amounts to.
