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Cheney Unchained

By W. James Antle, III on 5.18.09 @ 10:21AM

For the last eight years, many conservative defenders of President Bush bemoaned his administration's communications strategy. They found the White House woefully inept at making its own case -- the Bushies were said to be too quick to concede arguments, too willing to put forth ineffective spokesmen (despite high marks for Tony Snow), and too slow to explain or defend its positions, often allowing the conventional wisdom to harden against them before even bothering to try. Former Vice President Dick Cheney has put this theory to the test.

Whatever you think about the substance of his arguments, Cheney is a far more skilled defender of Bush policies than virtually anyone in the administration. He is a sober television presence who marshals facts quickly, summarizes arguments easily, and seems unflappable in the face of hostile questioning. While Bush struggled in the campaign debates, Cheney mopped up the floor with Joe Lieberman and John Edwards. Cheney often takes the maximalist positions on issues like interrogation and Iraq. And Cheney's office was skilled at leaking things to friendly reporters like Stephen Hayes, who is part of a push to claim that Cheney is winning the debate.

Cheney's prominence is giving a lot of Republicans indigestion because of his low approval ratings. But for commentators like Bill Kristol are cheering, because Cheney is joining them in making the arguments that they've been making without much Bush administration support. Now, if Cheney fails to persuade the American people, it might simply be because it's too late -- they've turned the page and made their minds up already. A concerted effort earlier on still might have had some effect. But this is as close as we are going to get to seeing what kind of results more effective Bushite messaging might have gotten.

View all comments (12) | Leave a comment

JP| 5.18.09 @ 10:54AM

What is most telling, that while the American people may/may not be listening to Cheney, the Obama Administration sure is. Since late March the President appears to be reacting Cheney's criticisms. The President has poured waters on prosecuting Bush officials who approved EITs, he refuses (at least for now) to publish interrogation photos, and President Obama appears to be taking a more proactive approach to combat operations in Afghanistan. Just last week, CINC CENTCOM abruptly replaced General McKiernan, a respected but ineffective leader, in Afghanistan.

IMHO, the former VP may be having a greater influence than anyone realizes.

Stan Redmond| 5.18.09 @ 11:49AM

Don't forget Karl Rove. He and Cheney are the attack dogs that should have been front and center through Bush's terms. I am glad to see both of them pounding away on the democrats.

Daisy| 5.18.09 @ 1:35PM

Obviously, a lot of people are listening to Cheney. Obama's internal polling must show that Americans are siding with the VP--why else did Obama reverse himself on Gitmo and the photos so quickly? It's not like Obama got patriotic all of a sudden. Thanks, Mr. Cheney.

George Genius| 5.18.09 @ 2:09PM

Crack the code: Any time the liberal media says a conservative (Cheney, Palin, Rove, Ms. California, etc.) should just go away, you know s/he is scoring points.

Obama released the interrogation memos in an attempt to strike out at Cheney for expressing his fear that national security has been weakened under Obama. Now we have belaPelosi and others back peddling like crazy.

Since Cheney has spoken out, the liberal are freaking out because Obama has reverted to Bush/Cheney policies.

Mary| 5.18.09 @ 6:46PM

I’d like to expand a little on your thoughts.

VP Cheney’s approval rating is meaningless, and he lost the ability to change minds and hearts a long time ago. He’s not a hated man nor is the disapproval directed at him due to him being perceived as corrupt or deceitful. His low approval rating is due to the American people’s desire to rid themselves of a war that was driven by what we all thought was the “grave and gathering threat” of Iraq’s WMD program. A war then advanced and sustained, regardless of intelligence error and attendant set-backs and ongoing blows absorbed by our military men. Early on after the invasion, one military officer said that we could neither win nor lose the war militarily.

That said, and despite the rapid spread of a visceral antipathy toward those who involved us in what had then come to be viewed as a snafu of epic proportion; the run up to the war, strewn with images of the politically disinterested PM Blair, his actionable eloquence and the sprawling debate at the UN, may not be readily recalled, but neither can it be forgotten.

Cheney’s effectiveness is a certainty and not speculation.

An Australian paper released some of the photos now being held back by the Administration. They’re really hard to look at, and the smile on the face of one of the overlords of the detainees is disgusting. Yet, I’m not sure what was captured in those photographs amounts to torture. I agree with Marc Jeric who often writes that torture is pulling out nails, wiring testicles, etc.

I agree with you regarding expeditious trial and immediate release of anyone found innocent. I would only caution that, to the best of my knowledge, those captured were not captured at a café, but on a battlefield. And I think that the biggest defect of the Bush Administration was their maximalist approach, made to appear suspect by a reticence that was never feasible, given that Iraq was our first declared “pre-emptive war.”

If rough treatment of suspects, and yes, even torture, must everywhere and always be proscribed then let us at least admit that we’re prepared to allow the United States to be reduced to rubble, from coast-to-coast. And that we remember it’s preferable that we go out with a righteous (no sarcasm here) whimper rather than conduct ourselves as we did following 9/11.

You won’t get many takers for this view, but the proponents of this view should be forced to admit and defend the reality of their doctrine. Cheney has been effective because he reminds people of the stark choices that can make or break the Country.

An unraveling of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld history, post 9/11, must needs result in an unraveling of the bulk of American history, and destroying that abundant good without assuring the destruction of the sporadically bad, as proven by President Obama’s retention of the right to re-employ EIT, should the situation demand it.

No other Nation, to the best of my knowledge, has ever embarked on such an act of self-loathing. This administration may have thought such loathing could be applied strictly to the past administration, but that’s an impossibility.

Speaking historically, it can’t possibly be news that “smart men" and statesmen “know when to let sleeping dogs lie.”

freeclench| 5.18.09 @ 7:08PM

It's a nonsense question. Cheney is known to be a highly effective speaker, and there is no mystery about the cause of his persuasiveness: the facts are what he wants them to be.

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Ejder| 9.5.09 @ 9:56AM

It's a nonsense question. Cheney is known to be a highly effective speaker, and there is no mystery about the cause of his persuasiveness: the facts are what he wants them to be.
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nice airtical| 10.22.09 @ 9:30AM

Congrats. No more selling books at races from the back of your Gremlin for you! Will you be on C-Span anyime soon? My metro area ranks quite low when it comes to the sales of non-fiction bestsellers book books, so I don't think the book signing tour will come to my town.