TIME: Dick Cheney: Why So Chatty All of a Sudden? [View All]

[Douglas Carpenter]

Dick Cheney: Why So Chatty All of a Sudden?

By MICHAEL DUFFY / WASHINGTON Michael Duffy / Washington


http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599189785000

"In the past few days, former Vice President Dick Cheney has appeared on CBS's Face the Nation and Fox News to defend the Bush team's harsh interrogation practices. His daughter Liz has done a turn on MSNBC to echo her father. Next week, Cheney is scheduled to give a speech called "Keeping America Safe" at the American Enterprise Institute. "

snip:"A more likely explanation is that Cheney, who championed the idea of preemptive-attack doctrine as Vice President, knows that in politics as well the best defense is often a good offense. With the White House decision to release various Bush-era memos on interrogation, and the coming disclosure of thousands more photographs from Abu Ghraib later this month, Cheney is "trying to rewrite history," says a Republican consultant who has experience in intelligence matters. "He knows that as time goes by, he will look worse. And so he's trying to put his stroke on it.

Cheney obliquely conceded as much on Sunday, when he told CBS's Bob Scheiffer, "I think it's very, very important that we have a clear understanding that what happened here was an honorable approach to defending the nation, that there was nothing devious or deceitful or dishonest or illegal about what was done." That sounds like: O.K., we got a little out of hand. But we meant well. So how 'bout we just let it go? " "

snip: "A far darker explanation for the spring offensive isn't about the past but the future. Obama officials have spied something like a set-up in Cheney's latest gambit. One of the Bush team's biggest talking points in its final days in office was an insistence that its greatest accomplishment was preventing a second attack in the years after Sept. 11. By laying down the charge now that Obama has made the country less safe, the Bush team may be able to point fingers of blame if a second attack ever comes. "

snip: "In any case, Cheney's reappearance has delighted Democrats - "Bring it on!" quipped a White House official on Tuesday afternoon, when asked about Cheney's re-emergence - and dismayed Republicans. Said one: "We're trying to turn the page, and he's climbing out of the grave to haunt us." "

link to full article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599189785000

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