http://www.truthout.org/eugene-robinson-cheneys-dose-reality56922Eugene Robinson | Cheney's Dose of Reality
Monday 15 February 2010
by: Eugene Robinson, Op-Ed
Washington - Do you believe in miracles? I do, and here's the proof: Dick Cheney said something reasonable.
I heard it with my own ears. In the latest of his regular Sunday morning fireside chats, when he customarily tries to scare the nation silly with ghost stories and other tall tales, Cheney said it's time to "reconsider" the ridiculous "don't ask, don't tell" ban on gays in the military, and added that he believes the policy will be changed.
Unsurprisingly, that nugget of good sense came amid an avalanche of the usual blather. Speaking on ABC's "This Week," Cheney demonstrated once again that he spends most of his time in some parallel universe. In the real world, the Obama administration inherited an unnecessary and ill-advised war in Iraq whose main geopolitical impact has been to strengthen neighboring Iran and its dangerous regime. But in Bizarro Cheney World, apparently, Obama somehow owes his predecessor "a healthy dose of 'thank you, George Bush.'"
Cheney also criticized the administration's anti-terror policies -- or rather the Obama team's "mindset." One of his specific gripes was Obama's ban on torture. "I was a big supporter of waterboarding," said the former vice president of the United States.
If the Bush-Cheney administration's White House lawyers could invent a legal justification for torture, can't somebody come up with a theory that would allow retroactive impeachment? :)
But back to the news: Cheney became perhaps the most prominent conservative voice thus far to speak out in support -- or, at least, acceptance -- of the Obama administration's decision to end "don't ask, don't tell" and allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military.
snip//
What does this tell us? Basically, just that once or twice a year Cheney says something reasonable about gay rights before hastily retreating to his fortress of solitude, where he worries that archvillain Saddam Hussein still plots to use his stockpile of imaginary weapons of mass destruction against the United States, despite the impediment of being deceased.
But
Cheney's burst of lucidity should help Republicans in Congress understand that there is no longer any reliable constituency for the troglodyte position on "don't ask, don't tell." If a long-overdue policy shift that would allow gay people to serve openly in the armed forces is fine with three-fourths of the American public, the top officers in the Pentagon hierarchy and Dick Cheney, too, then the times aren't just a-changing. They've already changed.
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