Posted by
Dave Smith on Thursday, May 28, 2009 2:05:10 AM
Dick Cheney may no longer be the Vice President, but (unlike President
Obama's predecessor), he has definitely not left the public stage.
Instead, the former VP has made several high profile appearances and
speeches, criticizing the Obama Administration's reversal of Bush-era
anti-terrorism policies, notably concerning the closure of the detainee
camp at Guantanamo Bay, the use of so-called "harsh (or enhanced)
interrogation techniques", withdrawal from Iraq, and the US approach to
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East.
Rhetorically,
Obama has made liberal use of the bogeyman of Bush-Cheney, and refers
frequently to having to clean up a "mess" left to him by President Bush
and his team. Bush has remained silent on the issues. Cheney,
however, has been aggressively defending his and Bush's record, as well
as praising Rush Limbaugh and critiquing Colin Powell.
Cheney's
calm, understated, professorial style works well -- he is excellent at
marshaling his evidence and presenting it in a clear, concise manner
while remaining aggressive and forceful; he seems reasonable
when he speaks rather than unhinged or hateful. Yet while Cheney's
reappearance has reportedly led to an uptick in his approval ratings,
he remains one of the most unpopular political figures around. Among
the mainstream news media, he probably ranks below Hitler, the
Antichrist, and Lucifer himself in terms of popularity. His
outspokenness has been called "unprecedented" and out of step with past
former VP's; apparently some commentators have forgotten about former
Vice President Al Gore bellowing that President Bush had "betrayed this
country" in the run-up to the Iraq War.
With the scorn of the
mainstream media often comes the affection of conservative activists,
and Cheney is no exception. Conservative media have given extensive
coverage of Cheney's speeches and comments in print, lauding his
criticism of Obama and his spirited defense of the US response to 9/11
and the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But does Mr.
Cheney deserve the resurge in his reputation? When studying the record
he leaves behind, the obvious answer is: No.
As perhaps the
most powerful and influential Vice President in history, Cheney was
considered by Bush to be the "Chief Operating Officer" of Bush's "MBA
Administration". While it has been documented that Cheney didn't
always get his way (if was well publicized that he wanted a pardon for
his aide Scooter Libby, for example), if he deserves credit for
Administration successes, then he certainly deserves some of the blame
for its failures.
As the "COO" of the Bush Administration,
Cheney helped implement an unprecedented increase in the size, scope,
and intrusiveness of the federal government. Bush's signature
education initiative, "No Child Left Behind", greatly expanded the
federal government's role in primary and secondary education --
certainly not a "conservative" position. In the name of an "ownership
society", the Administration helped maintain and increase government
incentives for providing credit to high-risk borrowers -- the expansion
and ultimate collapse of the "subprime" mortgage market that has proved
central to our current economic woes. Cheney sought to expand the
power of the Vice Presidency at the expense of transparency,
particularly during the Scooter Libby investigation. Cheney played a
role in implementing a new prescription drug entitlement for the
elderly, whereby they receive subsidies regardless of income for
prescription drugs -- the largest expansion of Medicare since the LBJ
Administration. Cheney was COO of what has become the largest
government takeover of the private sector (AIG, GM, Chrysler, etc.) and
met economic difficulty with a Keynesian mindset rather than the
successful supply-side approach that worked so well for President
Reagan.
On the war front, according to most reports it was
Cheney who worked to influence Bush to keep Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld, even after it was obvious that the Rumsfeld approach was not
working in Iraq. Had Bush replaced Rummy with Robert Gates sooner,
perhaps Republicans would not have lost the 2006 Congressional
elections, giving the country Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid.
Whatever one thinks of some of the details of the Patriot Act, it
certainly represents a dramatic increase in the power and intrusiveness
of the government and less freedom of mobility and privacy for American
citizens.
In short, while Cheney may be an effective advocate
for a "conservative" position in fighting the "War on Terror", his
record is not one that conservatives and certainly libertarians should
salute and extol. Mr. Cheney's current resurgence should not let him
off the hook for his record of the previous 8 years, even with
conservatives.