May 22, 2009
SAME STUFF, NEW WRAPPER:
The Cheney Fallacy: Why Barack Obama is waging a more effective war on terror than George W. Bush. (Jack Goldsmith, 5/18/09, The New Republic)
Former Vice President Cheney says that President Obama's reversal of Bush-era terrorism policies endangers American security. The Obama administration, he charges, has "moved to take down a lot of those policies we put in place that kept the nation safe for nearly eight years from a follow-on terrorist attack like 9/11." Many people think Cheney is scare-mongering and owes President Obama his support or at least his silence. But there is a different problem with Cheney's criticisms: his premise that the Obama administration has reversed Bush-era policies is largely wrong. The truth is closer to the opposite: The new administration has copied most of the Bush program, has expanded some of it, and has narrowed only a bit. Almost all of the Obama changes have been at the level of packaging, argumentation, symbol, and rhetoric.Posted by Orrin Judd at May 22, 2009 4:11 PM
