i.e. - Cheney's STRATEGY in making a statement is PURELY POLITICAL, he CANNOT be primarily concerned with the welfare of or security of Americans ..it's all about Republicans winning ....something.In a statement he gave to Politico, Cheney seemed to be trying to provide talking points for opponents of the Obama administration who -- incredibly -- would exploit the Christmas Day terrorist attack for political gain. ...using a terrorist attack to seek political gain? I have a New Year's resolution to suggest for Cheney: Ahead of your quest for personal vindication, put country first.
PROJECTION? ... the attribution of one's own ideas, feelings, or attitudes to other people or to objects; especially : the externalization of blame, guilt, or responsibility as a defense against anxiety
Not being enough there Mr. Robinson BLATANTLY LIES about the facts of history.
Cheney's broadside opens with a big lie, which he then repeats throughout. It is as if he believes that saying something over and over again, in a loud enough voice, magically makes it so."As I've watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war," Cheney begins.
Flat-out untrue.
The fact is that Obama has said many times that we are at war against terrorists. He said it as a candidate. He said it in his inaugural address: "Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred." He has said it since.
Mr. Obama's SIGNATURE TOUGH GUY LINE is that Afghanistan is the central front of the war on terror, THAT IF WE WIN THERE WE WIN UTTERLY, that Iraq was a distraction, and contributed to the situation we are in now.
In this blog (as recently as here) and many others places this was recognized as a fallacy and delusion of the most primary kind imaginable.
- As our Yemeni friend Mr.Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has demonstrated. (Nigeria)
- As AQIM has demonstrated (Morocco, Algeria, Sahara)
- As the stream of rocket attacks in Yemen have demonstrated (Hijaz)
- As the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan has demonstrated (South Asia)
- As Hiz ul Tarhir has demonstrated (Pakistan and worldwide)
- As Al Muhajiroun and its descendants have demonstrated (England)
- As Madrid demonstrated (Spain)
- As Theo Van Gogh demonstrated (Holland)
- As WTC 1993 demonstrated (USA)
- As Ilan Halimi has demonstrated (France)
- As the attack in Ghriba demonstrated (almost forgot that one, did you?) Tunisia
- As the organization in the tri border area of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina demonstrates
- As the explosion at the JCC in Argentina demonstrated
- As the multiple attemps in Canada demonstrated
- As the MILF's (no not that kind and Abu Sayyad demonstrate (Phillipines)
- As Jemaah Islamiyah demonstrates (Indonesia)
- As the Holsworthy Barracks plot demonstrates (Australia)
ANTARCTICA
But Robinson goes on...
As Cheney well knows, unless he has lost even the most tenuous grip on reality, Obama's commitment to warfare as an instrument in the fight against terrorism has won the president nothing but grief from the liberal wing of his party, with more certainly to come. Hasn't anyone told Cheney that Obama is sharply boosting troop levels in Afghanistan in an attempt to avoid losing a war that the Bush administration started but then practically abandoned?
Cheney knows this. But he goes on to use the big lie -- that Obama is "trying to pretend we are not at war" -- to bludgeon the new administration on a host of specific issues. Here is the one that jumps out at me: The president, Cheney claims, "seems to think that if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core al-Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won't be at war."
Is Robinson denying that Obama's CENTRAL IDEA OF FOREIGN POLICY IS ENGAGEMENT AS A NICE GUY, VIA DIALOGGING? Is he denying that Obama is a PRIMARY mover of the idea that terrorists as "persons" are required to have American constitutional rights, and that Bush violated their rights?
Robinson PROPERLY points out that the plot against flight 253 was hatchet by 2 men released in 2007, but inadvertently HITS THE NAIL ON THE HEAD. These men were released SPECIFICALLY because the world war was OFFICALLY UNRECOGNIZED BY Mr. Bush, but NOT, AS WE CAN SEE, by Mr. Cheney.
And the the coup de grace of the progressive's internalized fears...
It makes you wonder whether Cheney is just feeding the fantasies of the paranoid right or has actually joined the tea-party fringe.
TEA PARTY. FRINGE