By Steve Benen
Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz Cheney, appeared together on CNN yesterday to repeat some very familiar lines of attack. It was their request for an apology, though, that rankled.
The Cheneys, of course, were supportive of the strike on al Qaeda’s Anwar al-Awlaki late last week. But the former VP pivoted from this to
a larger condemnation.
“The thing I’m waiting for is for the administration to go back and correct something they said two years ago when they criticized us for ‘overreacting’ to the events of 9/11. They, in effct, said that we had walked away from our ideals, or taken policy contrary to our ideals when we had enhanced interrogation techniques.
“Now they clearly had moved in the direction of taking robust action when they feel it is justified. I say in this case I think it was, but I think they need to go back and reconsider what the president said when he was in Cairo.”
Actually, maybe Cheney should go back and reconsider what the president said in Cairo. I re-read the speech this morning, and Obama never said the United States “overreacted” to 9/11. It simply never happened; Cheney appears to have just made that up.
Here’s the speech; see for yourself.
Cheney added on CNN, “(President Obama) said in his Cairo speech for example that he had quote, ‘banned torture.’ Well, we were never torturing anybody in the first place, said we walked away from our basic fundamental ideals. Now that simply wasn’t the case.”
Of course it was the case. Obama said in Cairo, “I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States.” Under Bush/Cheney, we
were torturing — Cheney’s twisted definitions notwithstanding — and when torture was a standard U.S. technique, this did in fact distance the nation from our basic fundamental ideals.
moreCheney lies about everything! How many times did this war criminal admit to torture? Here are at least two:
Cheney Defends Torture: It ‘Would Have Been Unethical Or Immoral’ For Us Not To Torture (2008)
Cheney Defends Torture, Says Administration ‘Not Up To The Task’ In Libya (2011)