Good coverage of the Obama/Cheney face off yesterday. Here at TPM and around the web and all over cable.  By the way, Rachel Maddow did a fantastic job last night, demonstrating how dickyc's speech was the same speech he has been giving for eight years. Really amazing.

The sob is still linking Saddam with al Qaeda. But yesterday he described a prewar Iraq as aiding terrorists. He just did not name the terrorists. Clever huh?

And Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.  But last night Iraq was preparing and/or capable of procuring weapons of mass destruction before dickyc personally saved us all from a fate worse than death.

Rachel really did a fine job.  I could just go ahead and compare Obama's speech to cheney's speech.  But why compare Shakespeare to a Cheerio's commercial?

Today I just wish to demonstrate that the points in mein fuhrer's speech fit nicely into a list prepared by our own TheraP:

Straussian /Neocon Principles (TheraP's cliff notes version)

1. Noble Lies (lies/secrecy as "virtue" - > 4,10,13)
2. Perpetual War (war as "virtue" -> 5, 6, 8, 13)
3. Fear of the masses and democracy (-> 4, 9)
4. Government by an elite (covert rule of "the wise" -> 1,10)
5. Instilling a sense of superiority in a nation (-> 8, 13)
6. Stability/Unity via FEAR of an external threat (->13)
7. Exploiting moral issues/religion's hold on the people (->1,13)
8. National survival - supersedes the well-being of others (->2,5)
9. Contempt for dissenters (->10,13)
10. Those in power make the rules and call it justice (->1,13)
11. Combination of religion and nationalism (->7,13)
12. Fear - greatest ally of tyranny (->1,6,13)
13. Manipulate the images (media, based on idea of Plato's cave

Noble Lies

CHENEY: "[Releasing the memos] is held up as a bold exercise in open government, honoring the public's right to know. We're informed, as well, that there was much agonizing over this decision. Yet somehow, when the soul-searching was done and the veil was lifted on the policies of the Bush administration, the public was given less than half the truth. The released memos were carefully redacted to leave out references to what our government learned through the methods in question. Other memos, laying out specific terrorist plots that were averted, apparently were not even considered for release. For reasons the administration has yet to explain, they believe the public has a right to know the method of the questions, but not the content of the answers."

Honoring the public's right to know. See, right away all I wish to do is swear, scream, yell at this guy when he speaks lies like this.  CHENEY HAS NEVER EVER EVER HONORED THE PUBLIC'S RIGHT TO KNOW. If there were evidence that made dickyc look good, it would have been handed to his scabs working at the NYT.

Just take a look at this part of his speech relating to 'openness':

Our government prevented attacks and saved lives through the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which let us intercept calls and track contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and persons inside the United States. The program was top secret, and for good reason, until the editors of the New York Times got it and put it on the front page. After 9/11, the Times had spent months publishing the pictures and the stories of everyone killed by al-Qaeda on 9/11. Now here was that same newspaper publishing secrets in a way that could only help al-Qaeda. It impressed the Pulitzer committee, but it damn sure didn't serve the interests of our country, or the safety of our people.

See, this was when, in 2005, w accused NYT of being traitors for creating some openness in government, some transparency. While our w had just been making speeches that we did not tap our citizens phones without warrants. A clear lie.  A lie told daily by w and his henchmen until the story came out.

But you see how clever darth vader and his writers manipulate this. If you have been accused of cherry picking info to suit your own aims and desires, you simply accuse the other side of cherry picking info to suit his needs.  And that way, you can get the media to give heed to your pleas under the informal fairness doctrine.  Two sides to everything. See?

The point here is that cheney did lie, every single goddamnable day (blesses himself) he sat in the Office of the Vice President. Every day. And to him and to Feith, and to rummy, and to gonzo and to yoo and to bybee, you claim a higher calling.  You must lie because you are part of the elite, part of the nobility.  You do it for the greater good.

Personally, someone like rove does not believe in ANYTHING to begin with. He is told to come up with lies and spin and so he comes up with lies and spin.

"Maybe you've heard that when we captured KSM, he said he would talk as soon as he got to New York City and saw his lawyer. But like many critics of interrogations, he clearly misunderstood the business at hand. American personnel were not there to commence an elaborate legal proceeding, but to extract information from him before al-Qaeda could strike again and kill more of our people."

Perpetual War

Everyone expected a follow-on attack, and our job was to stop it. We didn't know what was coming next, but everything we did know in that autumn of 2001 looked bad. This was the world in which al-Qaeda was seeking nuclear technology, and A. Q. Khan was selling nuclear technology on the black market. We had the anthrax attack from an unknown source. We had the training camps of Afghanistan, and dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists.

These are just a few of the problems we had on our hands. And foremost on our minds was the prospect of the very worst coming to pass - a 9/11 with nuclear weapons.

See, now we have the perpetual War On Terror.  If you are in a perpetual war, you are perpetually under Marshal Law. There are no rights.  That is why the fascists wanted perpetual war.

Fear of the Masses and Democracy

Our government prevented attacks and saved lives through the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which let us intercept calls and track contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and persons inside the United States. The program was top secret, and for good reason, until the editors of the New York Times got it and put it on the front page. After 9/11, the Times had spent months publishing the pictures and the stories of everyone killed by al-Qaeda on 9/11. Now here was that same newspaper publishing secrets in a way that could only help al-Qaeda. It impressed the Pulitzer committee, but it damn sure didn't serve the interests of our country, or the safety of our people.

I quoted this elsewhere in this paper for other reasons, but I include it here also, because the sentiment demonstrates that those in power cannot trust the people. The powerful fear the masses as well as the democratic processes available to those masses. So the powerful intercept telephone calls and emails and twitters and chatrooms and even go into people's computers to steal files without warrants.  And then w lies about it.

Transparency is not something treasured by the fascists.

Government by an Elite

Our administration always faced its share of criticism, and from some quarters it was always intense. That was especially so in the later years of our term, when the dangers were as serious as ever, but the sense of general alarm after September 11th, 2001 was a fading memory. Part of our responsibility, as we saw it, was not to forget the terrible harm that had been done to America ... and not to let 9/11 become the prelude to something much bigger and far worse....

The key to any strategy is accurate intelligence, and skilled professionals to get that information in time to use it. In seeking to guard this nation against the threat of catastrophic violence, our Administration gave intelligence officers the tools and lawful authority they needed to gain vital information. We didn't invent that authority. It is drawn from Article Two of the Constitution. And it was given specificity by the Congress after 9/11, in a Joint Resolution authorizing "all necessary and appropriate force" to protect the American people.

We need skilled professionals to make the decisions. An elite must govern. All you have to do is look to Article Two of the Constitution.  Go ahead, read Article Two

http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/freedom/constitution/text.html

I thought I would lose too many readers to include it all here. But basically it tells you how to elect the president, what the duties of the President are, and how to get rid of the son of a bitch if you do not like him. Ha!!  What the hell cheney is referring to here is anybody's guess. You do not just point to An Article in the Constitution if you are making an argument. The least you can do is give a section number. But f....it.

Instilling a Sense of Superiority in a Nation

We know the difference in this country between justice and vengeance.

See, even when we torture, we are doing it for the right reason!!!

And to call this a program of torture is to libel the dedicated professionals who have saved American lives, and to cast terrorists and murderers as innocent victims. What's more, to completely rule out enhanced interrogation methods in the future is unwise in the extreme. It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness, and would make the American people less safe.

Bad people, barbaric people torture. We are better than that. We only use enhanced interrogation techniques.

Stability/Unity via FEAR of an External Threat

"Nine-eleven caused everyone to take a serious second look at threats that had been gathering for a while, and enemies whose plans were getting bolder and more sophisticated. Throughout the 90s, America had responded to these attacks, if at all, on an ad hoc basis. The first attack on the WorldTradeCenter was treated as a law enforcement problem, with everything handled after the fact--crime scene, arrests, indictments, convictions, prison sentences, case closed." 

The guy said 9/11;   25 times according to Josh and 24 times according to cable.

Exploiting Moral Issues/Religion's Hold on the People

Another term out there that slipped into the discussion is the notion that American interrogation practices were a "recruitment tool" for the enemy. On this theory, by the tough questioning of killers, we have supposedly fallen short of our own values. This recruitment-tool theory has become something of a mantra lately, including from the President himself. And after a familiar fashion, it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do. It's another version of that same old refrain from the Left, "We brought it on ourselves."

See how dicky c brings in 'values'?

Critics of our policies are given to lecturing on the theme of being consistent with American values. But no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants ever to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things. And when an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them.

National Survival Supercedes the Well-Being of Others

"I was and remain a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation program. The interrogations...were legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do. The intelligence officers who questioned the terrorists can be proud of their work and proud of the results, because they prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people. "

I do not need to add to this at all.

Contempt for Dissenters

 "This recruitment-tool theory has become something of a mantra lately, including from the President himself. And after a familiar fashion, it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do. It's another version of that same old refrain from the Left, "We brought it on ourselves.""

See this son of a bitch does not ever wish a discussion, a debate with others who disagree with his ethos, his values, his eskewed vision of the world. HE HAS NOTHING BUT CONTEMPT FOR DISSENTERS.

In public discussion of these matters, there has been a strange and sometimes willful attempt to conflate what happened at Abu Ghraib prison with the top secret program of enhanced interrogations. At Abu Ghraib, a few sadistic prison guards abused inmates in violation of American law, military regulations, and simple decency. For the harm they did, to Iraqi prisoners and to America's cause, they deserved and received Army justice. And it takes a deeply unfair cast of mind to equate the disgraces of Abu Ghraib with the lawful, skillful, and entirely honorable work of CIA personnel trained to deal with a few malevolent men.

Over on the left wing of the president's party, there appears to be little curiosity in finding out what was learned from the terrorists. The kind of answers they're after would be heard before a so-called "Truth Commission." Some are even demanding that those who recommended and approved the interrogations be prosecuted, in effect treating political disagreements as a punishable offense, and political opponents as criminals. It's hard to imagine a worse precedent, filled with more possibilities for trouble and abuse, than to have an incoming administration criminalize the policy decisions of its predecessors.

Policy decisions. Committing felonies amounts to policy decisions. How fricking quaint is that?

Those in Power Make the Rules and Call it Justice

That's how it seemed from a law enforcement perspective, at least - but for the terrorists the case was not closed. For them, it was another offensive strike in their ongoing war against the United States. And it turned their minds to even harder strikes with higher casualties. Nine-eleven made necessary a shift of policy, aimed at a clear strategic threat - what the Congress called "an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States." From that moment forward, instead of merely preparing to round up the suspects and count up the victims after the next attack, we were determined to prevent attacks in the first place.

The rules must change. So we changed the goddamnable rules (blesses himself).  And we forget about Section 2340-2340A of the Criminal Code. We forget about the Fifth Amendment, the Sixth Amendment and the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.  We were in power and we get to change the rules. You see.  AND WE SHALL CALL IT JUSTICE!!!

Since the war is perpetual, we can FOREVER IGNORE THE BILL OF RIGHTS.

The key to any strategy is accurate intelligence, and skilled professionals to get that information in time to use it. In seeking to guard this nation against the threat of catastrophic violence, our Administration gave intelligence officers the tools and lawful authority they needed to gain vital information. We didn't invent that authority. It is drawn from Article Two of the Constitution. And it was given specificity by the Congress after 9/11, in a Joint Resolution authorizing "all necessary and appropriate force" to protect the American people.

Combine Religion and Nationalism

For all that we've lost in this conflict, the United States has never lost its moral bearings. And when the moral reckoning turns to the men known as high-value terrorists, I can assure you they were neither innocent nor victims. As for those who asked them questions and got answers: they did the right thing, they made our country safer, and a lot of Americans are alive today because of them.

We are a moral nation. Usually others spent more time in w's administration stressing that god was on our side. The whole time I thought He was rooting for the Twins. But I digress.

FEAR, INSTILL FEAR

That attack itself was, of course, the most devastating strike in a series of terrorist plots carried out against Americans at home and abroad. In 1993, they bombed the World Trade Center, hoping to bring down the towers with a blast from below. The attacks continued in 1995, with the bombing of U.S. facilities in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; the killing of servicemen at Khobar Towers in 1996; the attack on our embassies in East Africa in 1998; the murder of American sailors on the USS Cole in 2000; and then the hijackings of 9/11, and all the grief and loss we suffered on that day.

Manipulate Symbols

 "You don't want to call them enemy combatants? Fine. Call them what you want--just don't bring them into the United States."

Rove really helped the warlords with all this symbolism.  It is how you phrase things.

It is not torture, it is enhanced interrogation techniques.

They are detainees, not defendants, not enemy combatants.....

It is the Patriot Act, not the brand new restored Alien and Sedition Act.

You manipulate the language and the symbols that lie at the core values of being an American.

So you see, our own TheraP has found the rule book that dickyc uses for his speeches. Ha!!

(Oh, TPM has so much material yesterday and early today on this including the entire text of the speech. I used this and TheraP's fine blog.)