Steve Benen points to this absurd piece from Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei setting up a "duel" between Dick Cheney and Barack Obama on national security tomorrow:
President Barack Obama will attempt to regain control of a boiling debate over anti-terrorism policy with a major speech on Thursday -- an address that comes on the same day that former Vice President Dick Cheney will be weighing in with his own speech on the same theme.
The dueling speeches amount to the most direct engagement so far between Obama and his conservative critics in the volatile argument over what tactics are justified in detaining and interrogating suspected enemy combatants.
Let's be clear: as Jack Goldsmith pointed out yesterday, the Obama administration's policies differ little in substance from the Bush administration. Cheney's position amounts almost entirely to a defense of torture, the only issue on which the Obama administration has made a substantive breach from his predecessor. This is political journalism as sportscasting. Goldsmith wrote yesterday:
If this analysis is right, then the former vice president is wrong to say that the new president is dismantling the Bush approach to terrorism. President Obama has not changed much of substance from the late Bush practices, and the changes he has made, including changes in presentation, are designed to fortify the bulk of the Bush program for the long-run. Viewed this way, President Obama is in the process of strengthening the presidency to fight terrorism.
The "duel" being hyped by Vandehei and Allen amounts to an argument over whether torture is justified and whether or not to shove the same counterterrorism policies of the last eight years down our throats with a scowl or a smile. In Goldsmith's view, Obama's approach is better because it's more likely to elicit popular consent.
High stakes, huh?
-- A. Serwer
