Both David Brooks and Lawrence O'Donnell yesterday pointed out that there is considerable continuity between the Bush admin and Obama admin policies on torture and detention than is generally recognized. This is, of course, to be lamented. Particularly disturbing, as several here have pointed out, is Obama's now-public commitment to indefinite detention in some cases. The irony that Obama stood beside the US Constitution as he made his important speech the other day--working to establish a connection in the public mind between the avowed 'new,' 'more coherent' direction of his policies and those of former President Bush, was not lost on everyone.
The right of habeas corpus is the first--and perhaps most important--of our human rights, and we must not relinquish it. It declares flatly, that a govt. must give PUBLIC reasons for the detention of any human being. Once established, it prevents said government(s) from simply throwing their enemies or inconvenient persons in jail.
But that first takeaway message--that there is considerable continuity between Bush and Obama policies, and that Obama is not doing enough to restore the law and (more important, to my mind) the rights that go with them--also serves to obscure something quite important. It is not the Bush policy per se which is being maintained (in broad outline) but the Bush policy as it came to be implemented AFTER A LONG INTERNAL WHITE HOUSE STRUGGLE, one which Dick Cheney lost.
That is the point of this diary, which I would like to see discussed, esp. by people who might have more legal insight than I: Dick Cheney is dangling; he is highly exposed. Lynn Cheney has now publicly as much as admitted that the threat of prosecution is helping to drive Cheney's current increasingly uncomfortable grandstanding. Cheney is taking a HUGE gamble, in part because the stakes--for him--are high.
Yes, there is plenty of culpability to go around. Yes, many Dems tacitly endorsed these policies. But we now have highly placed figures saying that Cheney WAS PRESIDENT, ACTING AS HIGHEST EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY where torture policy was concerned. We have Cheney himself, when asked if Bush knew about torture, saying 'He should have,' astonishingly!
Just how much more exposed is Dick Cheney? I smell a little blood here in the water. I think that the possibility grows that we--justice--can take him down. If this is true what steps can we take to force home this point?