Cheney Offended by Rule of Law

Former vice-president Dick Cheney said on Fox News that the Attorney General’s probe into CIA torture under the Bush-Cheney administration “offends the Hell out of me.”

(http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/30/cheney-slams-obamas-politicized-probe-cia-interrogations/ 8/30/09. )

(Fox News Graphic)

Cheney has “serious doubts,” he said, about whether President Obama “understands and is prepared to do what needs to be done to defend the nation."

But what “nation” is Cheney talking about? A democratic America that operates by the will of the people, under the rule of law, or some other nation, in which an autocratic ruler (or a pair of them) decide arbitrarily “what needs to be done” regardless of the law?

Torture of prisoners is illegal. It is illegal now, and it was illegal when Cheney was vice-president. Since credible evidence has emerged that the CIA engaged in systematic torture with at least tacit, and probably explicit approval of Cheney, then what is the attorney general supposed to do? Ignore it? He can’t. It would be illegal for him to ignore it.

The attorney general swore in his oath of office to protect and uphold the constitution, and unlike Cheney, who also took that oath, the attorney general apparently is a man of his word.

The new policy (of upholding the law), will be, according to Cheney, "very, very devastating, I think, … on morale inside the intelligence community." That is probably correct. No criminal likes to be caught and punished. It understandably deflates morale.

The trail of crumbs might lead straight back to Cheney’s office, whereupon he would be, we can guess, extremely, extremely offended all to Hell that his criminal behavior was exposed.