Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Thursday, December 31, 2009

DAN PFEIFFER, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, ANSWERS FORMER VICE PRESIDENT, BIG DICK CHENEY

 Dick Cheney is a liar and a disgrace.  He hates Mr. Obama more than he loves his country, for who else but an embittered old man, whose approval ratings as vice president were lower than cholera, would publicly state untruths that can so easily be refuted and shown to be the demented political posturings of a man who was second in command as the debacle of Iraq and the infiltration of al Qaeda in that country took place, and as al Qaeda's presence grew in Afghanistan while valuable military resources were redirected to a country that did not attack us on 9/11.

Cheney needs to remember which president and vice president's neglect seeded the quagmire that is now Afghanistan and the reemergence of the menace that is al Qaeda.  He also needs to take his Metamucil more often.


Update:   Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) blasted Cheney today, saying "that the apparent leaders of the al Qaeda cell in Yemen were 2 terrorists who were released by Vice President Cheney in secret." "I think there's a level of accountability that has to be levied personally on the vice president," said Massa.


The Same Old Washington Blame Game


There has been a lot of discussion online and in the mainstream media about our response to various critics of the President, specifically former Vice President Cheney, who have been coming out of the woodwork since the incident on Christmas Day.  I think we all agree that there should be honest debate about these issues, but it is telling that Vice President Cheney and others seem to be more focused on criticizing the Administration than condemning the attackers. Unfortunately too many are engaged in the typical Washington game of pointing fingers and making political hay, instead of working together to find solutions to make our country safer.

First, it’s important that the substantive context be clear: for seven years after 9/11, while our national security was overwhelmingly focused on Iraq – a country that had no al Qaeda presence before our invasion – Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda's leadership was able to set up camp in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they continued to plot attacks against the United States. Meanwhile, al Qaeda also regenerated in places like Yemen and Somalia, establishing new safe-havens that have grown over a period of years.  It was President Obama who finally implemented a strategy of winding down the war in Iraq, and actually focusing our resources on the war against al Qaeda – more than doubling our troops in Afghanistan, and building partnerships to target al Qaeda’s safe-havens in Yemen and Somalia.  And in less than one year, we have already seen many al Qaeda leaders taken out, our alliances strengthened, and the pressure on al Qaeda increased worldwide.

To put it simply: this President is not interested in bellicose rhetoric, he is focused on action. Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country. And it seems strangely off-key now, at a time when our country is under attack, for the architect of those policies to be attacking the President.

Second, the former Vice President makes the clearly untrue claim that the President – who is this nation’s Commander-in-Chief – needs to realize we are at War. I don’t think anyone realizes this very hard reality more than President Obama. In his inaugural, the President said “our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.” In a recent speech, Assistant to the President for Terrorism and Homeland Security John Brennan said “Instead, as the president has made clear, we are at war with al-Qaida, which attacked us on 9/11 and killed 3,000 people. We are at war with its violent extremist allies who seek to carry on al-Qaida’s murderous agenda. These are the terrorists we will destroy; these are the extremists we will defeat.” At West Point, the President told the nation why it was “in our vital national interest” to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to fight the war in Afghanistan, adding that as Commander in Chief, “I see firsthand the terrible wages of war.” And at Oslo, in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, the President said, “We are at war, and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land.”

There are numerous other such public statements that explicitly state we are at war. The difference is this: President Obama doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove it, and – unlike the last Administration – we are not at war with a tactic (“terrorism”), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies. And we will prosecute that war as long as the American people are endangered.

Dan Pfeiffer is White House Communications Director

19 comments:

Aggie said...

With all thats going on in the world you chose to blog about Dick Cheney? And you had to add your silly little innuendos to his name as well! Why not blog about the No. one issue facing America today? Is it because that Obama Screwed up Majorly about both?
Major Hasan, the Fort Hood Terrorist and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab the underwear bomber.
Are these Inconvenient Truths?

Aggie said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Aggie said...

How many terror attacks have we suffered under Obama so far? Fort Hood, plus the “failed” Christmas Day terror attack make two. Am I missing any others? If a terror attack is unsuccessful because Captain Underpants didn’t blow a hole in the aircraft, is it still a terror attack? Or is it merely a sucky day on the golf course?

Oh I forgot, you rather write about Dick Cheney..

Shaw Kenawe said...

Sad little Aggie!

A thwarted attack in the little troll mind is equal to a terrorist attack?

Are you forgetting that the very exact same thing happened under Bush's watch by the shoe bomber? So by your idiotic reasoning--which is common for trolls like you--Bush is responsible for the worst attack on American soil, 9/11, the anthrax letters attack, and the shoe bomber attempt.

That THREE TERRORIST ATTACKS in FOUR MONTHS under Bush, by your nincompoop reasoning.

Jimmy Carter is respected around the world, whereas Big Dick Cheney has arrest warrants out for him.

Go back under your bridge, you foolish whiner.

Anonymous said...

jeebus shaw. that aggie asshole is one angry stupid wingnut.

President Obama must be doing a lot of things correctly to enflame those morons.

God bless President Obama.

And Dick Cheney is a large asshole.

dmarks said...

Aggie said: "Why not blog about the No. one issue facing America today"

You mean the economy?

P.S. Jimmy Carter was never a Vice President. But his antisemitic ravings in recent years have diminished his respect.

libhom said...

Shaw: Thanks for reminding me about Jimmy Carter, our last good President.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
dmarks said...

Oh well. An hour later, and you would have gotten the honor of being the first troll of the new year.

Shaw Kenawe said...

One of my commenters, IIRC, rockync, wrote that it wouldn't take long for the idiot trolls to get here and claim that I was blaming Bush for the underpants bomber.

rockync was quite perceptive. As we all know, trolls are dumb and add nothing to any debate on any subject. But they hilariously come to my blog and demand that I blog about what THEY deem is important. Ha!

The last troll who was deleted whined that "Bush is no longer the president." Completely missing the point of the post, which was to point out the GOP's raging hypocrisy and crass political posturing over the underpants bomber.

Mr. Obama, IMHO, responded in a perfectly reasonable manner--in fact he responded quite like the last president, who, when the same sort of threat occurred, was NOT CRITICIZED for his response.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Willy'sWorldofReason:

Another malcontented idiot troll with nothing of consequence to add to any discussion.

Hey Willy. Mr. Obama is the President of the United States of America and our Commander in Chief.

And you're a dumb troll.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Interesting.

The idiot troll Willie'sWorldofReason has a post up about my latest post, as did the idiot troll "Malcontent."

I must be doing a lot right, since the trolls can't stop themselves from coming here and having their heads explode over what I write. It's really hilarious that their lives are so bereft of any meaning that all they can do is bitch about what this liberal blogger, who doesn't interact with them, writes on her own blog.

If that isn't crazy, I don't know what is.

LOL!

rockync said...

Shaw, a fan club! Whata way to start the new year! Woo Hoo!!!

Teresa said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
dmarks said...

Well, at least this comment from Willie is a little better than the one where he said that the underwear bomber was Obama's employee, and that Obama would have really rather seen the bombing succeed.

Oso said...

Hi Shaw,

Great posts ! first time here, Leslie Parsley gave a shove in this direction.

I see you get trolls. Noticed that Aggie guy used a nut who killed his fellow soldiers and a guy who blew up his underwear to build his case about terror plots.

Using his logic you could probably use gang drive by shootings, Darwin awards accidents and Michael Vick animal atrocities under Bush to respond in kind.

But you're obviously too rational for that.

Anyway like I said great site, I'll drop by again and will try to conduct myself as a gentleman if attacked by trolls but may not be able to.

Happy New Year !

Shaw Kenawe said...

Hi Oso,

Thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to more visits.

Each time I post something that matters to me, the trolls come by and leave incoherent rants about why I should detest Mr. Obama and love Sarah Palin.

One thing is consistent, the trolls are angry and ill-informed. A very dangerous combination.

dmarks said...

Oso: Cool. Always can use more non-trolls of any kind.

I checked your profile. I had no idea Vittorio was a Dodgers fan!

Oso said...

dmarks,

ROFL !

I'd forgot when I put my own pic up for new years I'd had the explanation for who Victoris was for my old pic.
Thanks !