Don't be such a Dick

I spent the weekend preparing to write my usual fly-by-night analysis of what I’ve come to affectionately think of as Great Depression II, wherein I was set to take the Obama Administration to task once more for its unapologetic use of the former Bushies and Clintonites who orchestrated this entire mess and their methods of printing and shoveling trillions of dollars into the collapsing financial markets, ostensibly so that we can continue to borrow and consume beyond our means, allowing the stock market to enjoy a few teensy upward ticks so a small number of investors can make off with a few more dollars, while the geniuses who stole everything in the first place walked away with “retention bonuses” and other multi-million dollar stipends with names that were euphemisms for “bonus” so the American public might not think that we’re paying them bonuses for crashing the industry that’s “too big to fail.”

I was going to castigate Obama for keeping guys like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, whose answer for our financial travails is to recycle Bush policy and purchase “toxic assets,” creating phony market values for them and hoping that some rube would come along in the future and buy them up like they were precious rocks of grade A Columbian blow.

And further, that we really don’t know what the plan is, and that we should be really upset that our tax dollars are going to pay off AIG debts to foreign banks and other financial institutions that have already received big glittery piles of bailout money from you and me, the American taxpayer. AIG posted the largest quarterly loss in American corporate history — about $61.7 billion — in the last quarter of 2008, by the way for those interested in the track record of the clowns who are getting those fat bonuses.

But my focus changed after Obama made his appearance on the teevee game show “60 minutes,” and answered Former Vice President “Dick” Cheney’s charge that his policies are making us “less safe.”

Cheney went on a national interview show on March 15 and was allowed to blather on about the effectiveness of torture and preemptive military attacks at keeping us safe from the “terr’sts.”

CNN interviewer/hack John King encouraged Cheney to continue the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) meme and trash Obama for his stated intention to close the American-sponsored torture camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“I think those programs were absolutely essential to the success we enjoyed of being able to collect the intelligence that let us defeat all further attempts to launch attacks against the United States since 9-11. I think that's a great success story,” said the Dark Lord, about his obsession with torture. “President Obama campaigned against it all across the country. And now he is making some choices that, in my mind, will, in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another attack.”

Let’s put aside the fact that had anyone criticized the Bush Administration is such stark terms, the national media would have been in an uproar and eventually the offender would have bowed his/her head in public shame over their perceived act of treason.

But a wonderful thing happened. Obama went on the teevee and actually shot down the urban legend that Bush policy was effective, and rather than making us “safer,” torture policies likely created more terrorism and enemies to the west in the Muslim world.

"The vice president is eager to defend a legacy that was unsustainable," said Obama, adding that the policies have “done incredible damage to our image and position in the world.

“You know, I think that Vice President Cheney has been at the head of a movement whose notion is somehow that we can't reconcile our core values, our constitution, our belief that we don't torture, with our national security interests. I think he's drawing the wrong lesson from history. The facts don't bear him out,” Obama said.

And then he went to the heart of what we “conspiracy theorists” have been saying for years:

"I mean, the fact of the matter is, after all these years, how many convictions actually came out of Guantanamo? How many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under the philosophy that is being promoted by Vice President Cheney? It hasn't made us safer.”

It was doubly refreshing that Obama didn’t rush to bow down and kiss Cheney’s pasty white butt on Monday like any national Republican or many Democrats such as Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi might.

It reminded me why I voted for Obama. He’s articulate and usually the smartest guy in the room.

After more than 20 years of Kennebunkport/Hope Arkansas hillbillies and a decade of Reagan’s simplistic populism, it’s refreshing to have a hip, articulate urbanite in charge, who has his feet firmly in the “reality-based” community.

It was one of those brief moments where I gave up my bitter cynicism, and for a few moments believed that maybe things in my lifetime will be alright.