Basman on Cheney on Robinson

1. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/printpage/?url=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/12/31/cheney_in_winter_99733.html

2. Me:

I think Cheney has a point but he way overstates it. Eugene Robinson has a point but he overstates it too, though not as much. Cheney and his daughter in Facebook both have policy differences in with some of Obama's actions in relation to the war on terror and for myself I'm sympathetic to many of their arguments.

But they go overboard in saying that Obama is not sincerely committed to keeping America safe or is any less vigilant than they are. That's simply a canard. And Dick Cheney is out to lunch in thinking that Obama wants to restructure America, which is to say make it over into a Socialist society. Obama simply has less faith in unattended markets than does Cheney.

Eugene Robinson makes a fair case for some of Cheney's overstatements--some of which are contradicted by what the Bush Cheney Administration did. But I think that Cheney in his gruff overstated way is sincere and not playing politics. And there may be some rhetorical method to his way overstatement.

He knows that when he speaks he makes a big public dent and that the Administration is sensitive to that dent as it fears losing independent voters and Reagan democrats and as Democrats keep deciding not to run. So I have to think that Cheney has had some success in contributing to the sharpening of Obama's public position on the war on terror. Robinson does not take Cheney seriously enough and becomes what he criticizes in so slagging Cheney as he does.