Jeebus H. Christ, January 20—where are you?!
Vice President Dick Cheney crawled out of his undisclosed location to do an imaginary victory lap in the MSM, and big surprise, he made an appearance on hillbilly heroin devotee Rush Limbaugh’s show to reiterate his believe that conditions at the detention facility at Guantanamo were A-OK. (Obama has promised to close it). Via Think Progress (it has audio):
CHENEY: I think so. I think Guantanamo has been very well run. I think if you look at it from the perspective of the requirements we had, once you go out and capture a bunch of terrorists, as we did in Afghanistan and elsewhere, then you’ve got to have some place to put them. If you bring them here to the U.S. and put them in our local court system, then they are entitled to all kinds of rights that we extend only to American citizens. […]
So Guantanamo has been very, very valuable. And I think they’ll discover that trying to close it is a very hard proposition.
Amanda Terkel notes:
Guantanamo is not well-run, and its presence is putting U.S. servicemembers at risk rather than saving lives. As former Navy general counsel Alberto Mora has explained, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are “the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq.”
Cheney also said this about the expansion of executive powers during Bush’s reign of terror.
“Once they get here and they’re faced with the same problems we deal with every day, then they will appreciate some of the things we’ve put in place,” Cheney said during an interview on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show.
“We did not exceed our constitutional authority, as some have suggested,” Cheney insisted. “The President believes, I believe very deeply, in a strong executive, and I think that’s essential in this day and age. And I think the Obama administration is not likely to cede that authority back to the Congress. I think they’ll find that given a challenge they face, they’ll need all the authority they can muster.”
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No, rights aren’t just for American citizens. Priveleges are, but not rights. Rights are something EVERY human being is born with—it’s self evident, if you aren’t an evil fucker who deserves to spend the rest of his life in a small cell. He really believes torture is just fine and dandy.
Poor Joe Biden has the most thankless, yet important, role. He has to make the VP role one of waiting in the wings again. Visiting dignitaries at funerals. Glad-handing while powerless. It’s a particularly hard thing to give up power, but that power was stolen. There is no 4th branch of government. The VP is not supposed to make laws or shepherd policy. Returning to sanity means Joe has to just sit there, but sitting there powerless as the VP is going to be one of the most important functions in this administration.