Terrorism: Is Cheney winning the rhetoric war?

Cheney railed against the Obama's war policy last Sunday. Are the former vice president's arguments 'crazy' - or surprisingly logical?

Call it the “battle of the veeps,” said Richard Sisk in the New York Daily News. In an ABC News interview this week, former Vice President Dick Cheney charged that the Obama administration blew the chance to pry more information out of accused underwear bomber Umar Abdulmutallab, because Obama has barred the use of harsh interrogation techniques. He also scorned the administration’s efforts to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court. “It’s clear once again,” Cheney declared, “that President Obama is trying to pretend that we are not at war.”

We’ve heard this line of attack from Cheney before, said James Hohmann in Politico.com, but this time, the White House dispatched Vice President Joe Biden to dispute his narrative. Appearing on CBS and NBC, Biden said Cheney was “either misinformed or misinforming” about Obama’s determination to combat terrorism, pointing out that Obama had sent 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and had greatly stepped up drone strikes against al Qaida leaders. Cheney, said Biden, was so extreme in his advocacy of unconstitutional policies that even George W. Bush had rejected his advice. “Thank God the last administration didn’t listen to him in the end,” Biden said.

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