Cheney Wins
John Schwenkler May 18th, 2009
So I’m really having trouble following the argument in this paragraph of Chris Bodenner’s:
As Andrew noted yesterday, Obama has done a lot to defang Cheneyism; he has postponed an exit in Iraq, retained Gates, increased troop levels in Afghanistan, elevated McChrystal, kept rendition, revived military tribunals, and punted on the torture photos. So what’s left for Rove Republicans to latch onto?
Unless “defang” now means “embrace”, I’m coming up blank. Because somehow it seems to me that if your route to victory over your opponents involves abandoning your stated views and adopting instead many of the positions they’ve criticized you for failing to adopt, then any triumph you can proclaim will be a little bit pyrrhic ….
Filed under: civil liberties, politics, torture, war
The only thing I can come up with is that he defanged the rhetoric.
Yes, well the Boston Celtics have done a lot to defang Orlando fans’ rhetoric, too; at this point everyone is much more interested in talking about Cleveland.
From a strictly political point of view he has “defanged” Cheney in that in adopting his policies he gives Cheney and the War Hogs less to talk about. It’s like Clinton’s “Triangulation.” From the point of view of the Democrat faithful, Obama’s retention of certain Bush positions is OK as long as they can convince themselves that he really is for change. This is especially so as “Change” is never defined.
Of course this is nonsense, but that’s the nature of Democracy. Feeding morons what they want to hear, while doing what you need to do to get through the next election cycle.