Reactions to Pres. Obama and Cheney's Speeches

I have seen several different reactions to the speeches from yesterday. Of course mine was that I thought Pres. Obama was masterful and great and Cheney's was full of fear mongering and lies.

But, that would be a lie a little, because I really didn't listen to Cheney's speech.. I ignored his, and just heard what bits and pieces were played on the news shows and such.

I really didn't have to listen to his speech, I knew exactly what he was going to say, because we have heard the same thing for the last 8 years at least from the Republicans and we finally rejected it soundly.

One of the best pieces I have read, was from McClatchy.Yahoo has that featured there, and it is a good piece from Yahoo, believe it or not.

One of the comments Dickless made was to say that his techniques worked to keep us safe.. yeah "techniques" Torture will not keep us safe. Here is what McClatchy says in response of that,

A top-secret 2004 CIA inspector general's investigation found no conclusive proof that information gained from aggressive interrogations helped thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to one of four top-secret Bush-era memos that the Justice Department released last month.
FBI Director Mueller Robert Muller told Vanity Fair magazine in December that he didn't think that the techniques disrupted any attacks.

Dickless also stated they had moved to fight the terrorists so well.. yet,

The former vice president didn't point out that Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al Zawahri , remain at large nearly eight years after 9-11 and that the Bush administration began diverting U.S. forces, intelligence assets, time and money to planning an invasion of Iraq before it finished the war in Afghanistan against al Qaida and the Taliban .
There are now 49,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan fighting to contain the bloodiest surge in Taliban violence since the 2001 U.S.-led intervention, and Islamic extremists also have launched their most concerted attack yet on neighboring, nuclear-armed Pakistan .

As I said, it is a very good read. Check it out and read the full review. They pretty well check him in place.

Another good Fact Checkery of sorts is in the Washington Independent. They have a good article citing several sources, including the McClatchy report.

I think the last few lines of the article sums up the feelings of a lot of people.

Now, however, I’ve spent about two hours and almost 1200 words chasing an inaccurate Dick Cheney claim down the rabbit hole. So I credit him with that victory. He makes an outlandish and misleading claim; I scramble to point out what’s wrong with it. Nothing I’ve written is particularly new or unfamiliar to the public record. But that doesn’t stop Cheney from saying what he says.

Nothing Dickless said is new or unfamiliar, we rejected it. It is illegal, it is wrong, it is immoral, it is torture. Plain and simple. It is torture.

I don't care what Dickless and his band of thugs want to try to rename it to, it is torture.

Check those out. See what you think. Got a couple of others you might be interested in, but the Washington Independent really covered most of them. Nieman Watchdog has a great piece. Talking about questions the press should be asking. This is a series of articles.

UPDATE Steve Benen @ The Washington Monthly has an article up about how many times Lynn Cheney has been on defending her Father and his policy of torture. Check it out.

Just some of the things I have been reading and looking at. Lots of things to read, lots of things to think about.

Basically, Cheney is wrong, Pres. Obama is right. We have a new way forward and Cheney needs to get off the stage. We have rejected him and his ideas. It is time for him to SIT DOWN AND SHUT THE HELL UP.