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Cheney Spouts 'Red Herrings and Lies'

By John Johnson, Newser Staff

Posted May 21, 2009 7:34 PM CDT

(Newser) – Today's speech was "classic Dick Cheney," writes Fred Kaplan in Slate, and he doesn't mean it as a compliment. The former VP "built a case on straw men, red herrings, and lies" and put his "Manichean worldview" on full display. Kaplan labels as "blatant evasion" a core part of Cheney's argument: that harsh interrogations were an essential part of a post-9/11 strategy that kept the country safe.

"The debate—or one of the debates—is, in fact, over whether or not the war on terror required 'tough interrogations,' as Cheney called them. Does he believe—should anyone else believe—that removing one chunk of this strategy would cause the whole edifice to topple? If these interrogations are so essential, why did President Bush stop them in 2004? And why haven't we been attacked since?"

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Former Vice President Dick Cheney speaks at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, Thursday, May 21, 2009. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)

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Former Vice President Cheney speaks at the American Enterprise Institute. (YouTube)

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What's wrong with assembling a truth commission, an independent body empowered to examine all the documents and subpoena witnesses, behind firmly closed doors? - Fred Kaplan, Slate

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COMMENTS

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Showing 3 of 9 comments

kokuaguy

May 22, 2009 3:52 AM CDT

TC has hit the nail on the head. The investigation needs to establish beyond debate that the torture was designed to come up with some kind of link between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein in order to justify an illegal, unnecessary, catastrophic pre-emptive war on Iraq.

Newser001

May 22, 2009 3:16 AM CDT

The problem with torture, you'll always get an answer - right or wrong. You'll never really know if it's the truth. McCain is totally opposed to torture, as am I. If you've never served, you have no right to comment.

John

May 22, 2009 2:33 AM CDT

Then we must believe Fox Slime.

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