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Cheney On Meet The Press Sunday

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by Flying Headbutt, Sep 9, 2006.

  1. Gold

    Gold Active Member

    I thought I saw Cheney on Meet The Press sometime in 2004, but I could be mistaken.
     
  2. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    Okay, I'm a masochist. Emboldened by listening to Bush's speech on the drive home last night, I finished watching this piece after everyone went to bed. I don't know much about Dick Cheney, but I found myself fascinated by his answers and non-answers. The following exchange was particularly interesting (I am paraphrasing, so I don't have the words exactly, but it captures the tone):

    Russert: We are spending X hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq. Is that money that could be better spent securing our borders, our ports, our airports?

    Cheney: We are spending a lot of money for homeland security already. Of course, we could also spend more. But we have had no terrorist attacks in five years. Can you at least admit that somebody *may* be doing a good job?


    Analysis: What the Veep is saying is that the Administration is very satisfied with the security at home.
    a) they have spent money, and b) no attacks.

    It's an extremely elementary way of looking at things. Terrorists can walk across the border from Canada. They can walk across the border from Mexico. Apply for a visa and fly right in. The vast majority of our cargo in our seaports are not checked at all. No checks on the person picking up the cargo. Does the administration honestly believe that we have all the security we need in this country?

    Its astounding what comes out of the mouths of these guys.
     

  3. I am continually amazed by the "no attacks since 9/11" chest-thumping.
    1) 9/11 counts, Dick.
    2) Anthrax counts, too.
     
  4. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Anthrax doesn't count. Who were terrorists who sent the Anthrax and what was their agenda? It's like saying there have been kidnappings with ransom demands in the last five years, so there has been terrorism. Or that some heinous crime went unsolved, so you can't rule out that terrorists did it. You know that when people talk about the terrorism threat they are talking about Islamofascist terrorism. And Al Queda hasn't struck us in our country since 9/11. He's right.

    I'd just argue that the reason we haven't had an attack since 9/11 is that we have been as lucky as we have been good. And Cheney saying today, "But we haven't been attacked in five years, so we've protected you well" is akin to him having said that Iraq was going to be a cakewalk. Because when we inevitably do get attacked somewhere down the line, Russert is going to play the tape of him saying "There haven't been any attacks!" and make him look like a douche. You'd think he'd actually learn.

    We have done a lot of right things as a result of 9/11. A lot of them were measures that anyone--not just this administration--who saw how unprepared we were would have taken. We are safer than we were five years ago, just by virtue of the fact that we expect to get attacked. But we are never going to be completely safe. No matter who is president, even if they come up with a better port security plan. We can't cover the whole country with a bubble. It's idiotic that he would use no attacks in the last five years as the measure of whether he is doing a good job, and scary if that actually reassures anyone (which sadly, I think it does, which is why he says it). Al Queda is going to keep coming after us. And if they sneak through the cracks and do damage, it isn't a measure of how good this administration or any subsequent administration is doing. We are a huge target, and our luck is bound to run out.
     
  5. Flying Headbutt

    Flying Headbutt Moderator Staff Member

    Keep in mind that the large-scale attacks planned against us take years to develop and execute.

    The first WTC bombing happened in '93. The next one eight years later, that even though those who planned the first one have been arrested and punished for their actions.

    Do the attacks against us elsewhere not count though? For instance our embassy in Syria was attacked today. That doesn't count as an attack against us? Then why did the USS Cole? We've had numerous other installations attacked as well in other parts of the world.
     
  6. goalmouth

    goalmouth Well-Known Member

    Saying everything's OK as long as it doesn't happen on U.S. soil is exactly the same mindset that invited the 9-11 attacks in the first place.
     
  7. dog428

    dog428 Active Member

    The Daily Show had a nice bit on the "safer, but not safe" bullshit the administration is tossing out there.

    It has to be an incredibly tricky tight rope to walk -- trying to convince us that they're out there protecting the hell out of us, but we could all die in the blink of an eye.

    Oh, and saying there have been no terrorist attacks in the last five years is like saying I've had no termites in the last three months.
     
  8. Of course, anthrax counts. It wasn't mailed for fun. It wasn't mailed as a random event. It was precisely aimed at Leahy and Daschle and at the media. That we haven't caught the people yet is hardly an argument for its being or not being terrorism. It certainly is by the strictest definition of the term.
     
  9. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    We are safer just by being more alert as citizens.

    But the Homeland Security department is nothing to brag about. Despite being assembled by this administration, it seems to be a big bureaucratic pit of pork barrel wastefulness.

    Seems like the "less government" Republicans could have done a better job fashioning a homeland security that protects the country better, rather than reward some Republican a fancy new ladder firetruck truck in a small town with no building over three stories.
     
  10. Ben_Hecht

    Ben_Hecht Active Member

    Chaney and the boys are pounding the "no attacks since 9/11" drum, because, as issues
    go . . . it's all they've got, since the middle's awakened to just what shysters these thugs are.
     
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