Many have noticed that Congressional Republicans are loudly denouncing homeland security policies that they once supported under President Bush. It’s not just that Republicans can now criticize policies because they are no longer “President Bush’s,” but Peter Beinart writes that the GOP is taking its cues from an unmuzzled Dick Cheney:
In Cheney’s opinion, clearly, the Bush administration lost its nerve in the second term. (When, not coincidentally, Cheney’s nemesis, Condoleezza Rice, became secretary of State, and shifted power over foreign policy away from the White House). In 2003, the Bush administration abandoned waterboarding. In 2006, it closed the “black sites” around the world where detainees were held beyond the reach of any law. Throughout Bush’s second term, his administration released prisoners from Guantanamo Bay. And in Bush’s final days in office, according to David Sanger of the New York Times, he refused Israeli pleas for help in taking military action against Iran.
It’s almost as if there have been three presidencies since 9/11: 1) The Cheney administration (2001-2003 or 2004), in which the vice president—aided by his old friend Donald Rumsfeld, and his key aides Scooter Libby and David Addington—got Bush to pursue a war on terror largely outside the law. 2) The Bush administration (2004-2009), in which Bush, aided by Rice, Robert Gates, chief of staff Joshua Bolton, and the rulings of the supreme court, reign in Cheney and some of his policies. And 3) the Obama administration, which tries to bring Bush’s second term policies even more under the rule of law.
Republicans need to seem “tough on terror” in time for November, and playing politics around recent terrorism-related issues like the prospect of a KSM civillian trail and the underwear bomber intel lapse serves their purpose.