Friday, May 22, 2009

Obama-Cheney TV speeches

Obama was first on Fox. He spoke at length about closing Gitmo, and how opening Gitmo was a mistake (that he is correcting). He went on to talk about torture, CIA, and some other stuff. For a change, Obama say one thing of real substance. He plans to move the Gitmo prisoners to US "super max" prisons. He claimed that no one has ever escaped from such a prison. We will ignore the urban legends about the guy who escaped from Alcatraz. Actually, the risk is not escape, but some judge turning them loose.
Obama seems to understand the need to hold Al Quada fighters in jail, even though they aren't guilty of crimes. Other than bearing arms against the United States, they haven't done anything that would convince any kind of American court of their guilt. If they were wearing uniforms and soldiering for a real government, they would be prisoners of war. As it is, we need to hold them for the same reasons we hold prisoners of war, but we don't feel like granting them the privileges associated with POW status. Such as freedom from interrogation and Red Cross packages.
Then it was Cheney's turn. He spoke at length and ably defended the Bush Adminstration's war on terror. He made a lot of sense, and it's too bad Bush didn't say these things back when he was president. When Cheney speaks, he speaks about facts, rather than Obama's style of standing fore square for motherhood and apple pie.

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