CIA memos: Clinton Attacks Cheney Rather Than Reveal Truth

Having studied my fair share of philosophy, I recognize the genetic fallacy when I hear it. And I heard it today from the mouth of Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Let’s not talk about a legitimate issue; let’s instead demonize the person who is raising the legitimate issue while ignoring the issue itself. Hillary Clinton engaged in a textbook example of playing the politics of personal destruction – and distraction – rather than reveal the truth.

SecState Hillary Clinton doesn’t find Cheney a “reliable source of information”

It’s testy in the Foreign Relations Committee hearing today.

SecState HRC is testifying in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee and it seems she got into a bit of a heated exchange with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher — or he did with her — over the release of the interrogation memos.

Rohrabacher asks Secretary Clinton whether she agrees with former Veep Cheney’s suggestion that all memos on enhanced interrogation be released.

Secretary Clinton’s response? “It won’t surprise you that I don’t consider him to be a particularly reliable source of information…”

Rohrabacher bites back: “Madam Secretary, I asked you a specific question. … Dick Cheney has asked that specific documents be declassified. … I didn’t ask you what your opinion is of Dick Cheney and if you want to maintain your credibility with us, what is your opinion on the release of those documents?”

Secretary Clinton: “I think we should get to the bottom of this entire matter. I think it’s in the best interest of our country and that is what the president believes and that is why he’s taken the actions he’s taken.”

Youtube video.

Well, that’s okay, I suppose. Dick Cheney just joined war hero and savior of the American effort in Iraq General David Petraeus in lacking credibility as far as Hillary Clinton is concerned.

WASHINGTON — Senator Clinton squared off yesterday with her possible challenger for the White House in 2012, General David Petraeus, and came closer than any of her colleagues to calling the commander of the multinational forces in Iraq a liar.

Using blunter language than any other Democrat in the last two days, Mrs. Clinton told General Petraeus that his progress report on Iraq required “a willing suspension of disbelief.”

There’s Youtube video for that, too.

Personally, I think that places Dick Cheney in far better company than the heroine of Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, a bunch of other assorted “-gates” and the wicked witch who blamed her husband getting blow jobs in the Oval Office on “a vast rightwing conspiracy.” And it was such a perfectly-executed conspiracy that those dreadful rightwingers were able to plant Bill Clinton’s own semen on Monica Lewinsky’s dress.

But that’s okay: her boss Obama is now going after all of those rightwing conspirators who believe horrible things such as: the right to exercise free speech; the right to peaceably assemble; the 14th Amendment’s restriction of the federal government encroaching on the rights of the states and the people; the right of an innocent baby to live; the right to think that the United States should protect America for its own citizens; the right of our heroic combat veterans not to be regarded as dangerous terrorist threats when they return home; etc.

I want you to understand something: THESE are the people saying former` Vice President Dick Cheney isn’t “reliable”:

From April 20: (AP) President Barack Obama does not intend to prosecute Bush administration officials who devised the policies that led to the harsh interrogation of suspected terrorists, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said Sunday.

From April 21: President Obama left open the door Tuesday for charges to be brought against Bush administration lawyers who justified harsh interrogation techniques, though he continued to argue that CIA agents who used those tactics should not be prosecuted.

THESE are the people saying former Vice President Dick Cheney isn’t “reliable”:

JENNIFER LOVEN, AP: The $100 million target figure that the president talked about today with the Cabinet, can you explain why so small? I know he talked about—you know, you add up 100 million and 100 million, and eventually, you get somewhere, but it would take an awfully long time to add up hundred million (inaudible) in the deficit. Why not target a bigger number?

GIBBS: (Smiling) Well, I think only in Washington, D.C. is a hundred million dollars…

LOVEN: The deficit’s very large. It’s not a joke.

GIBBS: No, I’m…

LOVEN: The deficit’s giant. $100 million really is only a step.

GIBBS: But no joke.

LOVEN: You sound like you’re joking about it, but it’s not funny.

GIBBS: I’m not making jokes about it. I’m being completely sincere that only in Washington, D.C. is $100 million not a lot of money. It is where I’m from. It is where I grew up. And I think it is for hundreds of millions of Americans.

LOVEN: The point is it’s not a very big portion of the deficit.

TAPPER: You were talking about an appropriations bill a few weeks ago about $8 billion being minuscule—$8 billion in earmarks. We were talking about that and you said that that…

GIBBS: Well, in terms of—in…

TAPPER: …$100 million is a lot but $8 billion is small?

To quote a blogger:

Of course, $100 million is a lot of money where anyone is from. But in Washington DC, where Obama has expanded government spending by gargantuan amounts, it’s 0.0029% of the budget. Or 0.00076% of what Obama spent on the “economic stimulus” spending spree

These are people who justify whatever the hell they want as “reliable information.” The same people who justify trivializing $8 BILLION in pork because that $8 billion makes them look bad almost immediately thereafter justify claiming that $100 million in budget cuts is a huge figure because they think that .0029% of the budget they say they’ll trim makes them look good. The people who claim Cheney lacks credibility massively lack so much of a shred of it themselves.

For the Obama administration, credibility means doublespeak. Openness means releasing only those documents that hurt the political opposition. Accountability means personally attacking anyone who raises a legitimate point.

So the administration that promised openness and accountability is now releasing only the documents that make the Bush administration and the United States of America look bad, but refuse to release the information that reveals how necessary and useful the actions that Bush took to protect this country. The administration that promised unparalleled bipartisanship is now pursuing the greatest political witch-hunt in American history and essentially transforming this country into a banana republic where the winners of the next election criminalize the previous administration. And personally attack anyone who confronts them for doing it while avoiding the main issue.

The facts are obvious to anyone who will consider them (or allow them to be released): the “harsh” interrogations worked. The Bush Administration officials were called upon to make extraordinary decisions in the heat of battle with thousands of dead Americans and many thousands or tens of thousands more feared to come. And they acted to protect the country.

So let’s have a communist show trial, forbid the accused from presenting any exculpatory or mitigating evidence in their own defense, and put them in prison. That’s the documented historical way of the left, after all.

That’s the new America under Barack Hussein.

One day a Republican administration will be back in power – and they’ll be mad as hell over the shocking perversions of justice that are going on right now. That administration will find its legal precedent to prosecute from what is going on right now. And the president and the administration that engaged in politically-motivated prosecutions is going to become the next victim of the next wave of politically-motivated prosecutions.

Note to the soon-to-be-prosecuted Bush officials: demand a change of venue out of Washington D.C., or you will be convicted of the crime of being a Republican just like Scooter Libby.

Tags: Bush, Dick Cheney, filegate, Hillary Clinton, Petraeus, reliable source, Robert Gibbs, Rohrabacher, show trial, torture, travelgate, vast rightwing conspiracy, Whitewater, willing suspension of disbelief