Cheney: Come and Get Me

The former Vice President (and de facto leader of the U.S. government during the previous administration) admits that he "was a big supporter" of waterboarding (aka torture). As Harper's Scott Horton writes, Cheney, in his interview with ABC's Jonathan Karl --

-- was not speaking hypothetically but admitting his involvement in the process that led to decisions to waterboard in at least three cases.

Horton thinks that Cheney wants to be prosecuted, and that we should "give him what he wants." But I'm not so sure that's what Cheney wants. I don't think Cheney would shy away from a war crimes trial, but I think he has some twisted design on attempting to codify torture as part of U.S. policy in the future. In his mind, he likely believes that the majority of American people would be in support of the policies Cheney authorized in the prosecution of the "war" on terrorism. He likely believes that Americans cannot tolerate another successful attack on American soil without actually soiling themselves. And so, in the court of public opinion, he wins even if he loses in court.

And Cheney likely believes that he could eventually win in court. With a battery of lawyers skilled at arguing the law, plus a very sympathetic appeals process all the way to the conservative Roberts Supreme Court, he could conceivably find a legal pathway to legitimacy. A Cheney court victory, literal or otherwise, could clear the way for the GOP to paint Democrats as soft on homeland security for prosecuting him when the country is still at war.

I say, let Cheney rant all he wants. Paint him with the same brushstrokes as one would paint Lyndon LaRouche or George Wallace: an ideological outlier whose views are so fringe that they destroy American goodwill around the world. Considering the progress Obama has made since his election at restoring America's place in the world, there's considerable room to fall.