The Osterley Times: Kristol salivates as Cheney prepares to defend torture.

Bill Kristol has been wrong more often than any other political commentator I can think of.

On September 11, 2002, as the Bush administration began its sales campaign for the coming war, Kristol suggested that Saddam Hussein could do more harm to the United States than al Qaeda had: "we cannot afford to let Saddam Hussein inflict a worse 9/11 on us in the future."

On September 15, 2002, he claimed that inspection and containment could not work with Saddam: "No one believes the inspections can work." Actually, UN inspectors believed they could work. So, too, did about half of congressional Democrats. They were right.

On September 18, 2002, Kristol opined that a war in Iraq "could have terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East."

On September 19, 2002, he once again pooh-poohed inspections: "We should not fool ourselves by believing that inspections could make any difference at all." During a debate with me on Fox News Channel, after I noted that the goal of inspections was to prevent Saddam from reaching "the finish line" in developing nuclear weapons, Kristol exclaimed, "He's past that finish line. He's past the finish line."

On November 21, 2002, he maintained, "we can remove Saddam because that could start a chain reaction in the Arab world that would be very healthy."

On February 2, 2003, he claimed that Secretary of State Colin Powell at an upcoming UN speech would "show that there are loaded guns throughout Iraq" regarding weapons of mass destruction. As it turned out, everything in Powell's speech was wrong. Kristol was uncritically echoing misleading information handed him by friends and allies within the Bush administration.

On February 20, 2003, he summed up the argument for war against Saddam: "He's got weapons of mass destruction. At some point he will use them or give them to a terrorist group to use...Look, if we free the people of Iraq we will be respected in the Arab world....France and Germany don't have the courage to face up to the situation. That's too bad. Most of Europe is with us. And I think we will be respected around the world for helping the people of Iraq to be liberated."

On March 1, 2003, Kristol dismissed concerns that sectarian conflict might arise following a US invasion of Iraq: "We talk here about Shiites and Sunnis as if they've never lived together. Most Arab countries have Shiites and Sunnis, and a lot of them live perfectly well together." He also said, "Very few wars in American history were prepared better or more thoroughly than this one by this president." And he maintained that the war would be a bargain at $100 to $200 billion. The running tab is now nearing half a trillion dollars.

On March 5, 2003, Kristol said, "I think we'll be vindicated when we discover the weapons of mass destruction and when we liberate the people of Iraq."

Such vindication never came. Kristol was mistaken about the justification for the war, the costs of the war, the planning for the war, and the consequences of the war. That's a lot for a pundit to miss. In his columns and statements about Iraq, Kristol displayed little judgment or expertise. He was not informing the public; he was whipping it. He turned his wishes into pronouncements and helped move the country to a mismanaged and misguided war that has claimed the lives of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. That's not journalism.

Now he's whipping himself into a frenzy over the fact that Dick Cheney is about to give a speech tying the Republican party to the Bush regime's policy of torture. This, according to Kristol is, somehow, good news for the Republicans.

You see, he's very concerned that some Republicans would like to go into the next election with the Bush regime simply a forgotten blip on the Republican horizon. Indeed, he dismisses such talk as, "a juvenile understanding of political dynamics", which coming from Kristol is ironic in the extreme. Kristol thinks that forgetting the disaster which was the Bush regime is the last thing the Republicans need.

That's why he's applauding Cheney's intervention, even whilst admitting that Cheney is appallingly unpopular.

But of course an intelligent and knowledgeable advocate--even if he's personally not so popular--can do a lot to get an issue front and center. And the debate of that issue can do political damage to the existing administration and its congressional allies.
The real question any Republican strategist should ask himself is this: What will Republican chances be in 2012 if voters don't remember the Bush administration--however problematic in other areas--as successful in defending the country after 9/11? To give this issue away would be to accept a post-Herbert-Hoover-like-fate for today's GOP. That's why Republicans should listen carefully when Cheney gives a speech this week in which he'll lay out the case for the surveillance, detention, and interrogation policies of the Bush administration in the war against terror.

Cheney is not going away, but it's not for the reasons which Kristol imagines. Kristol seems not to realise that Cheney is fighting to save his own fat ass and, in order to do so, he's willing to turn the entire GOP into the party for torture. He's realised that the, "we do not torture" argument has been exposed as the utter lie which it always was and he's now adjusting his stance to argue that it is somehow unpatriotic not to torture.

It's not the first time that Kristol has blindly followed Cheney into disaster.

However, the difference this time is that many former members of the Bush administration are countering Cheney's argument and pointing out the blatant dishonesty behind many of Cheney's claims.

Third--and here comes the blistering fact--when Cheney claims that if President Obama stops "the Cheney method of interrogation and torture", the nation will be in danger, he is perverting the facts once again. But in a very ironic way.

My investigations have revealed to me--vividly and clearly--that once the Abu Ghraib photographs were made public in the Spring of 2004, the CIA, its contractors, and everyone else involved in administering "the Cheney methods of interrogation", simply shut down. Nada. Nothing. No torture or harsh techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator. Period. People were too frightened by what might happen to them if they continued.

What I am saying is that no torture or harsh interrogation techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator for the entire second term of Cheney-Bush, 2005-2009. So, if we are to believe the protestations of Dick Cheney, that Obama's having shut down the "Cheney interrogation methods" will endanger the nation, what are we to say to Dick Cheney for having endangered the nation for the last four years of his vice presidency?

Cheney's argument is based on an utterly false premise. And people like Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson are prepared to call him out on it.

Once again, Kristol is backing the wrong horse. Why does anyone continue to listen to this clown?

Click title for Kristol's diatribe.