Posted on 01/04/2010 9:47:56 AM PST by presidio9
The new year begins even worse than the last one ended. Only this time it isn't a debate about health care showing how lousy and mean partisan politics have become in America, it is the debate over the war on terrorism.
As usual it starts with a has-been like Dick Cheney acting as if that war is some party issue, as if the country is somehow more vulnerable to fanatics because Democrats have the White House and the Congress, as if all those who hate America and want to kill Americans see this tremendous opening to do that because Barack Obama is in charge now.
The idea is dumber than that television show about the Jersey Shore.
Still there was Cheney - who once was able to hide almost as well as Osama Bin Laden - out in front after a failed attempt to blow up a Northwest airplane on its way into Detroit on Christmas Day, like he wanted to be the first Obama hater to take his swings.
Only Cheney looks at a near tragedy on Christmas and sees opportunity. When he does, he doesn't just sound like some old crank in the park. He sounds like a bum.
But then partisan attacks like this are the real national pastime now in American politics, why we seem unable to get out of our own way even on the big things, why the constant war of words between the left and the right can somehow trivialize the most crucial issues of a world that becomes less safe by the day.
It is why politics in this country are as low as they have been since the Civil War. Why this has become an Un-Civil War America, wasting too much time being at war with itself.
So somehow Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and his mosh pit of a brain are supposed to be Obama's fault. We are supposed to believe that the country really is at greater risk because a Democrat is in charge. Right. Cheney probably believes that if Al Gore had been President in September 2001, the terrorists would have taken down the Empire State Building, too.
This war isn't a party issue. It is an American issue, about our character as much as any politician's. Cheney gives an interview to Politico and worries about the "social transformation" he says Obama is trying to fashion. "Reclamation" is a better word, a reclamation of the values and ideals trampled by the previous administration.
Here is Cheney on Abdulmutallab's failure to set off his homemade explosive device on Northwest Flight 253:
"As I've watched the events of the last few days, it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think that if he has a low-key response to blow up an airliner ...we won't be at war."
Cheney used to be a much better liar than this. But that was back when he was selling this country a bill of goods on Niger and uranium and weapons of mass destruction. He must believe if he can sell all that, wholesale, he can rewrite his place in history, the mess he and George W. Bush left to this President.
He acts now as if the last administration were some kind of triumph, as if the economy collapsed on somebody else's watch the way the towers of the World Trade Center did. Maybe that is the most amazing lie of current American life, people actually expected to believe that Bush and Cheney's eight years in office are the good old days.
Now everything is supposed to be their way against Obama's, Republicans versus Democrats, liberals versus conservatives, the apparent goal to get the whole country shouting at one another as if it's nighttime cable TV, and every debate is supposed to sound like life-and-death.
Only the war on terrorism really is life-and-death.
And the security lines are longer than ever; we saw them again on Saturday afternoon as we flew back to the United States, everybody patted down at the boarding gate, every carry-on bag checked, item by item. It was the first flights after Sept. 11 all over again.
Maybe it isn't some breakdown in security in Nigeria, where Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's flight originated, that makes Cheney sound more like an old fool than ever. Or that Abdulmutallab came as close as he did to exploding that bomb.
Maybe it is this: That the America Obama inherited is hated more now than it was pre-Bush. It isn't just the President who needs to be stronger than ever. It is all of us.
He forgot the big DUH after that part of the sentence.
Political??? I seem to remember a little quote from dingy harry about “the war is lost”.....this jerk needs some cheese with his whine.....
Where’s the barf alert?
“But that was back when he was selling this country a bill of goods on Niger and uranium and weapons of mass destruction.”
####
ALL of which has been proven to be of substance and merit.
The no-talents in the absymally inexact “profession” of journalism don’t even have to bother with getting the big, importants facts right.
Sorry, I didn’t mention the TV show, just Lupica. Never actually seen the show.
This is another example of Lupica desperately trying to make him sound hip. Cheney obviously can't be a "has been" in this context, because he was never president. He is no longer Vice President either, but there is a long tradition of former VP's doing the dirty work and taking care of the party's interest while the former president remains above the fray. Obviously Al Gore did this sort of thing all the time, but Lupica thinks Gore is a better man than Cheney...
Get the eff over it, what's your name. When will these liberal losers take responsibility? Oh, I forgot, never
Never heard of lupica.
Who cares about oldermannnn?
I DO remember, admire, respect Vice President Dick Cheney though.
Never heard of lupica.
Who cares about oldermannnn?
I DO remember, admire, respect Vice President Dick Cheney though.
Never heard of lupica.
Who cares about oldermannnn?
I DO remember, admire, respect Vice President Dick Cheney though.
Ah, the mess that Bush left Obama. Mike, do you really want to know what Dubya left Obama? I’ll tell you what Dubya left Obama, as it’s turning out. A smaller, cheaper, less intrusive government and a safer, more prosperous country. To update the old joke, your guy is well on the way to making Dubya the Bush between two piles of crap.
Who is Mike Lupica? Really! Who cares what he thinks or says?
The quality of Lupica’s prose suggests that he is not only dullness incarnate, but dullness infectious. His friends should flee from him lest they acquire the disease. (I’ll find the quote that inspired this, but not today.)
Any you're right about Fox Sports. I started going to their website instead of ESPN.com about three years ago, because everything on the ESPN site required a subscription.
Obama is a wannabe, neverwas, or neverwillbe.
Mike Lupica is the reason Jason Whitlock left ESPN. I’m sure many of his peers in the business have wished to b***h-slap him when he starts on one of his rants.
I have never done a "barf alert" in my 12 years here. I did put "Lupica" in the title.
Mike, when you talk about politics, do you realize how ignorant and uninformed you sound?
Yes, but the fact that Lupica thought it needed to be mentioned in what he clearly believes is a weighty article tells you all you need to know about Lupica. And that show.
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