The Cheney foil

Adam Serwer argues that Human Event's "conservative of the year," Dick Cheney, provides a "convenient foil" for the Obama administration, which wants to distance itself from the previous administration on matters of national security without taking any substantive action to stop many of the abusive policies Cheney championed. While closing Guantanamo -- now another year delayed, at least -- is important, continuing to hold its detainees without charge makes the closure mostly symbolic. And one wonders if the Obama administration's stepped up use of drones in Pakistan isn't creating yet another generation of future terrorists. In other words, we only wish Obama's policies were as different from Bush's as Cheney heatedly and repeatedly claims.

Liberals seem, on the surface, pleased with Cheney's reemergence -- but they shouldn't be. Cheney isn't running for office, and his low favorability may only enhance his ability to scare the pants off people. Since 2007, support for torture has increased, not decreased. The president also faced a drop in poll ratings on national security issues that the were likely due in part to Cheney's assault. With the departure of officials like White House Counsel Greg Craig, who was tasked with closing Guantanamo, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Phil Carter, who had been a prominent critic of the Bush-era human rights abuses, the administration's short lived stint as the hope of civil libertarians and human rights activists may have finally come to an end.

And that's important. Because unless Obama makes a clean break from the past abuses, we will someday find ourselves with another administration led by a party that has made torture a key plank in its platform. And no credible voice of opposition.