In its unflagging mission to be the most transparent administration ever, the Obama team has denied Dick Cheney’s request to declassify two memos which Cheney says document the intelligence benefits derived from the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. The excuse (priceless, really): these are subject to a pre-existing FOIA request that the administration is fighting.
As Andy McCarthy explains in some detail, this is the ultimate politicization of FOIA and national security. Just as he did with regard to the interrogation memos, the president could declassify the memos Cheney requested in order to provide the American people with insight into the query, “But did the interrogation techniques work?” We can assume from Cheney’s request and repeated public statements about these two documents that they have relevant and persuasive information. But Obama won’t let us see those. No siree. Americans will only be getting the pre-selected slice of the picture of the interrogation story from this administration.
I realize the mainstream media is obsessed with the “Cheney — Is he hurting the GOP?” storyline. But that’s silliness on stilts. Cheney’s not running for anything. (And I suspect some ad campaign eighteen months from now harping on the former vice president would bring looks of incredulity from average voters, who unlike the MSM, have “moved on.”) Cheney is however doing real and material damage to the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats — revealing their craven politicization of national security, half-truths, and hypocrisy. Now the American people have a glimpse of what’s going on and it is not pretty. The vendetta against the Bush administration has turned into a series of revelations about the gamesmanship and lack of candor by those who would rather the American people not learn why we did what we did, what it accomplished, and which lawmakers cooperated and facilitated the policies that now are the subject of Democrats’ ire.
If lawmakers and administration officials can’t stand the light of day, they should get out of the “truth commission” and prosecution business. And if they want to maintain their present level of sanctimonious condemnation, they should have the decency to let Americans judge all the information for themselves.
