I watched former Veep Richard Cheney on ABC-TV this morning. He didn't say a lot that was new or surprising (thus not living up to the network's promotional spots). In fact, the one thing that stood out most about his performance was that it was subdued, reasonable.
He repeated some of his well-known views (terrorism is a war, and terrorists should not be handled as common criminal cases) and in many cases, suggested that on security issues, the Obama administration is often following a path of continuity with Bush policies. And that is basically true. Foreign policy and security issues have always enjoyed a greater degree of bipartisanship and continuity between administrations than other subject matter. Sometimes that's by choice (stability of policies reassures both our allies and enemies) and sometimes by necessity (an inherited ongoing war can't be stopped overnight).
But that doesn't explain the new, calmly spoken Cheney. It's as if he's reined in his visceral hatred of the Obama administration. Is it because his viscera are just more at ease now, after several cardiac episodes? Is it because he is now, at a greater distance of time, able to be less judgmental? Is it because he is more optimistic about Republican chances to regain seats in Congress? Or is it (as I guess) that somebody on the Republican side has managed to persuade him that his more outlandish fulminations were damaging Republican prospects for the fall elections? Not that the motive matters.
The question of how best to handle the Guantánamo detainees, in which Cheney has continued to insist on his way of doing things, is one of those cases where continuity becomes a headache. It's an inherited problem, arrived at through a Bush-Cheney policy that the current administration thinks is dead wrong. In trying to correct it the Administration is finding lots of bumps in the road, including Congressional cold feet on bringing detainees into the U.S., and most recently of course, the NIMBY need to find a new venue for the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed*, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
[* Incidentally, the press is calling him KSM for short, but I kind of like "Shake Mo'" and imagine him becoming a rapper from his detention cell.]
I think this whole issue may be the rare case where continuity can mesh directly with discontinuity. Why not draw a line under the inherited detainees, declare that they are a preëxisting problem, created under a policy that we may question now, but manifestly incapable of resolution on other terms? -- and then move ahead smartly with military tribunals. Let's face hard facts: 98% of Americans could care less what happens to these detainees; a few may be concerned about "fairness" but on the other hand, is it "fair" to the detainees, after years, to switch horses and try them in a completely different way? There's no reason for this administration to accept the opprobrium of this error, or to shoulder the political burden of attempting to sell the idea of regular criminal trials to a skeptical/hostile public, judiciary, and Congress.
Cheney said today he won't be surprised if KSM ended up being tried at a military tribunal. I wouldn't either. Politics - the art of compromise, the art of the possible, the art of sausage-making; but also the art of finding practical solutions to problems. Why not bite that bullet and move on with all those trials? A new policy can be applied to such persons as may fall into U.S. custody after January 20, 2009.
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