WASHINGTON, May 3 – The No. 1 unspoken rule in United States presidential politics goes something like this: Hold your peace upon leaving office and save the criticism for the memoirs.
This “gentlemen’s agreement”, upheld by generations of US presidents and vice-presidents, appears to have been upended of late by Dick Cheney, who left his post as the vice-president barely four months ago.
In high-profile appearances on CNN and Fox News, Cheney sharply criticised the Obama administration for economic policies that would prove “devastating” for the country.
He also disagreed with the overturning of many controversial policies, such as the operation of the Guantanamo detention centre, which he said made the US less safe.
The recent release of the “torture memos”, legal documents which interrogators in the Bush era used to justify the use of harsh interrogation techniques, also prompted Cheney to come out with guns blazing.
“Those are the acts you take when you feel you’re at war and that the very existence of the nation is threatened,” he said in an interview on the conservative Fox News channel. “Now I worry when I hear the new administration knock down those policies and imply they’re not going to use them.
“The threat is there. It’s very real and it’s continuing.”
The criticism are, in themselves, nothing new. But Cheney’s stature and the lack of an obvious leader in the opposition Republican Party have helped to amplify these broadsides well beyond the cable news chatter.
Some analysts say there is nothing wrong with Cheney coming out to defend his legacy, particularly given President Barack Obama’s repeated criticism of Bush-era policies and his constant refrain that he “inherited” an economic and foreign policy mess.
“(Cheney) was in the room where a lot of decisions were made, so it’s important for someone helping to make those decisions mount a defence on why many of these controversial Bush administration decisions were the right thing to do,” said Brian Darling of the conservative Heritage Foundation think-tank.
But for Republican lawmakers who blame the party’s decline on the unpopular decisions associated with the Bush administration, Cheney’s re-emergence could not come at a worse time.
As it is, the party is already struggling with a leadership vacuum and major internal rifts which partly caused last week’s high-profile defection to the Democratic camp by Senator Arlen Specter.
“Generally speaking, Dick’s voice is probably not going to move the ball forward,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham was quoted saying in The New York Times.
Others were more blunt. Republican congressman Zach Wamp told The Hill newspaper: “We should focus on the people that will lead us tomorrow, not the people who led us yesterday. Cheney represents what’s behind us, not what’s ahead of us.”
Indeed, analysts say the Republicans need to come up with a better strategy if they want to plot their way back to power. The current approach – defying all of Obama’s major initiatives and waiting for him to trip up – just will not work in the long run.
Said Professor Julian Zelizer of Princeton University: “Polls are showing that Americans don’t like what they are seeing from the Republican Party, and are beginning to perceive this as a purely opposition party that doesn’t have answers and is often taking on the President unfairly.
“I think it’s risky to just wait for a president to make mistakes. That’s not the best path for reinvigorating a strong party.”
For now, analysts say they do not expect other top Bush-era officials, or former president George W. Bush himself, to follow in Cheney’s footsteps. But the former vice-president has made it clear that he is not about to go away quietly.
“I’ve been criticised because I’ve had the temerity to speak out and done a couple of interviews since I left office,” he said in his most recent interview on Fox News late last month. “I’ve been careful not to get personal, but I think these issues are simply too important to the future of the nation...We need to be heard.” – Straits Times
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