What Exactly Did Bush and Cheney Do Wrong?

As I noted
several days ago, it is not only Republicans -- but Democratic and
media establishment figures as well -- who clearly crave the
preservation of the Bush/Cheney approach to Terrorism and civil
liberties. When Bush's popularity collapsed to historic lows,
political and media elites pretended for awhile to object to his
administration's fear-based and radical policies as extremist and an
assault on "our values." But that was all just such a transparent
pretense. In those few instances where Obama has rejected the
Bush/Cheney template, the outrage and hysteria from Democratic
and media voices is pervasive, and is growing louder.

Just look at these illustrative incidents. Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell went on Fred Thompson's radio show yesterday to demand that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed be put before a military commission -- at Guantanamo. Over the weekend, Time's Joe Klein lambasted the Obama DOJ,
and embraced Bush's former CIA and NSA Chief Michael Hayden, by
objecting to the criminal charges and Constitutional rights afforded
the accused Christmas Day bomber, with Klein decreeing: "the bomber is
an enemy combatant. He doesn't have Miranda
rights." MSNBC personalities Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie chatted yesterday
with their boss, MSNBC Washington Bureau Chief Mark Whitaker, all
agreeing that the decision to grant civilian trials for "Terrorists" is
"a pure, self-inflicted wound." When Najibullah Zazi was arrested for
allegedly plotting a serious Terrorist attack, The New Republic's Michael Crowley said he was so frightened by this that he was open to torturing Zazi. Democratic Senators are threatening to join the GOP in cutting off funds for civilian trials. Democratic members of Congress joined with the GOP to prevent even modest reforms of the Patriot Act and other surveillance abuses. City officials compete with one another over who can be the most frightened and terrorized by Terrorists.

And The Washington Post's Richard Cohen -- who was so frightened by Terrorism that he wrote multiple screeds screeching that we must have vengeance on Saddam -- devotes his entire column today
to criticizing Obama for putting us In Grave Danger by rejecting a
handful of Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies (headlined: "Obama
administration is tone-deaf to concerns about terrorism"):

There
is almost nothing the Obama administration does regarding terrorism
that makes me feel safer. Whether it is guaranteeing captured
terrorists that they will not be waterboarded, reciting terrorists
their rights, or the legally meandering and confusing rule that some
terrorists will be tried in military tribunals and some in civilian
courts, what is missing is a firm recognition that what comes first is
not the message sent to America's critics but the message sent to
Americans themselves. When, oh when, will this administration wake up?
. . .

No doubt George Bush soiled America's image abroad
with what looked liked vigilante justice and Dick Cheney's hearty
endorsement of ugly interrogation measures. But more is at stake here
than America's image abroad -- namely the security and peace of mind of
Americans in America. . . . The Obama administration, on the other
hand, seems to have bent over backward to prove to the world it is not
the Bush administration and will, almost no matter what, ensure that
everyone gets the benefit of American civil liberties. But the
paramount civil liberty is a sense of security and this, sad to say,
has eroded under Barack Obama.

Leave
aside that Bush -- like Obama -- also tried some accused Terrorists in
civilian trials and some before military commissions. Leave aside that
the second-term Bush -- like Obama -- withdrew authorization for
waterboarding. Leave aside the factually inaccurate claim that Obama
is "ensuring that everyone gets the benefit of American civil
liberties" when he is, in fact, detaining many people without any
charges at all and putting many others before military commissions.

Beyond
all those factual errors, look at what Cohen is saying: Bush "soiled
America's image," but what he did was right, just and necessary, and
Obama should follow that -- which is essentially what many Democratic
Party and media elites are saying as well. Seriously: if you were a
Bush follower, wouldn't you feel as though you were owed a major
apology for all the accusations and the fuss that came from Democrats
and media figures, accusing you of supporting radical and
Constitution-shredding policies when, it turns out, they actually crave
those policies in order to feel safe? Doesn't all of this bolster the
Republican claim that those attacks on the Bush administration for
civil liberties abuses were not due to genuine conviction, but rather
for partisan gain (in the case of Democratic officials) and cheap,
preening, wet-finger-in-the-air moralizing (in the case of media
stars)?

Consider the example of military commissions. When the Bush administration unveiled those, the reaction from Democrats, progressives and media outlets was overwhelmingly and intensely negative,
on the ground that military commissions (no matter what rules they
followed) were appropriate only for "battlefield justice," when there
was no other alternative. The consensus was that our normal system of
justice -- developed over two hundred years -- was the only just and
proper venue to try accused Terrorists, had been proven effective, and
beyond that, the perception that we were inventing new and inferior
tribunals of justice for Muslims would fuel Terrorism and make us more
unsafe. What happened to all of that? Was there a single Democrat or
progressive defending military commissions when Bush and Cheney
unveiled them as their preferred method for trying Terrorists? Now,
suddenly, Terrorists belong in military commissions -- at GITMO? So
the defining creations of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld approach are now the
centerpieces of the Democratic and media consensus.

All
of these attacks on the Obama administration really leave one
wondering: what is it exactly that Bush and Cheney did wrong? Was it
just the waterboarding (the official authorization for which was
withdrawn several years before Bush left office and which, in any
event, people like Richard Cohen and Michael Crowley still
crave)? Everything else other than the "enhanced interrogation
techniques" was good? What happened to all the profound talk about
how they ruined our image in the world and violated our "core
principles" and how we can simultaneously Stay Safe and adhere to our
values -- which happened to be a central theme of Obama's successful
presidential campaign? How can Democrats and media stars claim to find
Bush and Cheney so distasteful as they simultaneously attack Obama for
reversing their defining policies in a few isolated instances? In the
areas of civil liberties and Terrorism, what exactly did Bush
and Cheney do wrong?