TOUCHDOWNS: OBAMA AND CHENEY DUKE IT OUT

Gotta love a good political slug-fest – it’s strategic communications in action. Watching Dick Cheney rise from the ashes of the Bush administration to take on the role of practically its sole remaining defender is fascinating, as is watching Barack Obama become more pointed and more partisan as he grapples with the challenges of following through on his campaign commitments. At issue this week is the planned closure of the Guantanamo Bay facility where hundreds of terror suspects are detained. Obama committed to shuttering Gitmo while campaigning for the White House, and he minced no words about it in a high-profile speech yesterday when he tried to downplay fears of bringing suspected terrorists into American prisons. “I am not going to release individuals who endanger the American people,” he said. “Al-qaeda terrorists and their affiliates are at war with the United States, and those that we capture – like other prisoners of war – must be prevented from attacking us again.” He also took shots at the previous administration: “The problem of what to do with Guantanamo detainees was not caused by my decision to close the facility; the problem exists because of the decision to open Guantanamo in the first place,” he said. “We are cleaning up something that is – quite simply – a mess; a misguided experiment that has left in its wake a flood of legal challenges that my administration is forced to deal with on a constant basis, and that consumes the time of government officials whose time should be spent on better protecting our country.” Cheney pulled no punches either, in a counterpoint speech: “Critics of our policies are given to lecturing on the theme of being consistent with American values. But no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants ever to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things. And when an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them … If fine speech-making, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field. And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don’t stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along. Instead the terrorists see just what they were hoping for – our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity. What is equally certain is this: The broad-based strategy set in motion by President Bush obviously had nothing to do with causing the events of 9/11. But the serious way we dealt with terrorists from then on, and all the intelligence we gathered in that time, had everything to do with preventing another 9/11 on our watch.” Point and counter-point; punch and counter-punch; Touchdowns to both.