Another defense of Dick Cheney

An interesting trend is emerging. I have never been shy about my admiration of Bush and Cheney, especially Cheney, but I've noticed many denfenses of the man, the latest coming from a very odd place: the Washington Press. The piece, by veteran Washington reporter Carl Cannon, is astonishing because it is honest, something we no longer expect from the Washington press and the larger MSM, which I have taken to calling The Medea. 

My theory on this - well, I don't really have a theory, I think it's just common sense - is that even pragmatic liberals are starting to understand that The People are playing politics with national security, which is not only suicidal and insane, it is also reprehensible (Steyn illustrates that point quite well). I don't like politics being play with health care and cap and trade, but that's life. However, using the political winds as an excuse to not only endanger the country, but save your own ass is despicable. I expect more of these defenses of Cheney in the future. 

At about 10 a.m. that awful morning, the vice president entered a secure White House shelter. He was told that the Air Force was attempting to scramble planes to defend the air space over Washington. That raised another question, one pertaining to the missing plane White House officials assumed was heading their way: Who was going to authorize shooting it down? Cheney, with Bush's concurrence, gave such an order. Minutes later, officials in the shelter learned a plane had crashed in Pennsylvania. In the unemotional prose of the report, the 9/11 commission noted: "Those in the shelter wondered if the aircraft had been shot down pursuant to this authorization."

At 10:39 a.m., Cheney spoke with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It's clear from the transcript of that call that Cheney believes he may have authorized the shooting down of an American passenger jet. Rumsfeld seems skeptical, but he doesn't really know either. I'm not sure "changed" is the right word, but I believe that in those 40 minutes--with the nation under attack, with Cheney not knowing if his daughters and grandchildren are safe, with his impression that he's directed a very hard order to some flyboy in the U.S. Air Force, possibly killing another 200 Americans--that Dick Cheney resolved to do whatever it would take to protect this country, regardless of the cost to his reputation or popularity. I respect him for that, and I empathize with him.