WASHINGTON - When Bush 41 was ramping up to the Gulf War, assembling a coalition to fight Saddam, Jimmy Carter sent a letter to members of the U,N. Security Council urging them not to rush into conflict without further exploring a negotiated solution.
The first President Bush and other Republicans in Washington considered this treasonous: a former president trying to thwart a sitting one, lobbying foreign diplomats to oppose his own country on a war resolution.
In 2002, when Bush Junior was ramping up to his war against Saddam, Al Gore made a speech trying to slow down that war resolution, pointing out that pivoting from Osama to Saddam for no reason, initiating "pre-emptive' war, and blowing off our allies would undermine the war on terror.
Charles Krauthammer called Gore's speech "a disgrace." Michael Kelly, his fellow Washington Post columnist, called it "vile" and "contemptible." Newt Gingrich said that the former vice president asserting that W. was making America less safe was "well outside the marki of an appropriate debate."
Now, however, Gingrich backs Dick Cheney when he asserts that President Barack Obama has made America less safe.
Asked by Bob Schieffer on Sunday how America could torture when it made a mockery of our ideals, Cheney blithely gave an answer that would have been labeled treasonous by Rush Limbaugh, if a Democratic ex-vice president had said it about a Republican president.
"Well, then you'd have to say that, in effect, we're prepared to sacrifice American lives rather than retain intelligent interrogation program that would provide us the information we needed to protect America," Doomsday Dick said.
Cheney has replaced Sarah Palin as Rogue Diva. Just as Jeb Bush and other Republicans are trying to get kinder and gentler, Cheney has popped out of his dungeon, scary organ music blaring, to carry on his nasty campaign of fear and loathing.
The man who never talked is now the man who won't shut up. The man who wouldn't list his office in the federal jobs directory, who had the vice president's residence blocked on Google Earth, who went to the Supreme Court to keep from revealing which energy executives helped him write the nation's energy policy, is now endlessly yelping about how Obama is holding back documents that should be made public.
Cheney, who had five deferments himself to get out of going to Vietnam, would rather follow a blowhard entertainer who has had three divorces and a drug problem (and who also avoided Vietnam) than a four-star general who spent his life serving his country.
"Bush 41 cares about decorum and protocol," said an official in Bush I. "I'm sure he doesn't appreciate Cheney acting out. He is giving the whole party a black eye just as Jeb's out there trying to renew the party."
W. admired Cheney's brass (he used another word) but grew increasingly skeptical of him, the more he learned about foreign policy himself.
Cheney's numbskull ideas - he still loves torture (dubbed "13th-century stuff by Bob Woodward), Gitmo and scaring the bejesus out of Americans - are not only fixed, they're jejune.
He has no coherent foreign policy viewpoint. He still doesn't fathom that his brutish invasion of Iraq unbalanced that part of the world, empowered Iran and was a fore multiplier for Muslims who hate America. He left our ports unsecured, our food supply unsafe, the Taliban rising and Osama on the loose.
No matter if or when terrorists attack here - and they're on their own timetable, not a partisan red state/blue state timetable - Cheney will be deemed the primary one who made America more vulnerable.