Torture Defender Liz Cheney Accuses President Obama of "Moral Relativism"

Liz Cheney was once again on Morning Joe this morning where she accused President Obama of "moral relativism."  That's right, the same Liz Cheney who defends the morally indefensible torture of human beings, as long as the U.S. is doing it, is accusing the president of moral relativism. Unbelievable. This woman should be laughed off the set for that statement alone but for some strange reason her comments are treated as serious comments worthy of discussion. 

“I think that if we lived in a world where terrorism, and the slaughter of innocents, and Iran’s hegemonic hopes for the Middle East could be met, could be defeated, could be dealt with by sort of hand-holding going forward, then we’d be in a much simpler environment. But these are very, very tough issues. And I was troubled by the extent to which I heard moral relativism.”

It's a sad commentary on the state of our establishment media where someone so ill informed as Liz Cheney is invited to appear on TV over and over and over to take pot shots at President Obama using half truths, lies and total nonsense. Liz and Dick have been on TV so much pushing their talking points that one has to wonder if they are blackmailing someone to allow them to appear in these uncritical national forums whenever they please. Greg Sargent wrote a post about this at his Plum Line blog.

Before I could finish my post, Liz Cheney appeared on yet another MSNBC segment today with Andrea Mitchell. No video is posted yet but it's pretty close to what you see in the Morning Joe comments.

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Update: Here's video from the Andrea Mitchell segment mentioned above.

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Liz Cheney makes the "moral relativism" charge once again (unchallenged) and accuses President Obama of attacking "the people that protected us' while on foreign soil.  Unlike Joe Scarborough and company, Andrea Mitchell at least attempts to inject facts into the discussion but she was so passive that she was just ineffectual in the interview.

At one point Mitchell plays tape of Dick Cheney and asks Liz if her father has backed off his Al-Qaeda/Saddam connection claims.  Liz says that he's saying the same thing he's always said and that he never said there was a connection between Saddam and 911. Remarkably Mitchell said that she'd have to do her homework and have Liz back on her show because she thinks Liz is wrong. Shouldn't she have done "her homework" before the interview?

Update: Jason Linkins at Huffington Post has a piece up on the Cheney's and cable TV.

The Dick and Liz Cheney Show Rolls On; MSNBC Defends Air Time

Obama and Cheney Speeches Not the End of Torture Discussion

When President Obama and former Vice-president Cheney gave what the press called "dueling speeches" about Bush era war crimes I posted a comment where I said that I'd talk about my reaction to the speeches at a later date. Since that post there have been a lot of people who have commented about the speech so I'm not going to rehash what was said and not said other than to say my overall impression of both speeches and the media coverage was one of disappointment.  The Cheney speech was so full of distortions and lies that it doesn't even merit a response except to say that in my view former V.P. Cheney is a thoroughly dishonorable man. The media coverage was typical establishment media coverage. They stuck to their narrative and ignored any facts that didn't fit the narrative. The one response about Obama's speech that was closest to my own response was this one from Rachel Maddow

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Because of the importance of this issue I know the two speeches given by Obama and Cheney will not be the last word on what happened in the Bush era. In fact, we already have descriptions leaking out about what appeared in the photos that the Obama administration failed to release. The administration is of course denying the reporting.

We also continue to have Cheney's daughter, Liz Cheney, appearing on one political talk show after another claiming waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation" techniques were not torture. We also have President Bush  publicly defending torture again and we have Alberto Gonzales trying to deny his involvement in torture. 

The American people deserve answers, not spin and until that happens this subject will not go away and should not go away. Contrary to what President Obama and others believe, we can't move forward as a country while we still have people who think what was done in the past is appropriate for use in the future. We can't afford to have people like Liz Cheney encouraged to run for office when she is out there actively promoting the use of torture. 

Until we drive a stake through the heart of the idea that torture is a viable option to be used by the U.S. we can't move forward or we risk having the use of torture come back like some vampire in a horror movie comes back to feed on it's victims again and again. 

When Will the Cheneys Finally Admit That Waterboarding is Torture?

Liz Cheney tells Norah O'Donnell that Waterboarding is Not Torture

Dick Cheney claimed in his speech yesterday that Waterboarding is Not Torture

President Obama has banned the harshest tactics that the CIA employed in the interrogation of suspected terrorists captured after 9/11, with his Justice Department labeling waterboarding, a simulated-drowning tactic used in many interrogations, as "torture."

"Torture was never permitted,"

Here's what conservative radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller  says about waterboarding:

If the Cheneys can't even tell the truth about what waterboarding is, why would anyone believe them when they tell us that waterboarding and other methods of torture are essential for our protection?

Swopa has an excellent piece up at Firedoglake about waterboarding and hypocrisy that's a MUST read.