Obama and Cheney: Dueling Visions of America

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

We sent them food, fertilizer, factories, more than we give our own poor people, and all they pay us back with is this nuclear test.

- South Korean Lee Soon-hwan, a 30-year-old office worker, on North Korea's nuclear test Monday. (Source: The New York Times)

+ Sign up to receive "Verse and Voice" - our daily quote and Bible verse e-mail

Obama and Cheney: Dueling Visions of America

Get a free issue of Sojourners

Last week President Barack Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney delivered back-to-back speeches on national security.

In these speeches, we witnessed a rare moment of clarity, a moral clash in the interpretation of reality, and one of the starkest contrasts in competing visions I have ever seen for the values, direction, and policies of our nation. In short, there was a choice offered to us for exactly what kind of country and people we want to be -- and what America will mean for us and for the world.

First, President Obama offered a dramatically new direction for achieving national security, after the “misguided experiment” of the Bush years. In a very powerful symbol, Obama chose the National Archives as the venue for this major address, pointing to the historic documents that are kept here -- the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights -- noting that these documents are “the foundation of liberty and justice in this country, and a light that shines for all who seek freedom, fairness, equality, and dignity around the world,” and clearly suggesting that they have been violated in the policies of the U.S. over the past several years, policies that included the systematic violation of legal rights and even the use of torture.

Just minutes later, former Vice President Cheney rose to speak at the American Enterprise Institute to aggressively defend and forcefully argue for a confident continuation of those very policies, and to vigorously attack the “contrived indignation and phony moralizing” of those who have critiqued the policies of the Bush/Cheney years (which some suggest should be called the Cheney/Bush years). Even Cheney admitted the “great dividing line” that stands between these two visions of national security. Candy Crowley of CNN called the dueling speeches “a tale of two universes.” And they were.

The president began by saying that

... my single most important responsibility as president is to keep the American people safe.

But, he went on to say that

... I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we also cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values. ... I make this claim not simply as a matter of idealism. We uphold our most cherished values not only because doing so is right, but because it strengthens our country and it keeps us safe. Time and again, our values have been our best national security asset ...

He spoke of the “so-called enhanced interrogation techniques” that

... undermine the rule of law. They alienate us in the world. They serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists, and increase the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America. ... In short, they did not advance our war and counterterrorism efforts ...

And, on closing the prison at Guantanamo:

Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America’s strongest currency in the world. ...
[I]nstead of serving as a tool to counter-terrorism, Guantanamo became a symbol that helped al Qaeda recruit terrorists to its cause. Indeed, the existence of Guantanamo likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained.

Vice President Cheney, on the other hand, began and ended with 9-11 as the justification for everything that followed: “9-11 made necessary a shift of policy, aimed at a clear strategic threat ...” He defended the “enhanced interrogation” by arguing that:

The interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts failed. They were legal, essential, and the right thing to do. ... to completely rule out enhanced interrogation methods in the future is unwise in the extreme. It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness, and would make the American people less safe.

And Cheney’s view of values was that

... 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. ... For all that we’ve lost in this conflict, the United States has never lost its moral bearings.

My father was a Midwestern evangelical Christian, and an Eisenhower Republican. His core values never changed, but his politics did as his party moved further and further to the right, and his children moved to embrace faith-inspired social justice. He was still alive for the election of 2004, and after a retired men’s breakfast sponsored by the Detroit church that he and my mother had started, somebody suggested that the group go hear Dick Cheney who was speaking that night in nearby Ann Arbor. That was a mistake. My dad coldly replied, “I wouldn’t go hear Dick Cheney if he was the last speaker on the planet. Dick Cheney is evil.” My father was known by everyone for his kindness and generosity, and nobody would have called him judgmental. But his judgments of people, in particular, were unusually good.

I will leave the judgment of Dick Cheney’s soul to God, who alone is in the position to render that judgment on all of us. But I will say the vision of America that Cheney offers is decidedly evil, and has helped to spread even more evil around the world. Cheney represents the dark side of America, a view of the world dominated by fear and self-righteousness—always a deadly combination. It accepts no real reflection or self-examination; the evil in the world is always external, and the threat ever present. There is only certainty, and never humility. And, when the dark side goes unchecked, what it leads to is a state of permanent warfare, which will only be won by using any means necessary, and where the ends always justify the means. At the end of his breathtaking speech, the former vice president was so full of admiration and praise for those who used “enhanced interrogation” against America’s suspected enemies that you got the impression he would happily preside over those brutal sessions himself.

But at their best, American values are different than that, and, as the new president said, we did things during the last several years with a “framework that failed to rely on our legal traditions and time-tested institutions, and that failed to use our values as a compass,” and that “too often our government made decisions based on fear rather than foresight; that all too often our government trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions.”

A fundamental change is now being made in American policies, at which the rest of the world -- and many Americans who had despaired over the course of their country -- will breathe a deep sigh of great relief. We are seeing the beginning of the hope that healing will come to some of the damage to the world and to America that has been done by the rampage over our most important values.

The good news about these dueling moral visions of America is that the first was offered by a young new president who has a personal priority to change the image of America in the world -- to the thundering applause of an audience at the National Archives. The second was offered by an aging figure of an old and imperial view of American leadership -- rather, domination -- in the world, which he wants to defend by any means necessary, to an increasingly marginal right-wing tank with only tepid applause.

The first is now the governing vision of American foreign policy, while the second is now a politically defeated ideology. Thanks be to God!

I urge you to watch both speeches: President Barack Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney.

+ Click to share to this article

+ Click to respond to this article on the God's Politics Blog

INSIDE SOJOURNERS MAGAZINE

Gay Marriage: "In April, Vermont and Iowa effectively legalized gay marriage. State courts and legislatures are hotly debating a number of civil rights issues for gays and lesbians. My own interest was piqued when I heard that my home state of California passed Proposition 8, which amended the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage ...." Read the rest of Logan Laituri's commentary on gay marriage.

H'rumphs with Ed Spivey Jr: "As I sit at my desk thinking up innovative ideas for the coming decade -- MacArthur Mediocrity Grants, AIG offices relocating to Guan­tanamo, AIDS awareness seminars for the pope ("I don't use condoms, so why should Africa?") -- my mind wanders and I think back to the sound the newspaper didn't make this morning as it was tossed into our yard. What used to wake us with the thud of a small futon falling off the back of a truck now whistles through the air like an empty Slurpee cup, landing noiselessly ...." Read the rest of Ed's column, or better yet, watch this month's H'rumphs video!

ON THE GOD'S POLITICS BLOG

+ See what's new on the blog of Jim Wallis and friends

Money "Creation": Let there be money?
by Elizabeth Palmberg
Here's the economic idea of "money creation": The amount of people working, buying, and selling things in the world is almost always increasing, and the amount of things and services that are produced, bought, and sold is almost always increasing even faster (as we are seeing now, the exception to this principle -- a recession -- is attention-getting!).
+ Click to continue

Judge Sotomayor's Nomination
by Jim Wallis
The U.S. Senate will review Judge Sotomayor's record and credentials and seek to understand her judicial philosophy. I pray for the wisdom of our elected officials and for a healthy process in which tough questions can be asked and answered.
+ Click to continue

Blessing of the Bicycles
by Nadia Bolz-Weber
As a way of acknowledging the inherent goodness of God's gifts of life and health and the humble but elegant bicycle, we decided to conduct a Blessing of the Bicycles for the entire Denver cycling community.
+ Click to continue

Saving Kansas City, One (Green) Step at a Time
by Barbara Grady
Today the neighborhoods east of Troost Avenue in Kansas City, Missouri, still bear the marks of disenfranchisement .... But soon, this area could be a center of green jobs, retrofitted energy-efficient homes, a green transportation system, and hopeful residents if Congressman Emmanuel Cleaver's plans for using American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding come to full fruition.
+ Click to continue

Stop Starbucks
by Anna Almendrala
When Robert Greenwald, founder and president of Brave New Films first told us that our next campaign was going to be about Starbucks, a lot of us here were very surprised.
+ Click to continue

Zimbabwe's Hall of Faith
by Nontando Hadebe
I realize I have been guilty of overlooking "conversations of faith" with friends and family -- conversations that reflect the spirit of faith similar to that of the heroes and heroines recorded in Hebrews chapter 11. This is a familiar chapter recording the exploits of women and men who against all odds chose to place their faith and trust in God and experienced God's gracious intervention.
+ Click to continue

What if the Bible's Ruth Came to America Today?
by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
If Ruth came to America today, what would happen? Would she be admitted at the border? Or would she be detained for months without a lawyer, ripped from Naomi's arms while Naomi's protest brought her too under suspicion -- detained because she was, after all, a Canaanite who spoke some variety of Arabic, possibly a terrorist, for sure an idolator?
+ Click to continue

Liberty University's New Policy
by Eugene Cho
Did you read the news of Liberty University (founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell) removing the Democratic club as an offiicial Liberty club because the national party's platform goes against the values of the school?
+ Click to continue

The Human Rights Crisis in the Philippines
by Katrina Abarcar
One morning earlier this year, Edelina "Eden" Jolloso-Jerus, working at her family store in San Juan-Roro, the Philippines, was shot five times by a helmeted man and killed before the eyes of her two children.
+ Click to continue

Native American Theology(ies)
by Kent Annan
"It's a problem of being heard," says Randy Woodley, a Native American theologian. "I feel like 500 years ago, maybe God did bring the white man over. But it was supposed to be something mutual, where we learned from each other. Instead the white man conquered, helped out by their understanding of Christianity. Five hundred years later, we ask ourselves, now are people ready to listen?"
+ Click to continue

The Poor Can Lead the Charge
by Oscar Perry Abello
If Hernando de Soto was overestimating how much wealth the world's poor have accumulated by 200 percent, they would still hold 20 times the value of all foreign aid received since 1945. Unfortunately, most if not all of those assets are held outside the formal legal structure for property in their respective countries.
+ Click to continue

Equitable Neighborhood Revitalization
by Neeraj Mehta
As positive change continues to come to our central city neighborhoods and healthy, stable neighborhoods are the norm, we must ensure that opportunities are created for a diverse group of individuals to live, work, worship, and play in our newly revitalized neighborhoods.
+ Click to continue

Obama’s Catholic Moment
by John Gehring
While protesters flew a plane over campus with graphic images of an aborted fetus and attempted to demonize the president at every turn, Obama's call for "open hearts, open minds, and fair-minded words" served as a healthy model for the day's young graduates.
+ Click to continue

Was Iraq a Holy War?
by Aaron Taylor
There are some in the evangelical community who suspected all along that for Bush and his top aides, the Iraq war was indeed a holy war. At the time, the majority of evangelicals -- including myself -- cheered as the president and his top aides cast the Iraq war in moralistic terms, invoking the name of God to bless the bombs dropped by U.S. planes in the initial "shock and awe" campaign.
+ Click to continue

The Consensus Problem
by Elizabeth Palmberg
Here's some advice to Davidson and journalists in general: When talking about the economy, throw out your normal rulebook of choosing sources based just on position of authority, or confirmation from an independent source. Instead, look for experts who bucked the consensus by seeing the problem ahead of time.
+ Click to continue

The End of Christianity?
by Soong-Chan Rah
As many lament the decline of Christianity in the U.S. in the early stages of the 21st century, very few have recognized that American Christianity may actually be growing, but in unexpected and surprising ways.
+ Click to continue

SOJOURNERS IN THE NEWS

+ Sign up to receive our "Daily Digest" e-mail - the latest headlines on critical issues

Top Stories:

Democrats, Republicans to address health care
Politico.com
“It seems like almost every day someone else in my community is worried they won’t be able to keep paying for their family’s health care,” an Arkansas pastor says in an ad sponsored by the coalition, which includes Faith in Public Life, Sojourners and Faithful America.
+Click to continue

Christian Leaders Appeal For Peace With Justice in Holy Land
UNobserver.com

Local minister part of radio campaign
The Advocate

Senators: Odds good for health-care accord
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Clergy advocate health care reform
WORLD Magazine

Wallis joins Christians leaders in call for two states
JTA.org

Christian Radio Ad Pushing Universal Healthcare Harnesses Local Faith-Based Influence
U.S. News and World Report blog

Democrats Seek God as Ally in Health Care Debate
Wall Street Journal blog

"Sojourners in the news" articles are the most recent news clippings that mention Sojourners in any way -- favorably or unfavorably. Though we provide the text on our site for your convenience, we do not necessarily endorse the views of these articles or their source publications.

GET THE MAGAZINE: Subscribe today

CONTACT US: General inquiries: sojourners@sojo.net | Advertising: advertising@sojo.net | About Us

PRIVACY NOTICE: Sojourners won't trade, sell, or give away your e-mail address. Read our privacy policy.