Hope, Change, and All That

Not so much, according to Charles Krauthammer:

“If hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue, then the flip-flops on previously denounced anti-terror measures are the homage that Barack Obama pays to George Bush. Within 125 days, Obama has adopted with only minor modifications huge swaths of the entire, allegedly lawless Bush program... The Bush policies in the war on terror won’t have to await vindication by historians. Obama is doing it day by day. His denials mean nothing. Look at his deeds.”

Jennifer Rubin adds:

Yes, it must be infuriating to realize the all-purpose bogeyman of the Left had these challenges and more or less got it “right.” So Obama must pout and fuss, try to stomp on the news cycle of his predecessor’s vice president and deny, deny, and deny. But we come back to reality: he is not abandoning Iraq or Afghanistan, has no stand-in for Guantanamo, and isn’t about to risk dismantling the anti-terror architecture that has kept us safe. So all he can do is give a peevish speech complaining that he inherited a “mess.” Well, the “mess” served us well and it’s seemingly going to continue on for sometime.

And Dick Cheney is making the case, and he's like no opponent Barack Obama has ever had to face before:

Mind you, [Cheney] is the man who, as vice president, responded to a comment about his policy positions being unpopular with "So?"

Dick Cheney isn't running for anything. He doesn't have to worry about approval ratings, or tailor his remarks to a focus group or polling demographics or anything. He essentially has nothing to lose, and this makes him very different from John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Alan Keyes, or any of the tomato cans Obama knocked over in the Democratic Senate primary. Also note that Obama is used to campaigning, but this isn't a campaign; there is no ballot between Obama and Cheney.

Events will offer their verdict on Obama's policy changes before the American people get their next chance to weigh in.

And Cheney's offensive is yielding concrete results according to Commentary:

Perspective comes sooner than you think: poll numbers for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are on the rise. Not all that surprising since for weeks people have been reminded of all the measures the Bush-Cheney administration employed to keep the country safe from attack after 9-11.

How things change: “Republicans have been able to drive the Washington agenda for the first time in months, and dent the top two Democrats’ armor, by hammering away on antiterror policy and keeping the debate squarely in the GOP comfort zone of national security. Some Republicans see in events of the past two weeks — the culmination of a carefully developed GOP strategy and missteps by Democrats — the beginning of a political comeback, and they plan to keep pressing the issue.” I don’t suppose we’ll hear too many more anonymous GOP consultants griping about Dick Cheney for awhile.

The AP grudgingly concedes that Cheney has got the best of the public debate with the president.

Geraghty puts Cheney's argument rather succinctly and pithily:

No Attacks on U.S. Soil For 2,689 Days. I Dare You to Do Better.