Begala exposes Cheney

Paul Begala is clearly a partisan Democratic fighter. But he lays out indisputable facts from governmental reports and memo releases that make a devastating case against Dick Cheney's pious claim that the Bush administration kept us safe, while Obama is risking the safety of Americans by dismantling Bush's policies.

Because Cheney is the one speaking about it publicly, Begala focuses on what he knew, when. Here are some of those facts:

1. The 9/11 attacks occurred on Cheney's watch. The Republican co-chair of the 9/11 Commission has concluded that the attacks could have been prevented.

2. Before they took office, senior Bush administration officials were briefed repeatedly by outgoing Clinton officials about the al Qaeda threat, predicting it was what the incoming administration would wind up spending the most time on.

3. Richard Clarke briefed both Rice and Cheney on the Clinton counterterrorism plan to roll back Al Qaeda. They did nothing about it. Some have suggested that they wanted nothing to do with it "because it was Clinton's plan."

4. On May 8, 2001 - three months after being briefed by Clarke - Cheney was instructed to chair a task force on terrorism. The task force had not yet had a single meeting when the 9-11 attacks occurred -- four months after the assignment.

5. The Bush Department of Justice denied the FBI's request for more money to beef up the domestic counterterrorism efforts.

6. Congressional Democrats sought to shift 800 million dollars in the Pentagon budget from the ill-conceived missile defense system into counterterrorism. The Bush-Cheney administration threatened to veto the entire defense budget if that was in the final bill, and the measure was killed.

7. In July, 2001, an FBI agent in Phoenix reported that Middle Eastern men - possibly al Qaeda - were taking flying lessons. He suggested that al Qaeda operatives might be trying to infiltrate the US civil aviation system. His warning was not acted on.

8. On August 6, 2001 Pres. Bush, and presumably Cheney as well, received a classified briefing, the President's Daily Brief. On that day, the briefing headline was: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." According to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind, Bush told the briefer, "All right. You've covered your ass, now." Neither Bush nor Cheney acted on the warning.

9. On 9/11, more than 3,000 Americans lost their lives in the attacks initiated by Bin Laden. The subsequent misguided war in Iraq has led to the loss of over 4,000 more American lives, plus tens of thousands of grave injuries.

Begala concludes:

Perhaps what's most galling about Mr. Cheney is how, without irony, humility or apology, he holds himself out as someone who has protected America when in fact he shirked his responsibility before 9-11 and misled us into war after.

This speaks for itself. Just the facts, ma'am.

Ralph