Shameless

Dick Cheney says that the claim that "brave Americans were sent into battle for a deliberate falsehood" is "revisionism of the most corrupt and shameless variety." Cheney knows a thing or two about shamelessness. He went on to say:

One might also argue that untruthful charges against the Commander-in-Chief have an insidious effect on the war effort itself. I'm unwilling to say that....

There stands Professor Cheney, meticulously laying out the taxonomy of positions on untruthful charges against the Commander-in-Chief. He, Cheney, doesn't quite think they're treasonous. But "one" might. Just not Cheney. And why won't he say so:

I'm unwilling to say that, only because I know the character of the United States Armed Forces.

So said charges do have "an insidious effect on the war effort" just in case the "character" of the USAF isn't, in one regard or another, what Cheney says it is. If, according to Cheney, the failure of the "untruthful charge" --- which is that the administration was deliberately dishonest in presenting the case for war, and its actual untruth is very much up for debate --- to undermine the war effort is contingent merely upon the high character of US troops, then the intrinsic character of the charge is war-undermining.

In other words, the upshot of Cheney's view is that there is something inherently war-undermining, and I think, therefore, quasi-treasonous, about positing that the administration deliberately deceived the public on pre-war intelligence. So when Cheney says "nobody is saying we should not be having this discussion, or that you cannot reexamine a decision made by the President and the Congress some years ago," he's lying, because he's saying just that.

UPDATE: One thing I want to clarify: I'm not trying to hedge by using the term "quasi-treasonous." Whether war-undermining speech -- just assuming, per Cheney's argument, that it is war-undermining -- is full-blown treasonous depends on your view of the intent of the speakers. I don't think there's any way Cheney can escape the consequence that claiming the administration lied is at least in the ball-park of treasonous.

UPDATE: Congress saw the same intelligence as the president, you say? The NIE figures more accurately reflected the views of the intelligence community than the presidential daily briefs (so why bother declassifying them)? The administration and congress came to the same conclusion upon the basis of the same evidence? Game, set, and match.