Barack Obama is popular and trusted far more than his Republican rivals on all issues, including fighting terrorism. Yet he and Dick Cheney, the former vice-president, are locked in a public battle on terrorism policy and Mr Obama is losing. Sixty per cent of Americans say they are following this battle closely. Mr Obama even scheduled a speech on Thursday morning to vie with one Mr Cheney had scheduled. The former was soaring and idealistic, the latter pragmatic and homespun. Both were dazzling, if partisan. The debate is turning Mr Cheney into the de facto leader of his party. It is leaching resources away from Mr Obama’s ambitious agenda. How did this happen?
Over the eight years in which George W. Bush was the main spokesman for the war on terror, Americans grew used to hearing the case for it made clumsily and incoherently. Mr Cheney is different. The Chicago Tribune used to describe him as “smart, congenial and classy”. He draws much subtler distinctions than Americans are used to hearing Republicans make: between a “crime” approach to defeating terrorism and a “war” approach, between the “disgraces of Abu Ghraib” and the “lawful, skilful work” of CIA interrogators, between justice and vengeance.
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