A study in contrasts

OPINION:

What a difference a vice president makes. Within hours of each other last week, former Vice President Dick Cheney delivered a scathing exposition on the flaccid national security policies of the Obama administration, while current Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. turned to Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer and asked, “You want some fruit?”

Mr. Biden was in Prague trying to reassure the Czechs that the administration’s decision to kill the land-based missile-defense shield for Eastern Europe won’t leave the region to the less-than-tender mercies of Russia. Apparently, Mr. Fischer’s skepticism led to an awkward silence, giving rise to Mr. Biden’s stab at fruit-platter diplomacy.

Mr. Cheney was in Washington, blistering the reckless Obama-Biden approach to foreign policy. In typical Cheney style, he candy-coated nothing.

“Make no mistake. Signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries,” he said, referring to Mr. Obama’s navel-gazing stall on Afghanistan. (Whether Mr. Obama’s delay is caused by indecision, extensive study or, more likely, a desire not to alienate Democratic voters ahead of next week’s elections, it is seen by the enemy as weakness. That, as Mr. Cheney suggested, has consequences: In Iraq this week, twin suicide bombings ripped Baghdad, killing at least 155 people, while reports indicated flagging U.S. troop morale across Afghanistan.)

Mr. Cheney blistered White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who had suggested that because the Bush administration had left them with no strategy for Afghanistan, they had to begin “from scratch.”

Mr. Cheney said point-blank that the Bush team had undertaken its own review of the war before leaving office and presented its findings to Mr. Obama’s transition team: “They asked us not to announce our findings publicly, and we agreed, giving them the benefit of our work and the benefit of the doubt.” (Showing class: Team Obama might want to take a lesson or two on that.) Mr. Cheney also said that the “new strategy” Mr. Obama announced in March bore a “striking resemblance” to what the Bush review had found and recommended.

Mr. Cheney also called for Mr. Obama to man up: “The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger. It’s time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity.”

He plastered Mr. Obama for canceling the missile-defense shield and leaving our allies to twist in the wind, Mr. Biden’s fruit salad notwithstanding. He also pointedly accused Mr. Obama of “libel” against the CIA interrogators of the Sept. 11 terrorists.

Mr. Cheney’s remarks come not a moment too soon. The Russians and the Chinese have put the kibosh on any new, tough sanctions to try to halt Iran’s nuclear program. Iran continues to buy time by throwing up roadblocks to any discussion about its uranium enrichment. Iran and Russia purportedly are helping Venezuela acquire nuclear capability. Pakistan teeters as Islamabad steps up its counteroffensive against the Taliban. Afghanistan simmers as it anticipates a presidential runoff vote and a possible new infusion of American and NATO troops. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. pursues investigations of CIA interrogators while Guantanamo Bay detainees are released and several big terrorism busts have gone down in New York and Dallas.

For eight years, Mr. Cheney was derided as a domineering father figure to the younger President George W. Bush. Mr. Biden appears to have taken on a similar role to the younger Mr. Obama, but with much sketchier results.

Agree with him or not, Mr. Cheney is consistent in his positions. Mr. Biden is all over the map. On the $787 billion economic stimulus, which he was supposed to be monitoring closely, he emphatically and repeatedly argued that it was “working.” As recently as Sept. 3, he said that “Instead of talking about the beginning of a depression, we are talking about the end of the recession.”

By last week, however, he had changed his tune: “When you’re out of work, it’s a depression. Well, it’s a depression - it’s a depression for millions of Americans,” he said.

On Iraq, Mr. Biden has taken every position possible, from voting against the 1991 Gulf war to supporting the 2003 invasion to opposing the surge to supporting a tripartite division of the country, an idea first advanced by that great friend of America, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

And on Afghanistan, after once arguing that the administration would do whatever it takes to prevail there, Mr. Biden is counseling Mr. Obama to avoid sending more troops and instead to fight the war with a high-tech joystick.

Mr. Cheney may continue to be the favored demon of the left, but his national-security arguments have been consistent, resolute and backed by a 100 percent perfect post-Sept. 11 track record of keeping the country safe from another terrorist attack.

While Mr. Biden was serving up kiwi last week, Mr. Cheney was reminding us that thanks to the incompetence of the current administration, our enemies are having us for lunch.

No one can say Mr. Cheney didn’t warn us. Somebody give that man a Nobel Peace Prize.

Monica Crowley is a nationally syndicated radio host, a panelist on “The McLaughlin Group” and a Fox News contributor.