now, i don t know where he i wish he had specified where he said thinks that vice president cheney was rewriting history. i didn t see any rewriting of history. the only rewriting of history i have seen is biden himself declaring that the end game the ending of the war in iraq was a brilliant achievement of the obama administration. and, of course, we know obama and biden both oppose the surge and the whole pulling out of american troops was set in the status of forces agreement negotiated by president bush. bret: charles, they are getting aggressive, the white house, about trying to counter some of these criticisms. is it working? is it changing any of the dynamics and the issues? i think not. i think it s not going to change public opinion. the people are against mirandizing terrorists. they are against having a circus in new york with the ksm trial. and they believe generally that guantanamo ought to stay open. the problem this administration has is the longer it stays on
mindset. i mean dick cheney s mindset was, there was the book the 1% solution. it was to make sure america was safe at all cost. if people across the world didn t like it, that was a shame, and do whatever it takes. now there was some continuity between the two administrations, but again, this program that brought us the majority of information we have about al qaeda was abolished and nothing s been put in its place. and so what happens when terror suspect is picked up tomorrow who knows where osama bin laden is and knows where the next big attack is? we don t have anything in place right now to handle that. and it does seem like the administration is backtracking on the ksm trial. i don t know where that goes but it does not appear to be happening here. i want to quickly though again, this goes to john s book though. here s what s discouraging to me and i think there are an awful lot of americans out there bush and cheney may have gone too far in one direction because
congressman and aaron shockey is the youngest mob of congress and the first to be born in the 80s. he represents the 18th district of illinois which includes peoria and the he s been ceoen by the party leadership to serve as a deputy republican whip and received a waiver to serve on three committees in the house instead of the usual two. welcome to the program. a lot to get to all of you. david brooks, the national security fight. you heard vice president biden taking on his predecessor. this is now a fully engaged argument about whether the obama administration is sufficiently serious when it s taking on the war on terror. he said of cheney, he s either misinformed or misinformed. on the big picture he s right. the obama administration takes it seriously. they have the daily intelligence briefs. they take thut early seriously. so cheney s large charge is completely bogus. as for specifics there s a couple of things he s right about. the ksm trial is a mess which
what i am telling you is he will be held accountable under the law. we have improved military commissions considerably. the fact of the matter is the only reason there is any discussion going on whether or not the trial would take place in an article iii court in the court of jurisdiction with the broadest jurisdiction, new york city, is because of the response of the congress, requiring the president to have to consider the consequences of failing to heed their basically their concerns. so, this is a discussion taking place, the decision will be made by the president. he will be held accountable. a military tribunal is available, it is the less preferable way to go, but one way or another, he will be held accountable. let me ask you about some of the criticism that s been leveled at this administration by former vice president dick cheney. he has argued that this administration failed to treat the fight against terrorists as war, he cites the decision related to khalid shake mo ha n
people are basically dedicating the games to the young man and moving on. but it s an exciting atmosphere notwithstanding the opening tragedy. let me turn to some of the issues that you and of course the rest of the administration are dealing with. let me start with terrorism and the controversy surrounding the proposed trial of khalid shaikh mohammed. the attorney general ordered a civilian trial to be held in new york, now it appears that decision has been withdrawn. it s unclean what s going to happen. the reason for a civilian trial as given by the president and others was a question of perception, that it was very important that the rest of the world see that we treated khalid shaikh mohammed fairly. but hasn t the administration made the decision that even if he were to be acquitted he would never be released? look, there is no doubt that he would not be acquitted. the facts we have are overwhelming, we re absolutely confident he will be convicted