A parting shot at Cheney about “necessary” wars from a guy who reminded us just yesterday about how important it is to look forward, not backward, unless he’s in a political jam and needs to blame Bush for something. For all the leftist hyperventilating about Cheney’s supposed sleaziness — and as usual, Olbermann takes the cake — Lowry has The One dead to rights about his own casual caricaturing of the opposition:

For all his championing of nuance, Obama comes back to one source for every dilemma: Bush, as though without his predecessor every question about how a nation of laws protects itself from a lawless enemy would be easy. Under Bush, according to Obama, we set our “principles aside as luxuries we could no longer afford.” Even now, there are those — are you listening, Mr. Former V.P.? — “who think that America’s safety and success require us to walk away from the sacred principles enshrined in this building.” What a shoddy smear…

Excoriating Bush is good politics for Obama, which is what makes his repeated exhortations to look ahead so disingenuous. In his speech, he rued that “we have a return of the politicization of these issues.” In other words: Dick Cheney, please shut up. But when did the politicization of these issues end? Has the Left ever stopped braying about Bush’s war crimes?

What makes this nod to politics at Annapolis’s commencement especially cheap is that John McCain, whose son graduated today, was in the audience. That’s the same John McCain who gave Obama cover last night on Fox News by reiterating his belief that waterboarding is torture, the same John McCain whom The One is counting on for further cover in closing Guantanamo, and the same John McCain who concluded, in all apparent good faith, that the Iraq war was necessary after all. And still, Obama couldn’t help himself. Click the image to watch.