Right-wing media commentators have been roughing up one of their own recently and it isn’t a pretty sight.
U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican and Donald Trump’s No. 1 political enemy, got thrashed in this week’s GOP primary. What has been the reaction from some in the conservative media?
They are calling on her to resign from the House now, step away from her role on the House select 1/6 committee and, in effect, keep her mouth shut.
She should do none of that. Cheney’s term in office expires at the end of this year, which means this good-government progressive wants her stay on her watch and continue to hold Trump accountable for the crimes he committed while inciting the 1/6 insurrection.
To be sure, I believe Cheney inflated the significance of her primary defeat by comparing her fate to what happened to the father of the Republican Party, America’s greatest president Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln lost two congressional contests before being elected president in 1860, Cheney reminded us, as if to suggest that her own congressional loss might signal her ascent to the White House in the future.
She is getting way ahead of herself.
However, I do not for one instant believe she should step away. Cheney is providing a valuable voice of reason where few of them exist within her GOP. Moreover, she is performing valuable service as vice chair of the committee led by Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson.
My advice to Rep. Cheney? Stay the course. Wyoming voters elected her to serve until the end of 2022. She has more work to do on behalf of the effort to preserve, protect and defend our precious democratic process.