Tag Archives: Liz Cheney

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Some self-awareness, Mr. Vice President

cheney

Dick Cheney’s utter lack of self-awareness is an astounding thing to behold.

The former vice president and his daughter, Liz, have co-written a book, “Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America.” In an extended excerpt published in the Wall Street Journal, Cheney writes that President Obama has made “false” statements about the Iran nuclear deal.

False statements? Yes, the man who orchestrated — along with the rest of the George W. Bush national security team — this nation’s invasion of Iraq on a whole array of falsehoods has now laid the charge on the man who succeeded President Bush in the White House.

He has joined the GOP amen chorus in blaming Obama for the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, contending that the United States has “abandoned” Iraq and is “on course” to do the same thing in Afghanistan.

I don’t disagree with the title of the Cheneys’ book. The world does need a “powerful America.” I will simply add my own view that the world still has a powerful America in its midst.

We remain the world’s pre-eminent military power — by a long shot. Our economy is still the envy of the world. People are aching to gain entry into the United States. Yes, many of them come here illegally, but many more come here legally and in accordance with federal immigration law.

Let us stop denigrating our current role in the world — as many of the GOP presidential candidates have done — by suggesting we’ve lost our place at the top of the geopolitical food chain.

As for the former vice president, he needs to take time for some serious introspection before he accuses others of stating foreign-policy falsehoods.

Read more on this link.

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Treason? Come on, Mr. Vice President

Of all the things former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter wrote in their much-discussed essay in the Wall Street Journal, the most outrageous was this:

President Obama is deliberately seeking to take America “down a notch” before leaves office.

The essay is here. Read it for yourself.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/dick-cheney-and-liz-cheney-the-collapsing-obama-doctrine-1403046522

It amazes me in the first place that the former VP would continue to undermine an administration’s efforts to stem a serious international crisis. Cheney’s carping is outrageous and disgraceful.

To suggest, though, that the president of the United States seeks to deliberately weaken the nation that elected him twice to its highest office is go so far beyond the pale that it defies even my huge reservoir of dislike for the policies that Cheney put forward while he was in office.

The Cheneys — father and daughter — have shown us a shameful exhibition of disloyalty.

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Liz Cheney ends her Senate campaign

Liz Cheney isn’t as obsessed with political power as some of us thought, apparently.

The Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Wyoming ended her campaign early today, citing undisclosed family health issues. I wish her and her family well, of course.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/liz-cheney-wyoming-senate-race-101767.html?hp=f1

Another part of me, though, is glad she’s bowing out, if only to restore some sanity to the political process in one of our 50 states.

Cheney is the outspoken daughter of the outspoken former vice president, Dick Cheney. She challenged long-time Wyoming Republican Sen. Mike Enzi for reasons that continue to escape me. She claimed, I guess, that Enzi — one of the Senate’s most conservative members — isn’t conservative enough.

Her candidacy drew immediate fire from the state’s GOP establishment. GOP powerhouses lined up in Enzi’s corner.

Then things turned bad.

Cheney was accused of being a carpetbagger, given that she moved to Wyoming in 2010 after growing up in Washington, D.C. I don’t hold that against her. Two of my favorite carpetbaggers have been Robert F. Kennedy and Hillary Rodham Clinton, both of whom represented New York quite nicely in the Senate. In this age of intense media scrutiny, though, Cheney’s opportunism was drawing unusual attention.

Of course, then we had Cheney getting into that public tiff with her openly gay sister, Mary, over the issue of same-sex marriage. Mary is married and is a mother. Liz opposes gay marriage. The sisters got into a spat that only served to embarrass the entire family.

As Politico.com notes, Cheney’s campaign never got “traction.” Enzi continued to poll far ahead of his upstart challenger.

What this means for the health of the national Republican Party, though, remains to be determined. Liz Cheney is just one challenger to establishment GOP incumbents to drop out. Other insurgents are out there, including a few throughout West Texas, who are mounting challenges to long-time Republican incumbents.

Liz Cheney, though, is out of the game. Good. Her voice, though, won’t be silenced. She’s got her Fox News Channel job waiting for her.

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Cheneys learning terrible lesson about fame

The Cheney family is being schooled on the terrible price famous clans must pay at times.

Their family feuds become public spectacles. The exposure goes with the territory.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd brings it all home with her latest essay.

The story has been told and retold many times in recent weeks. Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne Cheney, wants to be the next U.S. senator from Wyoming. She’s challenging a long-time fellow Republican, incumbent Mike Enzi. She’s trying to outflank Enzi on the right, which is a hard thing to do, given the senator’s impeccable conservative voting record.

But in doing so, Liz has managed to offend her sister, Mary in the deepest way imaginable. Liz says she opposes gay marriage. Mary is gay and is married to Heather Poe. They are the parents of two children.

Daddy Cheney has declared his support for gay marriage. He also supports Liz’s campaign for U.S. senator. The Cheneys also used to be pals with the Enzis. Then we have another prominent Wyoming pol, former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson, who is mortified at what’s transpiring with his friends the Cheneys — and the Enzis.

Why should anyone beyond this tight circle of family and friends care? Because Dick Cheney served for eight years as vice president of the United States. Before that he was secretary of defense during the George H.W. Bush administration. Before that he was a congressman from Wyoming and before that he served as White House chief of staff to President Gerald Ford.

He’s a public man. His business becomes our business, even if it involves his daughters — both of whom have been in the public eye themselves.

Fame at times exacts a terrible price from those who seek it.

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Family feud mirrors larger GOP split

Two women from one prominent political family are sparring publicly over one of the nation’s most sensitive social issues.

It involves gay marriage.

One of the women is gay; the other is straight. The gay sister, Mary Cheney, is married to her wife and is the mother of two children. The straight sister, Liz Cheney, is running for the U.S. Senate seat from Wyoming against a long-time incumbent, fellow Republican Mike Enzi.

Cheney Family Airs Gay-Marriage Feud on Facebook

Liz Cheney has come out strongly against gay marriage. Her sister Mary has challenged Liz’s views, saying she is out of step with history.

Oh, have I mentioned these women come from a prominent political family? Their dad is former Vice President Dick Cheney, who supports gay marriage; their mother is Lynne Cheney, who’s served as top adviser to GOP presidents going back to Ronald Reagan.

The women’s differences over gay marriage — or “marriage equality,” as proponents like to call it — serves as an interesting metaphor for the divisions that exist within the larger political party. The right wingers are unwilling to compromise on this or any issue with the “establishment wing” of their party.

No one can accuse the Cheney family of being squishy on their conservatism. They all come from sturdy right-wing stock.

The sisters’ split reminds me a bit of a similar split within Ronald Reagan’s family, particularly between the two sons — Michael and Ron. Michael Reagan is a star on the conservative talk-radio circuit; Ron tilts considerably to the left and is a frequent guest of liberal TV talk show hosts. The third surviving Reagan child, daughter Patti, is aligned with brother Ron.

Has anyone seen the Reagan brothers in the same room lately?

Back to the Cheneys …

If anyone needs a lesson on the split among Republicans, they can look no further than the strain developing between two strong-willed women.

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Politics means ‘lying’ takes on broader context

My American Heritage dictionary defines the term “lie” thusly: “a false statement deliberately presented as true.”

That’s a commonly accepted description of a lie. Someone has to knowingly say something that is false.

Well, in politics, lying takes on a different sort of meaning.

Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick “Prince of Darkness” Cheney, said just the other day that President Barack Obama lied when he made grand promises about the Affordable Care Act.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/190496-liz-cheney-no-question-obama-lied-about-o-care

“No question” that he lied, said Cheney. What’s more, the former VP’s daughter has accused Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming — whose seat Cheney wants to take from the incumbent — of enabling the president to lie about the ACA.

I won’t get into whether Enzi enabled anything.

I am puzzled, though, why we allow politicians to use terms like “liar” and “lie” when the universe could contain all kinds of reasons for untruthful statements.

Yes, the president said anyone could keep their health plans if they wanted to do so once the ACA kicked in. It didn’t happen; millions of Americans had their policies canceled, forcing the president to announce this past week that insurers could keep policies in force for another year.

Pardon the verbal parsing, but for Cheney — who’s an underdog in her campaign to beat Enzi — to suggest that Obama “lied” is to become a mind-reader. She knows without a doubt, she says, that the president lied — which is to say he deliberately stood before the nation and said something he knew to be untrue.

Just maybe the president believed what he said at the time to be true. If someone says something in good faith — believing they are telling the truth — does that make them bad-faced liars?

Here’s an example that might hit Liz Cheney right in the gut.

Her dad told us that the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Those WMD became the basis for us launching a full-scale war against Iraq in March 2003. Our troops stormed into Baghdad, captured Saddam, scoured the country from top to bottom looking for those WMD.

They weren’t there.

Did Daddy Cheney tell a lie? I’m guessing his daughter Liz would say “no.” Some of us likely would beg to differ. Hey, that’s politics.