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Liz Cheney (WY-AL) and Dick Cheney (former VP) at the House observance of the January 6, 2021 insurrection — the only Republicans there.
June 13th, 2022 Len’s Letter #55 The World Turned Upside Down
2022 Primary and General Election=
She speaks with him every day
Dick Cheney’s daughter is enormously popular among Democrats. When Dick Cheney left the Vice Presidency, he was enormously unpopular in the country and, especially with Democrats. One report said that only 13% of Americans viewed him favorably.
Democrats, especially progressive, anti-war Democrats, had disdain for Dick Cheney because, as GW Bush’s Vice President, he was a central figure in persuading the country and the President and the Congress (including a lot of Democrats) to go to war against Iraq after the 9/11 attack by al-Queda, the terrorist organization located in Afghanistan. Cheney based his persuading on information from his informally created personal branch of the CIA which inaccurately reported the information he wanted — that Iraq had ties to al-Queda and was in the process of gaining or may even already had weapons of mass destruction – chemical and nuclear.
When home grown terrorists attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, they were part of a conspiracy to keep Donald Trump as president even though he had lost the 2020 election. Liz Cheney, while being hustled away from the insurrectionists, said she was looking forward to impeaching the son of a bitch.
The son of a bitch was Donald Trump, of course. Donald Trump never did attract the anti-war groups even though he was intentional about getting out of Afghanistan and avoiding wars. His Supreme Court appointments were probably not too different from what Dick Cheney’s might have been had he become President. As a Member of Congress, he was relentlessly conservative. He voted against the creation of a Department of Education, against funding Head Start, against the creation of a national holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., and against sanctions against the South African apartheid regime.
In Congress or out, Liz Cheney was as conservative as her father. She opposed same sex marriage even though her sister was gay. She co-sponsored legislation to end protection for grey wolves and was critical of those who sought to protect grizzly bears. She was critical of FBI agents who were targeted for negative comments about Trump.
She has not stopped being conservative. Like her father, Liz Cheney is hawkish. She criticized the Turkish invasion of Syria and the associated American abandonment of Kurds. In criticizing the danger to the Kurds, she was criticizing Donald Trump. Covid was a factor in her thinking. She defended Dr. Anthony Fauci. Fauci, she explained, was not political and was attempting to protect us from disease. Donald Trump was pretending Covid would just disappear. Dr. Fauci got in his way. What was truly shocking to Liz Cheney was Donald Trump’s behavior after the 2020 election, Donald Trump’s effort to stay in office even though he had lost, Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the election.
Liz Cheney can turn to Ronald Reagan’s amazement at the peaceful transition when he was elected. She had no trouble ignoring Reagan’s illegal dealings with Iran in order to get funds to the Latin American Contras. Nor did she have trouble with her father’s manipulation of the CIA to get information to get the war he wanted. There is no reason to believe that she was critical of her father becoming a multi-millionaire by using his very own revolving door between the highest levels of the US government and his CEO spot with Halliburton.
It could be that Liz Cheney was offended by Donald Trump’s self-dealing that, at a minimum, appeared to sacrifice the interests of the United States in exchange for his personal wealth. She might explain that Donald Trump’s self-dealing was nothing like her father’s work for Halliburton. She might acknowledge that Halliburton’s contracts with the United States during the GW Bush/Dick Cheney administration raised questions. She would probably insist the questions were always answered. Donald Trump’s effort to stay in office despite having lost the 2020 election was, to Liz Cheney’s mind clearly wrong, clearly inconsistent with the US Constitution, and clearly dangerous to the character of the American government.
Liz Cheney has told Republicans they have a choice – between Donald Trump’s approval now and history’s approbation later. As she struggles to demonstrate just how wrong Donald Trump was, Liz Cheney talks to her father every day.
Does Liz Cheney talk to her father about her work? Does she talk about him about the erosion of the American democracy as a result of the revolving door between government and business? About American reliance on science and the Republican rejection of science? About hawkishness in foreign policy? About the flexibility that Dick Cheney sought for the government when he was in government? About the future of the Republican Party and her own future? About what it has meant to work with Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and with the other Democrats on the Select Committee?
Does Liz Cheney talk with her father about whether the world is turned upside down?
