As I’ve noted before, Liz Cheney represents to some voters the worst of 21st century American conservatism and the natural outgrowth of the Cheneyization of the Republican Party. As she battles Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi for his Senate seat, she has moved steadily right in a campaign handing out so much red meat the soon CostCo managers will get in line so they can stock their stores.
In her uphill primary bid to unseat Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi, Liz Cheney has brandished her hard-right credentials and tried to outflank the conservative incumbent at every turn.
Last week, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney revealed her opposition to same-sex marriage, leading her younger sister, Mary Cheney — who married her longtime partner Heather Poe last year — to chastise her elder sister publicly, calling her “dead wrong” on the issue.
On the issue of whether the U.S. should launch military action against Syria, however, the political calculation for the upstart Senate contender is trickier. Cheney has long been one of the GOP’s staunchest and most vocal advocates of using military force to project American power abroad, particularly against rogue regimes in the Middle East.
But polls show that a majority of Republicans now oppose military strikes against the Assad government, despite evidence that it has used chemical weapons against civilians.
At a speech delivered to the Jackson Hole Tea Party on Tuesday, Cheney laid down her marker in harshly criticizing President Obama for his handling of Syria and making clear that she does not support military action against the Assad regime.
“The press will try to portray this Syria debate as a battle between wings of the Republican Party,” Cheney said, according to the Jackson Hole News & Guide. “Don’t believe them.”
But wait!
A co-founder of the neoconservative advocacy group Keep America Safe, Cheney in 2008 advocated for a policy that would hold the Syrian president “to account” for his actions and called for the implementation of red lines in the Middle East.
All’s fair in love and war — and trying to move further right than your opponent…
But it’s particularly interesting to read about Cheney going after the local press — especially when you read the context. The Jackson Hole News & Guide, reporting on her appearance before 150 “enthralled” Tea Party members:
In a series of questions and answers, Cheney took on the local press after a question about the News&Guide editorial staff’s “left-leaning” bias.
“We have media outlets in the valley that are not fair and balanced,” she said.
They have to be fair and balanced like Fox News… Keep reading:
She blamed the newspaper’s editor. “His name is Angus,” Cheney said.
So he’s biased? But wait:
Editor Angus Thuermer Jr. wrote an article last week about Cheney posting a $220 bond for the “high misdemeanor” of swearing a false oath to obtain a Wyoming resident fishing license.
And then, in the kind of statement that made her father and makes her anathema to many centrists, independents and moderates, she had this to say about newspapers:
“Newspapers are dying, and that’s not a bad thing,” she said. “We’re not depending on the Jackson Hole News&Guide to get the news out. We’re depending on ourselves. We’re going to go over their heads.”
Cheney urged supporters to talk to 10 of their friends about her, rather than reading the newspaper. A member of the crowd singled out where a News&Guide reporter was sitting.
After Cheney’s remarks, three attendees declined to be interviewed for this story.
So if a newspaper writes something bad about it, newspapers dying is not a bad thing at all. And make sure those who support you don’t talk to newspapers, so your perspective is missing from reports. And, really, why not just get on Sean Hannity, who’ll ask easy questions like he’s writing a public relations press release and put you in front of Republicans?
Meanwhile, she compared herself to Winston Church and implied that Barack Obama was Adolf Hitler, according to the newspaper:
Obama has taken “an amateurish approach to national security and foreign policy,” including the developing conflict in Syria, she said.
He should have supported Syrian rebel forces two years ago, Cheney said, before Islamist radicals became part of that opposition.
“The press will try to portray this Syria debate as a battle between wings of the Republican Party,” she said. “Don’t believe them.”
Cheney filled her 90-minute speech and question-and-answer session with red meat for the conservative crowd. She compared herself to Winston Churchill standing up to Adolph Hitler and suggested members of both parties in Congress are hiding information about Obamacare from the public.
Actually, she shoudn’t compare herself to Winston Churchill.
She should compare herself to Dick Cheney.
That fits.
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the image is of meat made to look red, when it is not, by soaking it in carbon monoxide–a colorless, odorless toxic flammable gas formed by incomplete combustion of carbon– found for instance in ‘gaseous’ internal combustion engines.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.