In his most recent editorial, Newsweek’s Editor Jon Meacham poses “Why Dick Cheney should run in 2012.”
After dismissing the expected “rolling of their eyes dismissively” and warning Liberals not to spit out their lattes, Meacham explains that he is serious about a Dick Cheney bid for the presidential nomination in 2012, as such a run would be “good for Republicans and good for the country”.
Some of the reasons:
** “Cheney is a man of conviction, has a record on which he can be judged, and whatever the result, there could be no ambiguity about the will of the people. The best way to settle arguments is by having what we used to call full and frank exchanges about the issues, and then voting.”
** “In an era of ideological purity within the party, Cheney is among the purest; no one can question his conservative credentials on national security, and his record in the House and as vice president places him beyond reproach from the base.”
** “A campaign would also give us an occasion that history denied us in 2008: an opportunity to adjudicate the George W. Bush years in a direct way.”
Meacham also posits that Cheney might pull Obama to the right more than Obama would pull Cheney to the left, something that neither a Huckabee nor a Palin would be able to do.
Actually, while somewhat surprised, I do want to take Meacham seriously, and I do hope that he can persuade Cheney to run in 2012.
I believe Americans, in particular Democrats, would indeed look forward to the chance to have a frank and full exchange on Cheney’s convictions and record and to the opportunity to “adjudicate the George W. Bush years in a direct way.”
I also believe that Americans who are paying dearly for the the political, economic, moral, and military disasters and failures of the Bush-Cheney years, would more than welcome the opportunity to once and for all, openly and frankly adjudicate the Bush-Cheney years–an occasion that, as Meacham says, “history denied us in 2008.”
Bring him on!
