Cheney Now Willing To ‘Welcome’ Powell Back Into The GOP: ‘I Meant No Offense’
Cheney Now Willing To ‘Welcome’ Powell Back Into The GOP: ‘I Meant No Offense’
Earlier this month, Vice President Cheney made headlines by saying that Rush Limbaugh is a better Republican than former Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell. “Well, if I had to choose — in terms of being a Republican — I’d go with Rush Limbaugh, I think,” said Cheney on CBS’s Face the Nation. “My take on it was that Colin had already left the party. I didn’t know he was still a Republican.” Powell later responded, saying that while he may be out of the Cheney-Limbaugh version of the GOP, “there’s another version of the Republican Party waiting to emerge once again.”
Yesterday, Cheney went on CNBC and walked back his remarks. He said that he never meant any “offense” to Powell and “wasn’t seeking to rearrange his political identity”:
CHENEY: Well, we’re happy to have General Powell in the Republican Party. I was asked a question about a dispute he was having, I think, with Rush Limbaugh, and I expressed the consent, the notion I had that he had already left since he endorsed Barack Obama for president. But I meant no offense to my former colleague. I wasn’t seeking to rearrange his political identity.
KUDLOW: So you welcome him back into the party.
CHENEY: We’re in the mode where we welcome everybody to the party. What I don’t want to do, in the course of trying to expand the overall size of the Republican Party and expand our base, is to talk away from basic fundamental principles.
Watch it:
Although Cheney said that he will “welcome everybody” into the Republican party, what he really seems to mean is that anyone is welcome — as long as they check their beliefs at the door and ascribe to the Cheney-Limbaugh version of the party. After all, he said earlier this month that he thinks it “would be a mistake for us to moderate.” As RNC Chairman Michael Steele has summed up this new GOP, “Understand that when you come into someone’s house, you’re not looking to change it. You come in because that’s the place you want to be.”
Transcript:
KUDLOW: I guess you’re trying to outline a message for the Republican Party here to limit government and limit taxation and so forth. You kind of took a shot at General Colin Powell the other day, said you didn’t know he was still a member of the Republican Party. He responded to you by saying that you were mistaken. He is a member of the Republican Party, and he regards himself a, quote, “Jack Kemp Republican,” end quote. Could you react to what Mr. Powell is saying?
CHENEY: Well, we’re happy to have General Powell in the Republican Party. I was asked a question about a dispute he was having, I think, with Rush Limbaugh, and I expressed the consent, the notion I had that he had already left since he endorsed Barack Obama for president. But I meant no offense to my former colleague. I wasn’t seeking to rearrange his political identity.
KUDLOW: So you welcome him back into the party.
CHENEY: We’re in the mode where we welcome everybody to the party. What I don’t want to do, in the course of trying to expand the overall size of the Republican Party and expand our base, is to talk away from basic fundamental principles. I think it’s very important that we remind people out around the country what it is that we stand for, that we do believe in a strong national defense, in low taxes and limited government; and giving up on those principles, in order to try to appeal to people who are otherwise going to vote Democratic, seems to me is a — would be a fundamental defeat for those of us who are essentially conservative, who’ve been long-time supporters of the Republican Party.
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What I don’t want to do, in the course of trying to expand the overall size of the Republican Party and expand our base, is to take away from basic fundamental principles
That pretty much sounds like ‘my way or the highway’ to me
May 28th, 2009 at 12:56 pmToo late, Dick; we can now fit your party into a bath tub.
May 28th, 2009 at 12:57 pmSo Cheney wants Powell back into the Republican Party.
But Rush didn’t want him in the party.
Something has got to give here.
Or…they’ll just ignore it…
May 28th, 2009 at 12:58 pmWhy is this WAR CRIMINAL not in Jail?
May 28th, 2009 at 12:59 pmis to take away from basic fundamental principles
What the Hell “principles” could that man possibly be talking about.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:00 pmWhen did torture/Gitmo became a Republican principle.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:01 pmSo?
May 28th, 2009 at 1:02 pmwar criminal spotted on the loose. someone call the cops.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:02 pmBut will Gen Powell welcome Dick back into the GOP?
May 28th, 2009 at 1:04 pm“Join the GOP, get welcomed by Dick Cheney.” Great ad copy there. Good luck with that.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:05 pmIf Limbaugh is running the ‘party’, why is Cheney welcoming anyone in or out? Isn’t Mr. Limbaugh’s place to decide who is or is not welcome? I think Cheney’s going to have to apologize for attempting to usurp Mr. Limbaugh’s authority
May 28th, 2009 at 1:08 pm“we welcome everyone into the party”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Unless you are black, brown, red, yellow, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, atheist, gay, poor, working class, liberal, moderate, military veterans.
Only WASP chickenhawks are TRULY welcome.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:09 pmOh oh. Things must really be getting rough for Darth Cheney. Changing ones opinion is a sign of weakness in his world. Hey Dick, your cracks showing.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:09 pmOf course, Darth Cheney is making nicey-nice with Powell now.
What with Mancow getting waterboarded and calling it torture; and pictures of rape in Abu Ghraib; etc., Darth is going to need all the friends he can find to keep is fat arse out of the sling . . . and his neck out of the noose.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:11 pmNo thanks Cheney. The GOP tent is too small – small as a baby’s cloth diaper full of shyte!
May 28th, 2009 at 1:12 pmCheney and his policy of “commit the crime now, cover it up later” is probably one of the main reasons Powell left BushCo.
Powell has his faults, not the least of which was the Big Lie at the U.N. but he’s still far too smart to want to be associated with Cheney.
Powell is too much of a gentleman to say it, but I’d bet his throughts include Cheney’s signature phrase “Go fcuk yourself!”
PEACE
May 28th, 2009 at 1:16 pmWell Mr. Cheney, the tiny percent of people in this Country who espouse your sick worldview are allready members of your shrinking party. Most Republicans these days are too embarassed to call themselves “Republican” and now lean to the Libertarian moniker. They also are ashamed to admit to voting for you and your chimp…TWICE! Good luck expanding that base dickwad!
May 28th, 2009 at 1:17 pmHey, what’s going on? I’ve tried twice to post to this website with pearls of wisdom, and my comments disappeared!
May 28th, 2009 at 1:18 pmI guess there’s been some introspection going on over on the darkside.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:25 pmCheney thought Powell had become a Democrat? And this guy claims to know for certain exactly how terrorists are going to respond to President Obama’s policies? And we are supposed to believe all his “intelligence” about the Hussein-AQ link, WPM, ad nauseum?
May 28th, 2009 at 1:26 pmI wonder who was pounding on Dick to get him to cave like this…hmmmm…Michael Steele? [nah]… Chimpy McDumbya? [nah]… Grampy McSame? [nah]… Squashed Limpballs? [definitely nah]…
OK, there’s nobody left; this is obviously a Fake Dick!! There’s a word for that, isn’t there???
May 28th, 2009 at 1:26 pmTalk about a back-handed compliment. He’s saying, “sure, we welcome Powell, I mean, since we’re desperate right now”.
Cheney is a sick, sick, twisted little man.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:26 pmUncle Ho Says:
——————————————————————————–
“we welcome everyone into the party”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Unless you are black, brown, red, yellow, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, atheist, gay, poor, working class, liberal, moderate, military veterans.
Only WASP chickenhawks are TRULY welcome.
You beat me to it Unc.
CHENEY: We’re in the mode where we welcome everybody to the party. As long as you agree with everything we do and say.
There fixed it.
RIP
May 28th, 2009 at 1:27 pmSGT Stephen R. Sherman
C CO 1-5 IN (STRYKER)
KIA 3 Feb 2005
Mosul, Iraq
CHENEY: We’re in the mode where we welcome everybody to the party. What I don’t want to do, in the course of trying to expand the overall size of the Republican Party and expand our base, is to talk away from basic fundamental principles.
_________________________________________________________
Believe it or not, I pretty much agree with Dick Cheney on this statement. To a certain extent, that is.
The way our political party system is set up is that a party sets their core principles, and then when John Q. Public goes shopping for a political party, he chooses the one whose principles fall most in line with his own.
I think it’s a mistake for political parties to woo people purely for the sake of increasing their numbers and then set their principles to suck up to their membership. This is how the Republican Party got hijacked by the evangelical right, for example.
If a party finds their principles have become outdated for today’s world, have turned out not to be in the best interest of the country, or have just plain failed because they were bad to begin with, then the party should reexamine their principles and adjust accordingly. This is where the GOP should be right now.
First, adjust the principles. THEN sell the “new improved” product to the public. If you try to do it the other way around — sell a vague concept to the public with the promise that “we’ll change ourselves to whatever you want us to be if you join us”, you just wind up with a mess.
Where I disagree with Cheney is that he appears to believe the “basic fundamental principles” require no revision. And that’s fine — if the GOP wants to remain the party of intolerance, sucking up to big business, further dividing the haves from the have-nots, waging war wherever they can, and just general regression, they are certainly free to do so, but the American public will take their votes elsewhere. And the GOP will go the way of the horse and buggy.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:28 pmI agree with tom (previous post above) that this seems more like Cheney trying to cover his butt after realizing that Powell has all the info that an independent war crimes investigator would need to throw him in jail for life for crimes against humanity.
Too bad that Obama (and Holder) will never (despite being a lawyer, a former constitutional law professor, or as President who is sworn to do so!…) uphold the written rule of law in this country.
I guess “centrist” means being against justice and the rule of law and being for the highest levels of lawlessness for the entitlement class.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:30 pmWhen did anyone vote Rush into office? he’s not a legislator, doesn’t make policy, doesn’t write policy. Again how is he the head of a political party? Dick Cheney is a cynic who claims to put his version of America first. Are they dating? Did Dick not get the memo that he’s no longer in office? It’s infuriating enough that we’re having to deal with the mess he and Bush made and yet he’s running around DC being a DICK! Leave Powell alone, he’s the one person who is a Republican
May 28th, 2009 at 1:32 pmYeah, that’s real big of The Dick, but it’s not really his call, is it?
Isn’t membership in The Party determined by Boss Limbaugh these days?
May 28th, 2009 at 1:36 pmCHENEY: We’re in the mode where we welcome everybody to the party.
Even traitors who endorsed the other party’s candidate in the last election, he went on to mutter under his breath with a sneer.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:47 pmOh, tsk, tsk… Cheney thinks life is all about “take backs”, like he wishes he could take back authorizing torture because he doesn’t want to be tried as a war criminal.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:49 pmI wish the Cheneys, especially DICK and his spawn LIZ, would just shut up and join LYNNE in writing some more
lesbian fiction.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:50 pmOf course liberals make hay with Cheney’s answer to a question about who he’d rather have in the Republican party, someone who voted for the Republican candidate or someone who didn’t. DUH!
Lets just imagine how welcoming the democratic party would be to a democrat who voted for McCain/Palin! Oh yeah, they were so kind and understanding to
May 28th, 2009 at 1:52 pmJoe Liberman…….
SO?
May 28th, 2009 at 1:53 pmOK, now I’m gettin’ really pissed…….it happened again. Anybody else having a problem? (Strangely, these complaints get posted just fine!) It must be the Darkside!
May 28th, 2009 at 1:54 pmDear Romatin16985:
Please provide a link to ONE instance involving Democrats imposing an ideological “litmus test” on ANYONE.
Thanks in advance for your prompt attention to this.
J. Fred
May 28th, 2009 at 1:55 pmSo, someone finally took Cheney to the wood shed.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:56 pmJ. Fred Smug: Yeah, we took Arlen Specter, for god’s sake!
May 28th, 2009 at 1:57 pmYou know, insurgent principles, like mass murder, torture, and raping children.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:58 pmWow, I bet that just made Powell’s day. Actually, I firmly believe that Powell could care less what Cheney or Limpballs thinks about him.
They think that Powell isn’t sufficiently subservient to be a Republican since he puts his country before his party.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:58 pmSomeone please tell me what has been conservative the last eight years?
I cant seem to find anything conservative, just lots of slogans and canards while government grew and federal debt hit record levels. Cronyism and corruption. Lies galore. Wars of choice.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:59 pmP.S. to Romatin16985:
Regarding, my earlier request, this would involve an instance where a prominent Democrat (e.g., Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, etc. — a national leader, not simply a Democratic or liberal commentator) claimed that an individual was not a “real/true Democrat” or calling them a DINO (”Democrat In Name Only”).
May 28th, 2009 at 2:00 pmRomartin16985 Says:
Of course liberals make hay with Cheney’s answer to a question about who he’d rather have in the Republican party, someone who voted for the Republican candidate or someone who didn’t. DUH!
I guess you forgot about Lieberman and Specter.
May 28th, 2009 at 2:00 pmJ.Fred,
The story does not report that Cheney said Powell was not a real/true republican.
It says that Cheney thought Powell had left the party because he voted democratic. How you vote is really where the rubber meets the road.
Is this difficult to grasp?
May 28th, 2009 at 2:08 pmThis story really isn’t about Cheney’s motivation for his jab at Powell. Powell seemed to think that Obama represented his values the most out of all his voting choices. We could speculate for ages WHY Powell thought that.
This story is about the very rare occurrence of Cheney backtracking on his attack of Powell. Why is he backtracking?
May 28th, 2009 at 2:15 pmRomartin16985,
Discussions here are cumulative and involve the entire subject matter at hand, not just a specific “report” — people here tend to be very well-educated. If you don’t follow politics, then it’s pointless even attempting to have a broad discussion with you.
I realize that in the world of the Republic Fascist Party, such discussions rarely, if ever, take place.
Never mind; please disregard my earlier request. You are clearly not up to the task (which isn’t exactly heavy lifting . . .).
May 28th, 2009 at 2:16 pmRomartin16985 Lieberman insulted the democratic opponents of the war in his state and lost his primary challenge. No one has a RIGHT to someones vote. So to CHeney either you vote lockstep with the party or you are not a member of the party? That would reduce citizenship to ONE choice and then become the kind of sheeple that you conservatives seem to LOVE to be. No input into policy no REAL say just automatic endorsement of whatever decisions your BETTERS MAKE. I am sure that is an ideal to the party that WANTS everyone to let others do their thinking but it is ludicrous. Is THAT so hard to understand?
May 28th, 2009 at 2:17 pmYes Powell is welcomed back into the party. He just has to do as they say and serve them dinner.
Kind of reminds me of my favorite episode of “In Living Color” where an Alabama golf resort spokesman talks about how they have so many blacks at the golf course. Of course, all the blacks are dressed in white and serving the patrons.
May 28th, 2009 at 2:20 pmWatch out Colin. Next thing you know, Dick will send you out to the Sunday talk shows with a vial of salt and some cartoons of mobile bio-weapons labs.
May 28th, 2009 at 2:21 pmI imagine he’s afraid Powell will tell what he knows about Dick to an investigative panel…
May 28th, 2009 at 2:23 pmWhere’s karma when you need it ?
May 28th, 2009 at 2:24 pmFred,
HA!
You do live up to your name.
I guess you didn’t like my direct answer, as you couldn’t get me to go off topic and down your garden path!
May 28th, 2009 at 2:28 pmThat tent is gonna get awful small when you have to fit it into that prison cell of yours Dick!
May 28th, 2009 at 2:34 pmLucky Powell. He is welcomed by the former VP. Could he ask for anything more? To be welcomed by the worst war criminal since Kissinger. To be welcome in a party that welcomes only the rich, the white and the brain dead. Powell would be better off starting his own party, or becoming a registered independent.
Being welcomed by the GOP is like ringing a door bell and having Dracula inviting you in for a cup of something.
May 28th, 2009 at 3:20 pmPowell said he was a Republican in the mold of Jack Kemp. Well, memo to Colin, that part of the party, like Kemp now, is gone. These guys have to look at this trainwreck and wonder wtf happened?
And a prediction on Cheney: He’ll go back into hiding on July 20th…the day his Secret Service protection expires. I seriously doubt that Obama will renew it. Of course, the Dickster will have his own private security in the person of Blackwater, or Xe, or whatever they call themselves these days. I just don’t understand the MSM giving clowns like Cheney, Rove, Newt, et al, airtime. They lost, they are losers. Their party is in shambles. What’s next? Put them all in a group house ala Big Brother and watch them eat their own.
May 28th, 2009 at 3:31 pmHarry PudLoad and The Dick what a pair
May 28th, 2009 at 4:05 pmMy, my.
That’s mighty white of you, Dick.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:54 pmCheney: Powell is no longer a Repub. He’s not fit to be in the GOP. He’s a Democrat.
Oh, but I meant no offense! And I welcome him back. (Uh, Powell never left, you hateful jerk)
It’s impossible for anyone with any intelligence & knowledge not to really, really, really dislike Cheney. He is an evil, dishonest power-monger.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:25 pmCheeney conspired to obtain false confessions through the use of torture. Now he’s willing to take Powell back? I doubt Powell wants ‘in’ at this point.
May 28th, 2009 at 7:17 pmMerdad Says:
All I can say about your comment is that I am glad I’m not you. If this is your “informed opinion,” you need to look elsewhere for your information. Every single sentence in your post was wrong is some way or another.
May 28th, 2009 at 7:24 pmIt would appear that Dick Cheney (and certain posters here) believe that if you are registered in a particular party, you have some sort of moral and legal obligation to vote only for other members of that party. People who are allowed to vote are allowed to vote for whomever they wish, regardless of party affiliation.
Also, Powell never left the Republican Party, but Lieberman did leave the Democratic Party.
May 28th, 2009 at 7:26 pmWhen will Cheney have his 6th and final deferment? Cheney is HAZMAT.
May 28th, 2009 at 7:41 pmPowell should go Dem specifically because of this. Seriously, this is some disrespectful treatment here. At some point, Powell needs to grow a spine and quit shuckin’ and jivin’ fo da Republican man.
May 28th, 2009 at 9:08 pmdivx film
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May 29th, 2009 at 6:29 amAs RNC Chairman Michael Steele has summed up this new GOP, “Understand that when you come into someone’s house, you’re not looking to change it. You come in because that’s the place you want to be.”
Just one little prob’, Mikey baby: do I want to be anti-women? anti-intellectuals? anti-nonwhites? anti-nonextreme Christians? anti-poor? anti-peace? anti-Constitutional rights? anti-gay? anti-workers? anti-poor? There are just so MANY versions of your “house”–how can I choose? Which is “the place [I] want to be?”
May 29th, 2009 at 9:45 pmI believe Dick-the sick, twisted Torturemiester knew very well that Powell hadn’t left the Republican party when he made that snide ass comment earlier. Now his “welcome back” and “I didn’t mean it” are as hollow as a rotten log in a dank bog. Stinks to high heaven, it does . . . Him sincere? I think not!
May 30th, 2009 at 4:00 am