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.