Liz Cheney dodges Maddow, will appear on Hannity instead.
Liz Cheney dodges Maddow, will appear on Hannity instead.
Liz Cheney probably won’t be appearing on Rachel Maddow’s show tonight, either. After Maddow dared Cheney to come on and “debate the issues” with her (something that Cheney is attacking MSNBC for failing to do), the former Vice President’s daughter has instead chosen to appear in a much friendlier setting. According to a Fox News email, Liz will be a guest on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show tonight at 9 pm ET (the same time that Maddow’s show airs on MSNBC) to discuss why Obama’s “‘radical’ policies are placing us all at risk”:
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Maddow dares Liz Cheney to appear on her show: ‘Be not afraid…I promise I will not bite.’
Maddow dares Liz Cheney to appear on her show: ‘Be not afraid…I promise I will not bite.’
Liz Cheney’s newly-launched neoconservative front group Keep America Safe (which The Wonk Room’s Matt Duss renames “The Foreign Policy Keep America Project For A Safe New American Century Initiative”) released a web ad last week attacking a variety of MSNBC hosts for being “afraid” to “talk substance.” “Why don’t they want to debate the issues?” a chyron reads. Another one asks, “What are they so afraid of?” Last night, Rachel Maddow responded by noting that Liz Cheney appears to be the one who is “afraid” of a debate:
MADDOW: Our booking producers have been calling Liz Cheney and asking her to come on this show and discuss her ideas, debate the issues for months. We have called her many, many, many times – including twice on Friday. So far, she has declined every single invitation that we have extended.
And I understand – a lot of people say no to being on this show. But not a lot of them do so while claiming that MSNBC is afraid to debate them. Be not afraid, Ms. Cheney. I promise I will not bite.
Watch it:
Of course, it’s not as if Liz Cheney is afraid of appearing on cable news shows. After all, as Steve Benen documented back in May, Cheney appeared “all over the television news” — including MSNBC — to defend her dad’s policies. Is it debating Maddow that she’s afraid of?
Liz Cheney undercuts her own excuse for not joining sister Mary’s new political consultancy shop.
Liz Cheney undercuts her own excuse for not joining sister Mary’s new political consultancy shop.
Last week, the Washington Post reported that one of former Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughters, Mary, was “leaving the political consulting firm Navigators Global to start her own consulting company.” Though one of Mary’s friends told the Post that Mary’s dad and her sister, Liz, would be joining her, a spokeswoman for the family said “Liz is not involved” because “she is spending all of her time helping Vice President Cheney write his book.” But the claim that Liz Cheney is too busy with the book to take on other projects was undermined today with the launch of her new non-profit group, Keep America Safe. Politico reports:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s eldest daughter Liz will launch a new group aimed at rallying opposition to the “radical” foreign policy of the Obama administration which it says has succeeded only in undermining the nation’s security.
The new group, Keep America Safe, will make the case against President Barack Obama’s moves to wrench America away from Bush era foreign policy on issues from detaining alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay to building a missile shield in Eastern Europe.
“The policies being proposed by the Obama administration are so radical across the board,” Cheney said. “Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, you want the nation to be strong and so many steps this president is taking are making the nation weaker.”
Along with Cheney, Keep America Safe’s board features Weekly Standard editor William Kristol and Debra Burlingame, whose husband was killed in 9/11. The project is being helped by a number of former McCain campaign aides, including blogger Michael Goldfarb, war room chief Aaron Harison and video producer Justin Germany.
Liz Cheney: ‘America needs a Commander-in-Chief, not a global community organizer.’
Liz Cheney: ‘America needs a Commander-in-Chief, not a global community organizer.’
This past weekend, the conservative blog RedState hosted its annual gathering. Featured speakers included Missouri Congressman Roy Blunt, former Congressman Pat Toomey, and Texas Governor (and secessionist sympathizer) Rick Perry. Among the most outrageous comments of the convention came from former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Liz Cheney:
CHENEY: In order to survive as a nation, our President can’t function as a disinterested international arbitrator. He can’t attempt to stand above America and our enemies. In other words, America needs a commander in chief, not a global community organizer.
Watch it:
Cheney’s comments hark back to the 2008 Republican National Convention, where GOP Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin and former Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani openly mocked Obama’s past work as a community organizer. Erick Erickson, editor-in-chief of Redstate.com, writes that Cheney also said that President Obama “does not care for either pediatricians or policemen.”
Liz Cheney: Investigating My Dad Would Prove Americans ‘Can’t Trust’ Democrats With National Security
Liz Cheney: Investigating My Dad Would Prove Americans ‘Can’t Trust’ Democrats With National Security
On Saturday, the New York Times reported that former Vice President Dick Cheney gave “direct orders” to the CIA, compelling the agency to withhold “information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years.” Despite news organizations’ efforts to contact him, Cheney has yet to comment on the revelation.
Following the revelation, congressional Democrats have called for an investigation into the hidden program, which the Wall Street Journal reports involved “an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives.” But on the Washington Times’ America’s Morning News radio show today, Cheney’s daughter, Liz, lashed back at his critics:
CHENEY: There’s this big piece in the Wall Street Journal this morning that says that it was a number of different concepts for ways that we could capture or kill al Qaeda leaders in the days after 9/11. I am really surprised that the Democrats decide that that’s what they want to fight over. I mean, if they want to go to the American people and say that they disagree with the notion that we ought to be capturing and killing al Qaeda leaders, I think it’s just going to prove to the American people one more time why they can’t trust the Democrats with our national security.
Cheney claimed that complaints by Democrats that the program was concealed from Congress are surfacing only because they are “very worried about Speaker Pelosi” and the attacks on her over her claim that the CIA misled her about the Bush administration’s use of waterboarding. Listen here:
Of course, Cheney is dodging the issue of whether Bush and Cheney fulfilled their obligations under the National Security Act of 1947, which says that congressional intelligence committees must be “kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States, including any significant anticipated intelligence activity.”
Cheney also responded to news that Attorney General Holder is considering appointing a special prosecutor to investigate “the Bush administration’s brutal interrogation practices,” calling it “shameful.” She added that her father is “very angry” about the development:
CHENEY: His reaction to the story that we may well be prosecuting folks, I’m happy to talk about that. … You know, he is very angry, as you’ve heard him say publicly. You know the notion that this administration is going to come into office and they’re going to prosecute the brave men and women who carried out this program that kept America safe. It is, it is un-American. It’s something that hasn’t happened before in this country, in terms of somebody taking office and then starting to prosecute people who carried out policies that they disagreed with, you know, in the previous administration. He’s been very public about that.
Cheney says that Holder would be investigating people “who carried this program out according to the Department of Justice opinions,” but Newsweek reports that Holder is more concerned about “startling indications that some interrogators had gone far beyond what had been authorized in the legal opinions.”
Liz Cheney falsely claims Obama hasn’t said ‘I believe in American exceptionalism.’
Liz Cheney falsely claims Obama hasn’t said ‘I believe in American exceptionalism.’
Liz Cheney continued her seemingly unending campaign to flood the American media, and once again, she said something that isn’t true. This time, on CNN last night, she criticized the Obama administration for being “focused on the president’s popularity overseas.” “We’ve now seen several different occasions when he’s been on the international trips, where he’s not willing to say, flat out, ‘I believe in American exceptionalism,’” Cheney complained. But of course, Obama has said this. Last April during a press conference at the NATO summit in Strasbourg, France, Obama was asked if he “subscribe[s]…to the school of American exceptionalism.” Obama replied:
OBAMA: I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. I’m enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world. … And I think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional.
Watch the compilation:
No, Obama did not say “America is the best nation that ever existed in history, and clearly that exists today,” as Cheney wishes. But she essentially wants him to stand in front of a room full of foreigners and say, “We’re better than you.” This is exactly the kind of cowboy diplomacy that has hurt America’s relationship with its allies over the last eight years and ultimately its standing in the world.
Liz Cheney Falsely Claims Bush ‘Did Not Say’ Gitmo Detainees Should Be Tried In U.S. Courts
Liz Cheney Falsely Claims Bush ‘Did Not Say’ Gitmo Detainees Should Be Tried In U.S. Courts
Last night, Vice President Cheney’s daughter Liz appeared on a mainstream American television news media outlet, this time on Campbell Brown’s CNN show. During a contentious “Great Debate” segment with Salon’s Joan Walsh, Liz Cheney was trying to argue that bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees to U.S. soil “makes us less safe” and that they should remain where they currently reside.
To make her argument, Cheney also continued her penchant for false claims. At one point in the debate, Walsh noted that military leaders want Gitmo closed and that even President Bush once said it should be closed and that some detainees should tried in the U.S. Cheney, however, disagreed:
WALSH: Liz, the top — the top military leaders of our country want Guantanamo closed. President Bush, in June 2009 [sic], gave a speech where he said he would close it, and he would bring people home and try them here.
CHENEY: No, I’m sorry.
WALSH: President Bush said that.
CHENEY: He did not say he would bring terrorists onto the homeland. Joan, no, he didn’t say that.
Watch it:
Walsh is right, Bush did say that. During a June 2006 press conference at a U.S.-EU summit, Bush called for Gitmo to be closed and to have some of the detainees tried in U.S. courts:
BUSH: I’d like to end Guantanamo. I’d like it to be over with. One of the things we will do is we’ll send people back to their home countries. [...] There are some who need to be tried in U.S. courts. They’re cold-blooded killers. They will murder somebody if they’re let out on the street. And yet, we believe there’s a — there ought to be a way forward in a court of law.
However, Cheney’s canards didn’t end there. She also offered the debunked claim that “14 percent” of Gitmo detainees have “returned to the battlefield,” a claim Walsh noted is “not true.” Indeed, last week the New York Times issued a correction to its story, saying that the number is closer to 5 percent.
Liz Cheney: Obama’s Language On Israel Goes ‘Much Further’ Than The Bush-Era Road Map For Peace
Liz Cheney: Obama’s Language On Israel Goes ‘Much Further’ Than The Bush-Era Road Map For Peace
During his speech today, President Obama reiterated standing U.S. policy that the expansion of Israeli settlements in Palestine must be ended. “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop,” he said.
On MSNBC this afternoon, former Vice President Cheney’s daughter, Liz Cheney, argued that Obama’s insistence that Israel freeze settlement expansion goes “much further” than the Roadmap to Peace negotiated by the Bush administration in 2002:
MITCHELL: Can you clarify at all a dispute some or among former Bush administration middle east experts and officials as to whether there was a secret promise or an agreement with Israel that Israel could proceed with settlement expansion to accommodate population growth?
CHENEY: It is a very complicated issue and the Road Map does talk about settlements. … But there’s the issue of, in existing settlements, if a family has a baby, are you allowed to build another room in the house? … I think there’s no question that this White House has gone much further in saying to the Israelis, “you must absolutely stop all of it.” And without, in my view, being as demanding of the Palestinians in terms of the security side of this equation.
Watch it:
Cheney is right to note that the Road Map to Peace — negotiated while she served in the Bush administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs — “does talk about settlements.” But she apparently doesn’t recall that when the Road Map talks about settlements, it is in the context of clearly stipulating that the Israeli government must freeze all settlement expansion — “including natural growth.” From the Road Map:
Cheney did not address a reported secret deal between former President Bush and Israel allowing some settlement expansion, despite being asked about it by host Andrea Mitchell:
Additionally, it is simply false to say that the Obama administration is not “being as demanding of the Palestinians” with regard to the security of Israel and its citizens. In his speech this morning, Obama made it clear that the U.S. would accept nothing less than full renunciation of violence in pursuit of political objectives on the part of the Palestinians:
Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It’s a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That’s not how moral authority is claimed; that’s how it is surrendered.
At another point in the interview, Cheney repeated Eric Erickson’s false claim that Obama equated conditions for Jews during the Holocaust with conditions in Palestine today.
Cheney on daughter Liz: ‘I’d love to see her run for office some day.’
Cheney on daughter Liz: ‘I’d love to see her run for office some day.’
For the last few weeks, Liz Cheney, daughter of the former vice president, has been an omnipresent force in the news. For example, she made 12 appearances in the 10 days between May 12 and May 22, prompting many to wonder whether she jumpstarting her own political career. In an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren that aired last night, Dick Cheney said he’d love to see his daughter follow in his footsteps:
VAN SUSTEREN: Think we’re going to see a lot of Liz Cheney in the next couple years? … It sounds like she’s getting involved in a lot lately.
CHENEY: Well, I would — you know, I’m, of course, a proud father, but I’d love to see her run for office some day. I think she’s got a lot to offer. And it’s been a great career for me. And if she has the interest, and I think she does, then I would like to see her to embark upon a career in politics.
Watch it:
Reacting to unnamed Republicans who are pushing Liz Cheney to run for office, Steve Benen wrote, “I can’t help but find all of this rather ridiculous. For one thing, Liz Cheney’s penchant for dishonesty rivals that of her father’s. For another, the ‘Cheney’ name is not exactly a strong political ‘brand’ right now.”
Liz Cheney doesn’t rule out run for office, but says she doesn’t plan to ‘right now.’
Liz Cheney doesn’t rule out run for office, but says she doesn’t plan to ‘right now.’
On Friday, Washington Whispers’ Paul Bedard reported that some conservatives want Liz Cheney to run for office, believing that “she’s a chip off the block!” ThinkProgress noted yesterday that Republican political guru Karl Rove has said that “she might” run at some point. Asked about the rampant speculation on Fox News today, Cheney didn’t rule out an eventual run for office, simply saying, “it’s not something I’m focused on right now.” Watch it:
After the interview ended, hosts Trace Gallagher and Martha MacCallum said it sounded like Cheney was open to running. “But I think that was ‘I’ll consider it,’” said Gallagher. “I would say it’s not ruled out at all, said MacCallum.
Liz Cheney considering run for public office?
Liz Cheney considering run for public office?
The Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen has been keeping a close watch on Liz Cheney, noting that the ubiquitous daughter of the former vice president “practically lives on cable news” these days. “She also lies routinely, accuses the president of helping terrorists, and is so mindless in her attacks on the nation’s elected leadership, she’s something of a national embarrassment,” Benen writes. And according to close friends of hers, she may be the next Cheney to run for office:
“She’s awesome. Everyone wants her to run,” said a close friend. [...]
“She’s a chip off the block!” said a longtime friend. [...]
“It’s a two-fer. She comes off a bit better than he does sometimes,” a conservative consultant said.
Asked about the possibility that Liz Cheney might make a run for office, Republican operative Karl Rove responded, “She might!” Watch it:
Liz Cheney Reveals That Fear Of Prosecution Motivates Dad’s Media Blitz Defending Torture
Liz Cheney Reveals That Fear Of Prosecution Motivates Dad’s Media Blitz Defending Torture
Since President Obama released Bush-era Office of Legal Counsel memos detailing the authorization of the Bush administration’s torture program, Vice President Cheney has taken to the public airwaves on numerous occasions, not only attacking Obama’s security policies but vigorously defending what he perceives (wrongly) as the efficacy of torture. “I’m convinced, absolutely convinced, that we saved thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of lives,” Cheney said recently on CBS.
In response, many in the media have asked why Cheney — someone who had avoided the media at all costs during his eight years as vice president — would be airing his opinions in such a forceful and public way. Indeed, Cheney himself has answered this question, claiming he is speaking out because he believes that torture and other Bush administration anti-terror policies — many of which Obama is abandoning — were “exactly the right thing to do” and that “there isn’t anybody there on the other side to tell the truth.”
In turn, media figures have answered the question in much the same way. “I think he genuinely believes we are threatened now more because of what Obama is doing,” MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan has said. CNN’s David Gergen said, “I think Dick Cheney almost has a Churchillian view of this, and that is somebody has got to stand up and be the voice in the wilderness.” But while the narrative of Cheney’s motives focuses mainly on the righteous, it has all but ignored the selfish — that Cheney is trying to muddle the public debate with the goal of reducing public support for a criminal inquiry into the torture regime that he authorized.
Last night on CNN, however, Cheney’s daughter Liz revealed that fear of prosecution is indeed a motivating factor in the former vice president’s current media campaign:
L. CHENEY: I don’t think he planned to be doing this, you know, when they left office in January. But I think, as it became clear that President Obama was not only going to be stopping some of these policies, that he was going to be doing things like releasing the — the techniques themselves, so that the terrorists could now train to them, that he was suggesting that perhaps we would even be prosecuting former members of the Bush administration.
Watch it:
Does Liz Cheney also fear that her dad will be prosecuted for his role in the Bush administration’s torture program? Perhaps so. As Steve Benen has noted, “Liz Cheney has been all over the television news” as well, with “12 appearances, in nine and a half days, spanning four networks.”
Liz Cheney Claims Her Father Would Never ‘Substitute His Own Judgment’ For The CIA’s
Liz Cheney Claims Her Father Would Never ‘Substitute His Own Judgment’ For The CIA’s
Last month, after President Obama released Bush-era legal memos authorizing torture, McClatchy’s Jonathan Landay reported that former Vice President Dick Cheney “applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime.” Earlier this week, former NBC News investigative producer Robert Windrem reported for The Daily Beast that in 2003, “Cheney’s office suggested waterboarding an Iraqi prisoner, a former intelligence official for Saddam Hussein, who was suspected to have knowledge of a Saddam-al Qaeda connection.”
On ABC’s This Week today, Cheney’s daughter, Liz Cheney, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, responded to the allegations by pointing to a report yesterday in which intelligence officials “denied that the questioning on Iraq had included waterboarding.” Asked, however, if she denied that Cheney’s office asked “to have information about Iraq-al Qaeda connections presented” to the Iraqi detainee, Cheney did not outright deny it:
STEPHANOPOLOUS: You’ve explained one part of it, I just want to ask you to explain another part of it. The report though that the vice president’s office did ask specifically to have information about Iraq-al Qaeda connections presented to this detainee, do you deny that?
CHENEY: I think that it’s important for us to have all the facts out. And and, the first and most important fact is that the vice president has been absolutely clear that he supported this program, this was an important program, it saved American lives. Now, the way this policy worked internally was once the policy was determined and decided, the CIA, you know, made the judgments about how each individual detainee would be treated. And the Vice President would not substitute his own judgment for the professional judgment of the CIA.
Watch it:
Cheney’s claim that her father would never “substitute is own judgment for the professional judgment of the CIA” is striking, especially in the context of establishing a link between al Qaeda and Iraq. The truth is that when the CIA didn’t give Cheney the info he wanted about an Iraq-al Qaeda connection, he marginalized the agency:
In the initial stages of the war on terror, Tenet’s CIA was rising to prominence as the lead agency in the Afghanistan war. But when Tenet insisted in his personal meetings with the president that there was no connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq, Cheney and Rumsfeld initiated a secret program to re-examine the evidence and marginalize the agency and Tenet. Through interviews with DoD staffers who sifted through mountains of raw intelligence, FRONTLINE details how questionable intelligence was “stovepiped” to the vice president and presented to the public.
New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer, who wrote a book about “the dark side” of the war on terror, told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow this week about how after 9/11 Cheney “was dissatisfied with the kind of information that had been given to them from the CIA,” so he requested raw intelligence reports and “took away the filter that the CIA had had.”
Transcript: More »
Cheney: For diplomacy to work, U.S. must threaten to bomb Iran.
Cheney: For diplomacy to work, U.S. must threaten to bomb Iran.
Yesterday, former Vice President Cheney “swung quietly” through New York City to watch Liz Cheney, his daughter and a former State Department official, debate Iran policy. Continuing his long advocacy for military strikes to halt Iran’s nuclear program, Cheney said at a dinner after the debate that the only way for President Obama’s diplomacy with Iran to work is if Obama also threatens to bomb the country:
The former Vice President characterized the Iranian goal in negotiations on ending that country’s nuclear program as mere stalling for time, and the Europeans as trying to “restrain the U.S.” from military action. “Everybody’s in a giant conspiracy to achieve a different objective than the one we want to achieve,” Cheney said. The negotiations are “bound to fail unless we are perceived as very credible” in threatening military action against Iran, he said.
“If they believe the threat of military force is on the table that’s frankly the only thing I’ve seen that convinces them they’d better get serious about sanctions,” Liz Cheney said during her debate.
Liz Cheney Claims Waterboading Isn’t Torture Because Similar Tactics Were Used In SERE Training
Liz Cheney Claims Waterboading Isn’t Torture Because Similar Tactics Were Used In SERE Training
On MSNBC this afternoon, former State Department official Liz Cheney, who is the daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, defended the infamous Bush-era torture memos that were recently released by the Obama administration. “The tactics are not torture, we did not torture,” said Cheney.
To support her claim that the brutal techniques, such as waterboarding, that were authorized by the memos are not torture, Cheney invoked the common conservative argument that the techniques were derived from special forces training called Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Evasion (SERE):
O’DONNELL: Well Liz, we’ll get to that argument in a minute, about whether the means justify the ends, whether torture justifies itself…
CHENEY: Well, it wasn’t torture, so that’s not the right way to lay out the argument.
O’DONNELL: Ok.
CHENEY: Everything that was done in this program, as has been laid out and described before, are tactics that our own people go through in SERE training.
Later in the interview, Cheney insisted that “We did not torture our own people. These techniques are not torture.” Watch it:
As Media Matters noted when Fox News’ Jim Angle pushed the same argument, the Bush Justice Department acknowledged in one of the torture memos that waterboarding detainees is “a very different situation” from what went on in SERE training:
Individuals undergoing SERE training are obviously in a very different situation from detainees undergoing interrogation; SERE trainees know it is part of a training program, not a real-life interrogation regime, they presumably know it will last only a short time, and they presumably have assurances that they will not be significantly harmed by the training.
On Monday, Time’s Michael Scherer and Bobby Ghosh noted that a CIA inspector general report had found that the waterboarding used on detainees “was significantly different from that used in the SERE program“:
However, the IG investigation found that the waterboarding technique used on the CIA’s detainees was significantly different from that used in the SERE program: most notably, the Agency’s interrogators used much larger volumes of water.
The IG also cites the CIA’s Office of Medical Services (OMS) in saying that the “the expertise of the SERE psychologists/interrogators … was probably misrepresented.” The IG concluded: “Consequently, according to OMS, there was no a priori reason to believe that applying the waterboard with the frequency and intensity with which it was used … was either efficacious or medically safe.” In fact, the IG report also hints that the CIA didn’t consult the OMS on waterboarding until quite late: “OMS was neither consulted nor involved in the initial analysis of the risk and benefits of [enhanced interrogation techniques].”
Finally, there is no credible way that Cheney can claim that trainees undergoing waterboarding during SERE training had it applied to them with “the frequency and intensity with which it was used” on detainees. As Marcy Wheeler pointed out, one of the released memos revealed that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 and Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002.
Transcript: More »
Liz Cheney: On ‘The Really Important Issues,’ McCain Is ‘Advocating’ The Same Policies As Bush And My Dad
Liz Cheney: On ‘The Really Important Issues,’ McCain Is ‘Advocating’ The Same Policies As Bush And My Dad
In a speech earlier this month, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) attempted to bat down the idea that he is “running for President Bush’s third term” by calling it a “false” notion. “I disagreed strongly with the Bush administration” on Iraq, McCain claimed.
But conservatives continue to undermine his efforts by acknowledging that McCain’s policy proposals mirror the policies of the Bush administration.
On MSNBC today, Andrea Mitchell asked Liz Cheney, a former State Department official who is also the daughter of Vice President Cheney, about McCain’s efforts to separate himself from Bush. “It’s not surprising to see the distancing going on,” replied Cheney. But, she added, “on the really important issues” McCain is advocating for policies that Bush and Cheney supporters “believe are the right ones”:
CHENEY: At the same time, I think on the really important issues that face the country, on issues like the war on terror and the economy, Senator McCain in fact is advocating those policies that those of us who supported President Bush and the Vice President believe are the right ones for this nation.
Watch it:
Cheney’s comments reflect how McCain himself has described his ideological relationship to the Bush administration. Though they have disagreed on select issues, McCain told Tim Russert in 2005 that he is “totally in agreement” with Bush “on the transcendent issues, the most important issues“:
RUSSERT: The fact is you are different than George Bush.
SEN. McCAIN: No. No. I–the fact is that I’m different but the fact is that I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I’ve been totally in agreement and support of President Bush.
As for Liz’s dad, McCain may be critical of him now, but in 2006 he said that he would consider having Cheney serve in his administration because they “have the same strengths.”
Transcript: More »
Like Father, Like Daughter: Elizabeth Cheney Threatens ‘Military Action’ Against Iran
Like Father, Like Daughter: Elizabeth Cheney Threatens ‘Military Action’ Against Iran
The Washington Post notes today that Liz Cheney, daughter of Vice President Cheney and a former State Department official, is “unhappy with key elements of U.S. Mideast policy.” “[W]e have been less effective and less successful…when we have been unfortunately not so bold,” she said of the Bush administration in remarks to AIPAC last week.
Liz Cheney encouraged the U.S. to draw more “red lines” in the Middle East, adopting an even harder-line than the Bush administration on key policies. When it came to Iran, however, Liz Cheney, seemed to be in full agreement with at least one administration official: her father. In her remarks, Cheney said the “time for diplomacy” with Iran is “rapidly coming to an end“:
Over the years, she said, there has been “no shortage of efforts to talk to them” — but to no avail: “We don’t have the luxury to have the debate we have been having about should we talk, should we not talk. The time for diplomacy here is rapidly coming to an end.“
Left unmentioned in the Post’s story is that Liz Cheney also said the U.S. also needs to threaten Iran with “military action.” The Asia Times reports:
[Liz Cheney] deplored…the Bush administration’s failure to enforce “red lines” against Iranian advances in the region. Washington, she declared, must clearly state that if Iranians “don’t give up diplomatically [to United Nations demands that it freeze its nuclear program], they will face military action“.
At AIPAC, Liz Cheney also “made clear her view that the recent efforts by Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal are taking resources away from dealing with Iran,” the Post notes.
Indeed, as Dan Froomkin noted in April, Vice President Cheney has been on the “warpath” with Iran recently, drumming up the threat coming from the country. In fact, Gareth Porter reported last week that “Pentagon officials firmly opposed a proposal by Vice President Dick Cheney last summer for airstrikes against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.”
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