Remember last week when Chip Reid and Rick Klein were getting the vapors about Gibbs ripping into Cheney and Limbaugh at the daily presser? And then remember how we were told it was a terrible gaffe and all that? About that:
Congressional Republicans are telling Dick Cheney to go back to his undisclosed location and leave them alone to rebuild the Republican Party without his input.
Displeased with the former vice-president’s recent media appearances, Republican lawmakers say he’s hurting GOP efforts to reinvent itself after back-to-back electoral drubbings.
The veep, who showed a penchant for secrecy during eight years in the White House,has popped up in media interviews to defend the Bush-Cheney record while suggesting that the country is not as safe under President Obama.
The story then goes on to list a number of Republicans who are basically telling the former Vice President to shut up and Cheney himself. And the really awesome part of all this? Unlike Rush Limbaugh, Cheney won’t be getting any apologies from the congressmen.
Bulworth
But…but…he’s a former Vice President of the United States…
I’m sure this is good news for Republicans.
Donna
Incredible that they can tell Cheney to piss off but can’t do that (and make it stick) with the bloated drug addict. Jelly fish have more backbone.
Dennis-SGMM
They just don’t want people reminded of just which party hung a "Kick Me" sign on the American economy.
NutellaonToast
I kinda wish they WOULD apologize. It’s better when they do.
Zifnab
@Donna: Jellyfish have higher approval ratings. Let’s face it, Rush didn’t put us into two wars, a recession, and a health care crisis. You don’t blame the cheerleaders when the football team fucks up, especially if you want to get laid.
Ash Can
@Donna: I guess the difference between Cheney and Limbaugh is that Cheney’s out of office.
NonyNony
Wait – who’s reinventing what now?
I’d find this statement more credible if any Republican lawmaker could point to something that the GOP has done to "reinvent" itself.
Dennis-SGMM
@Zifnab:
I vehemently protest the introduction of the words "get laid" in any thread having to do with Cheney – or Limbaugh.
The Moar You Know
@NonyNony: They’re crazier than they used to be. Doesn’t that count?
cleek
the GOP is all about the Twittering Teabaggers of Galt, these days. git wit it!
Bubblegum Tate
@NonyNony:
Helllooooooooo! Black person ostensibly heading the party!
Also, they’re taking the exact opposite position on the role of the minority party than they were during the Bush years. That counts, right?
demkat620
But I thought Dick Cheney was the only thing standing between us and certain death.
No?
Rosali
I guess Cheney would take a vacation if he could but fear of war crimes tribunals are keeping him home.
AkaDad
To mend fences, Cheney has invited them all to go on a hunting expedition.
dmsilev
Republicans fear Limbaugh more than Cheney. Amazing.
I guess Dick needs to shoot another friend in the face to remind all of the GOP lawmakers just who they’re dealing with.
-dms
guest omen
did you see prof. turley on rachel maddow? he pointed out it was idiotic of cheney to needle obama when obama is in the position to prosecute cheney for authorizing torture.
ET
I wonder what makes them think Cheney gives a rats ass what they think on him and his actions. He knows they spent 8 years letting him get aways with his level of crazy and now they want him to shut up and go away? Please. Shutting the barn door after all the animals escaped.
NonyNony
@The Moar You Know:
No. Choosing to roll naked in the feces instead of dancing barefoot in it doesn’t count as "reinvention".
@cleek:
Spouting faux-Libertarian cliches in 140 characters or less isn’t anything new for the GOP either. Around here we call them "bumper stickers" and they are about as useful to the political discourse as Twitter seems to be. (Perhaps moreso, because they can cover up rust spots in a pinch).
Joshua Norton
Hey, remember Dick Cheney? Well, they really wish you wouldn’t.
Of course, if they really want him to FOAD, they can do it themselves. Just sneak up behind him and yell “Boo!”, real loud. That pacemaker of his will fall apart like Newt’s first marriage.
Punchy
Penchant, eh? Really? And pedophiles have penchants for young’ins, gay men have penchants for male partners, and Jenna Jamison has a penchant for taking her clothes off.
Uh huh.
John PM
@guest omen: #15
Perhaps that is the method in Cheney’s madness. Get out now and criticize Obama, and then when the DOJ arrests Cheney for war crimes, claim the entire prosecution is political.
As an aside, I keep thinking about when Obama should prosecute Cheney, et al for their various war crimes. From a purely political point of view, I would want to wait until after being re-elected in 2012. Obama would not be able to run again and would have nothing political per se to gain by a prosecution. Of course, that assumes re-election is more likely than not, which is unknown at this point. Or perhaps in early 2011, after the next round of Congressional elections. If the Democrats pick up seats for the third straight election, then it would be hard for Republicans to argue rationally against prosecutions. Again, this is a political calculation, and subject to assumptions that the Democrats are still doing well. Obviously, the ideal would be ASAP, but this does not necessarily mean tomorrow. The DOJ needs to make certain it has an air-tight case before bringing charges. Cheney being acquitted because the case was not properly prepared would be a tragedy.
geg6
Watching that piece of shite running around ginning up a buncha "fear the brown people and especially the brown one in charge!" garbage makes me want to puke. And it makes me want to puke even more when I think that the only reason he’s doing it is because he knows he’s gonna get hauled in front of some tribunal somewhere (hopefully the Hague) and have to answer for his war crimes. He’s just trying to set some sort of narrative that any questioning, let alone prosecution, of his crimes against humanity is part and parcel of the left wing commie Islamo facist conspiracy that left poor Scooter with a conviction on his record.
I can’t even joke about this asshole, he makes me so angry. I’m not a violent person, but I could rip this creep limb from limb with my bare hands. I’ve never hated a human being the way I hate him. Seriously.
Dennis-SGMM
@John PM:
Your argument about the timing makes some sense. OTOH, by 2012 Cheney may be well into his beatification and on the way to joining St. Ronnie in the pantheon.
John PM
@Dennis-SGMM: #22
Very true, which is why after much thought the best option is ASAP, with a strong case.
gbear
Cheney will keep yammering on cable TV all the way thru the 2010 election cycle. When the republicans loose another boatload of seats in the house and senate, the remaining republicans will quietly push to bring him up on charges. Or else take him hunting.
Sasha
Unless Rush tells them to.
AnneLaurie
Bingo! Well, except I also suspect there’s an element of "Exactly how far can the Old Hands at Langley push the New Guy in the Oval Office before he pulls their get-out-of-jail-free cards?" The far-right black-ops-are-us branch of the National Security Statists have had a 40-year run where every Rethuglican administration has given them more freedom to do whateverthehelltheywanted, and the few Democratic administrations have been treated as temporary annoyances to be destroyed when they couldn’t be ignored. Sick old Darth Cheney, from his new lair just downwind of Langley, is being tested as the public face of the "Don’t fvck with us, we’re the REAL Guvmint in Perpetuity" CIA/NSA/Vaterland-Security squadrons. And the fact that they’re reduced to using Lord Dick Voldemort as their spokesmonster gives me some glimmer of hope that President Obama is sufficiently
new to the Gamescandal-free that they don’t have anything stronger threats to use…gbear
OT but fitting with the always loud always wrong meme:
The jerk who dissed the Canadian Army and then had to apologize for it sends out a really stupid twitter.
MattF
Chaney is angling for the "Prince of Darkness" title– what with the retirement of Novak. I can’t decide, though, what Circle of Hell Chaney belongs in. Maybe he’ll end up dividing his time among a few different ones.
geg6
Completely OT, but is anyone distracted by the PJTV ad at the top of the page soliciting subscriptions the way I am?
I keep seeing it out of the corner of my eye as saying:
Subscribe now! For a little ass/month.
It keeps creeping me out.
Carry on.
Dr.BDH
"…past leaders should not be seeking the spotlight at a time when the party is rebuilding and redefining itself…"
They might want to include present leaders, too.
Grey
Remind me again why this matters? We’ve got far bigger issues than Limbaugh or Cheney. Cheney is no longer a factor in the game.
Let’s worry about REAL issues, not Cheney and his ilk.
spot check billy
As Jon Stewart pointed out, Dick Cheney has about the same approval ratings as torture. Although in fairness to torture, its association with Cheney may be driving its numbers down.
PaminBB
The GOP just needs to pay Dick a lot of money to STFU and then he’ll go away. Let’s send him somewhere remote – Mars comes to mind.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Grey: Let’s worry about REAL issues, not Cheney and his ilk.
I sort of agree, but part of winding down the ruinous wars we’re in is prosecuting the war criminals who got us there, so as to avoid this happening again.
Zifnab
@guest omen:
Not idiotic at all. Get yourself loud and proud as a political pundit. Then, should the hammer drop, you can scream, "Political prosecution!" that much louder since you’re still, technically, politically relevant.
Of course, if Dick Cheney went the way of Tom DeLay,
Vagina CoastguardDick Army, and Trent Lott on the short road to political irrelevance, I wouldn’t mind in the least.MikeJ
Spielberg and Truffaut showed us that much space travel originates at Cheney’s Tower, Wyoming.
Original Lee
I was trying to guess the target from your post title.
I thought at first you meant Dagan McDowell (cf. Crooks and Liars post that I linked to earlier.
Because Cheney isn’t loud. That’s Limbaugh. Cheney always presents himself on-camera as the soft-spoken, reasonable, "I know more than you do but dasn’t give examples" guy. I suspect that in a corner of his dark, shriveled little soul, he secretly would love to be cast as a James Bond villain.
Since his usual MO is to shiv people in the back with off-the-record rumor-mongering, I was surprised to see him try to exercise his mojo on national TV and pleased that he spilled his bucketful of fail all over the studio.
Mnemosyne
@John PM:
That’s the plan. Hey, they managed to completely poison the idea of impeaching a president by bringing Clinton to trial over a blowjob, so I’m sure they’re planning to try the same thing with Cheney and his war crimes.
binzinerator
@geg6:
I understand. It is his smugness and arrogance combined with the calculatedness of his evil that does it for me.
His actions alone involving state-sponsored torture — the needless sadism, the arbitrary use of power, and the concealing of both the existence of the torture and its uselessness — is something that any sane person ought to hate him for. And then there is the little matter of the manufacture of a casus belli for the invasion of Iraq. There are literally a million reasons to hate him — one for each dead Iraqi civilian.
Either Cheney was willing to kill a million men, women and children to prove himself wrong, or he was willing to kill them for what was theirs.
The man was the architect of atrocities. He is with very little doubt responsible for war crimes. I only hope one day I see that sick monster swing from the end of a rope, as he so richly deserves.
Cpl. Cam
Anyone who honestly believes that any of these Bush flunkeys will ever be tried let alone prosecuted for their many crimes is terminally naive. As someone much smarter than I once said there is only one party in this country and it has two right wings.
jake 4 that 1
@Sasha: Beat me to it.
I agree with those who say we need more Cheney. Lots of him. Along with clips of all the schmucks are now shouting "Get thee behind me!" kissing his big bloated ass.
Not that much bigger. Those fuckers are immense.
After flat out in your face over the top trolling, this has got to be my least favorite type of post. "Waah, stop talkin’ about X, we need to talk about Y!"
No. Now what?
Dennis-SGMM
@geg6:
They’d have to pay me a lot more than five bucks a month to watch Pajamas TV.
Zifnab
@jake 4 that 1:
But why isn’t Bush getting more press? Oh George! Oh George! Now, in the hour of our discontent, the nation calls out to you loudest of all! Save us oh great former President. Lend us your words of wisdom and your strength of virtue! *sob* *tear at hair* *cry*
passerby
Cheney must have quite a set of stones on him to be out stirring shit up for Obama when, with the stroke of a pen, Obama could subpoena his ass for authorizing torture. He clearly violated an assortment of laws both American and International. The galactic gall of this man.
jake 4 that 1
@Zifnab: Dubya’s hard at work on his book about all the hard decideration he had to do while he was presidentialing. Heh.
Seriously, George is done and he knows it. Cheney’s doing what he has been for the past four decades: Laying ground for the next Republican president. I wouldn’t be suprised if that walking goiter is still at it four decades from now. So long as he can get a steady supply of newborns’ blood he’ll be good.
DRD 1812
Cheney does not expect to be tried in any way for his crimes, and neither do I. He is chasing media airtime because he and his little pal Dumbya both want to change their legacy from the one we expect it to be — the story of the hapless nitwit failure of a president and his sinister sidekick, Wormtongue — to the one they expect it to be — the story of two noble warriors who Made America Safe. They earnestly believe they will be vindicated by history. Knowing that the nation currently hates their sorry asses doesn’t feel very good, so both are out feeding their egos and hoping to steer the conversation to their version of events before the world forgets they exist.
binzinerator
@Grey:
Torture, war crimes — how are these not real issues? How is the abuse of power on the scale that Cheney abused power not an issue? These crimes and abuses, unexamined and ignored, are going to have as great a long-term impact on the future of this nation as the current financial crisis will.
What Cheney did is as real an issue as what AIG did. The economy ain’t the only problem threatening the long-term viability of this nation.
There are a herd of elephants trashing the parlor (which the gop helped put in there, natch) and you’re eager we pretend there’s only one of them.
"Let’s only focus on the economy" That’s the current gooper bullshit being slung around because they want people to ignore the huge pile of shit they dumped on America.
And God forbid we turn our attention to preventing torture, or imprisonment without due process, or prevent a future president from grabbing power, or a vice-president being held accountible for going rogue, or the corruption at the DOJ, or what the hell that we actually fix our broken health care system and every person in this country finds themselves covered.
Yep, having tunnel vision on the economy right now is exactly what the goopers want.
It blows my mind: the GOP are like bunch of psychos who broke into a house, slaughtered everyone on the first floor, tortured a man in the basement and left shackled him to a wall, raped the girl upstairs, stole the money out of the wall safe, and then set fire to the house and are now outside the house in front of a crowd of neighbors, police and fire department, yelling at everyone the only thing we should be concerned about is the fire.
geg6
Binzinerator, you say it better than I possibly could. Exactly.
jcricket
No Mr. Obama…. I expect you to die. Mwahahahahahaha!
Seriously, Cheney should go on Limbaugh or Morning Joe and keep spouting off his mouth. Bring Bush along while we’re at it. Nothing could be better than having the most hated political figures in recent memory continue to dominate the headlines as titular leaders of the GOP.
The key thing for Obama and his allies is to not back down. Don’t need to push the points any further, but backing down from the GOP fury is exactly the wrong move. We’ve already seen, needling them even a little provokes an insane reaction which pays positive dividends for Democrats (i.e. the GOP says crazy shit, driving even more independents from their party).
Robert Sneddon
Vice-President Cheney goes on TV and bad-mouths President Obama. The Justice Department coincidentally announces they are releasing more legal opinion memos from the Bush-Cheney administration involving torture and abuse of prisoners. VP Cheney either gets the message and shuts up or more memos get released, maybe about wiretapping or energy policy this time.
Chicago rules are now in play.