So tired of Dick:
KARL: And you think that’s a good thing? I mean, is it time to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military?
CHENEY: Well, I think the society has moved on. I think it’s partly a generational question. I say I’m reluctant to second-guess the military in this regard because they’re the ones who have got to make the judgment about how these policies affect the military capability of our, of our units. And that first requirement that you have to look at all the time is whether they’re still capable of achieving their mission and does the policy change i.e. putting gays in the force, affect their ability to perform their mission. When the chiefs come forward and say we think we can do it, then it strikes me that it’s time to reconsider the policy. And I think Admiral Mullen’s said that.
Don’t be fooled. Cheney sees the writing on the wall, and this is a win/win/win position for him, not a moral conviction. He gets to be on the right side of history (Even Dick Cheney supported gays in the military!), he gets to look prescient (because DADT is going to go down), and most of all, the Democrats are going to be the ones to do it, so Cheney doesn’t have to piss of his base and the GOP can still continue to demagogue against homosexuals. As we speak, somewhere, GOP operatives are figuring out how to best use a repeal of DADT against the Democrats.
If Dick Cheney really cared about homosexuals, they would have done something during the last eight years to stop the discharge of qualified persons while we fought two wars. If Dick Cheney actually cared, he would have spoken up and resigned in outrage as his administration led the assault on homosexuals with the FMA. And yes, I know his daughter is a lesbian.
*** Update ***
Yes- I am fully aware that idiots who presumably call themselves left-wingers are, as we speak, saying this makes Cheney better on gay issues than Democrats. I’m just pretending they don’t exist.
General Winfield Stuck
Dick Cheney’s penthouse apartment in Hell is fully furnished and decorated with the eleventy thousand souls he liberated from life. He signed a long term lease with the first eternity free. The devil won’t mind if he brings his friends along, as long as it’s sooner rather than later.
neill
God damn Dick Cheney’s shit-filled soul to hell.
RSA
Right, because generational and societal changes happen on an annual basis, say, from late January, 2008, to early February, 2009.
Max
Biden did a good job on MTP this morning, especially going after Cheney. You know Joey B just wants to say “fuck a Dick Cheney”.
Linky here. Sorry for it being HuffPo.
Woodbuster
What neill said. Squared.
Incertus
Dick Cheney is the kind of guy who makes me wish I believed in hell. But the really fucked up thing is that Cheney didn’t even have to give a shit about gays in order to support the repeal of DADT. He just had to give a shit about national defense, because there’s no way it helped the military to kick out gay members who wanted to serve and who were in important positions, notably as translators and language experts. But no–holding on to the gay-hating voters was more important.
NobodySpecial
If you’ve ever read his wife’s book, you’d wonder about her, too. Maybe Dick’s superpower is the ability to make women he comes into contact with gay.
General Winfield Stuck
@neill: LOL, I started to proffer your patented Cheney response, but figured you’d drop by with it in person. Says it all.
gopher2b
Didn’t he come out in favor of gay marriage while he was VP?
John Quixote
I hope Dick enjoys his eternity in Purgatory.
Max
Americablog is saying that this shows that Republicans are stronger on DADT repeal than Obama.
We really are living in bizarro world.
MagicPanda
Dick Cheney is an asshole — No, that’s not strong enough. He might actually be the devil — but I think his feelings about gay rights are genuine. He didn’t fight that battle when he was in power because it wasn’t something he could win in his own party. Just because you believe in something doesn’t mean you have to fight every battle.
Libby
I am so sick of Dick on my teevee. Don’t give a flying leap what the sorry bastid thinks. All I want to know is why our lame-brained media keeps giving this disgrace to the human species a microphone.
Cat Lady
Sunday morning TV is a cesspool of lying scumbags and ignorant hacks. It’s like pig wrestling – watching it makes you feel dirty and they like it.
Chyron HR
“I say I’m reluctant to second-guess the military in this regard, but I really do think you can occupy an entire city with five soldiers and a rusty spoon. So get on it, fuckers.”
Sentient Puddle
@gopher2b: He did in the most non-committal way possible, trying to fly under the radar and avoiding it as much as possible due to everyone going “Well what about Dick’s opinion? His daughter is a lesbian, after all.”
John Quixote
@Max:
I would go check it out myself, but I don’t want to develop brain cancer. Yes, the GOP is stronger on DADT, while they whine and whine on how gay sex is teh icky?
Avarosis is smoking some heavy, heavy shit.
gbear
@Max:
That statement shows why Americablog has become one of the most dispensable blogs around.
It is really going to be difficult to contain my glee on the day that Dick Cheney makes the transition to worm food.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Max: One thing about the ‘wingers, they never run out of useful idiots, either in the media or on the left. (or should I say “left”? Wasn’t Avarosis an I’ve-got-mine-fuck-you Log Cabiner until not so long ago?)
JenJen
This. It’s the part so many never seem to be able to see.
Robertdsc-iphone
He differed from Dubya when the subject was mentioned but he was not very vocal about it.
Speaking of Joe the Biden, sometimes I wish he’d go down to his old stomping grounds in the Senate & knock some heads around. “Bitch, don’t pull that filibuster crap on me. I know how shit works. Now pull your holds and let’s fucking vote!”
Zach
Cheney’s been on the right side of this for a long time. There are any number of things that he’s guilty of, but idiocy on gay rights generally isn’t one of them. He was pretty mum on the gay bashing shit in the ’04 elections, too. Obviously it would’ve been more courageous of him to stand up against Bush in this regard, but I think his actions were reasonable. Here’s Cheney at the 2004 VP debate:
He comes out against his ticket’s platform (seeking a constitutional amendment). Dunno what more we could’ve expected.
FYI, two days ago was the 4th anniversary of Dick Cheney shooting a man in the face.
fraught
@John Quixote: Purgatory is too good for this guy. He can get out after only a couple of hundred billion years and, purged, go to heaven for the rest of eternity. No way I’m for that.
Mnemosyne
@Max:
I thought the new firebagger meme was that Obama is only repealing DADT so he’ll have more cannon fodder for his war in Afghanistan. sparky showed up with that one the other day.
Plus it’s pretty funny to see people who scream “just words!” at Obama getting all excited when a guy who could have actually done something for the 8 years while he was in power finally says a few pretty words once he’s out of office.
MikeBoyScout
Dick Cheney’s long standing public position regarding the unjustified homophobic persecution of gays in the United States Armed Forces is a telling indicator of his psychopathy.
Dick Cheney has always been willing to defame and demean and show contempt for his own family regarding homosexuality.
His position on DADT goes well beyond hypocrisy.
And to think, Dick Cheney has occupied senior positions in our government for over 30 years.
I live for the day when Dick Cheney sits in the dock at the Hauge.
gopher2b
That’s one approach, I guess.
There are a lot of things wrong with Cheney but his position on gay rights isn’t one of them. He’s deferring to the military because that is the best argument. GOP will not stand up to the military but they will fight like hell (and probably win) any other argument.
General Winfield Stuck
LOL, I used to try that when GWB was president, but every morning, there he was again on my teevee.
Dr. Squid
@John Quixote:
It must be that strain of cannabis that turns one into a hack.
John Quixote
@fraught: Like St. Peter would let him in.
“HHmmm. I seems your paperwork is not in order. Sorry, Dick. You have to go back. Sucks to be you, huh?”
John Quixote
@Dr. Squid: I’m pretty sure Avarosis freebases cocaine. Only a coke fiend could come up with that kind of logic.
Silver Owl
Cheney stood against his own daughter and stood with the most rabid of people who go out of their way to treat her less than a human being for his own ego. He sucks as a father and on gay issues.
I will be glad when he no longer on TV.
Max
@Silver Owl: Mary allowed it to happen.
I found the segment on her in the movie “Outrage” fascinating.
JGabriel
Dick Cheney:
And by units, he means “penii”.
.
gbear
It was just a cruel irony that he happened to hang with a crowd that wanted to strip away gay rights. It was just an innocent oversight that he didn’t actually do shit for gay rights when he was the most underhandedly powerful fuck in America.
Incertus
@Max: Not just allowed it to happen–she supports the party that seeks to continue the denial of her rights.
cat
@Max:
Absolutely the GOP is stronger against DADT. I could tell that during the Hearings. McCain and Sessions are strong against repealing it as well as Kyle who is on my TV saying he takes his lead from McCain. In case America Blog hasn’t noticed, Cheney is OUT OF POWER NOW.
I would certainly want the Repugs fighting for me–NOT.
Svensker
@MagicPanda:
I believe you are completely correct. He didn’t/doesn’t have a problem with gay marriage or gays in the military (particularly with his daughter’s orientation and I suspect his wife’s), but he wouldn’t rock the GOP boat when the more important thing was to get those wars started. Now that it’s Obama’s boat, it’s fine with Dick.
fraught
@John Quixote: I would really like it if this thread turned into a “John Aravosis is a rectum-brain” forum. I’ve been banned from commenting over there four times for voicing only slight disagreement with him over the hysterical overreactions to everything Obama says among his ten regular ranters who are allowed to comment. You’ll notice BJ gets about 20 times as many comments on every posting as Aravosis does and that’s because he’s very fascist about allowing free expression of any opposing ideas. It’s like a steel cage of oppressed rage over there. Creepy.
cat
@MagicPanda:
Maybe someday your standards will apply to the current president, too, not just previous ones.
ppcli
Standard Rebublican stuff: demagogue everything in sight, but make a special exception for those things that directly touch you or your family. How is Cheney supposed to get points for that? Quite the opposite, it is to his eternal shame that he would stand mutely by as members of his party gained political points by describing people like his own daughter as nothing but sin-drenched child molesting aids-generators. Sure, whenever he was put on the spot and forced to state a position he would quietly demur and then quickly change the subject. Sorry – not nearly enough.
Annie
“I say I’m reluctant to second-guess the military in this regard because they’re the ones who have got to make the judgment about how these policies affect the military capability of our, of our units…”
What a hypocrite. Leading up to and during the Iraq war, Cheney was quite willing and able to “second-guess” the military in order to get his way. He did not care about how his policies affected military capability, units, or individual soldiers.
Now, all of a sudden, he doesn’t want to “second-guess” the military, and he makes it sound as if this position is out of respect for its leadership and a matter of principle.
kay
I don’t even think the position is brave, because it’s personal.
Is it okay that the Cheney’s (ostensibly) and occasionally lend sort of muted support to equality?
Well, yeah. But why does it have to impact them personally before they get there? Why does it have to be their daughter? Couldn’t they read something, talk to someone, look around? Does bigotry have to enter their living room before they get it?
It’s a failure of imagination, and empathy. It’s akin to the GOP House member who had to take a cruise to see the effects of climate change before he was open to the fact that it might be occurring. He came back and announced he saw it. Well, no shit. He couldn’t look at photos? Read something?
We don’t have time for every single conservative to feel the negative effects of every single conservative position, personally, before they can be dragged, kicking and screaming, towards progress.
It takes too long.
Gay Veteran
Is repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the proposed Pentagon budget?
Or is Obama going to screw over yet another part of the Democratic Party?
Until DADT is actually repealed you need to remember the immortal words of Harvey Keitel as Winston Wolf in Pulp Fiction: “Well, let’s not start sucking each other’s dix quite yet.”
gopher2b
@gbear:
The same can be said for every politician in this country that holds a national office whether it is in the House, Senate, or WH.
He never could have turned the GOP from this position. If he had tried, they would have booted him. Maybe you think Cheney should have abandoned his party over this issue but that’s pretty naive.
I’m not saying he deserves any credit for moving gay rights along. He doesn’t. However, it pretty cynical to say his sole motivation for taking this position now is to be on the right side of history when his positions on gay rights have been fairly consistent for at least a decade (maybe longer).
Gay Veteran
Dick Cheney remains a free man. This is a deeply immoral country and it has little to do with genitalia.
gbear
@gopher2b:
Actually it’s not a cynical position at all, given that he was willing to see people’s careers destroyed in order to maintain a convenient political stance. He didn’t come close to taking an actual stand for what he professed to believe in.
Max
@Incertus: True. Some serious self-loathing with that one.
As a straight person, I totally recommend “Outrage”. I found the whole documentary compelling. But, I’d like to hear the views of the LGBT community on it.
AhabTRuler
Any time that Dick Cheney opines on a subject, one should point out that we cannot trust his answers unless we apply “enhanced interrogation procedures”. It’s the only way to be sure.
kay
@gopher2b:
Here’s his statement on gay marriage.
“I think that freedom means freedom for everyone,” replied the former V.P. “As many of you know, one of my daughters is gay and it is something we have lived with for a long time in our family. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish. The question of whether or not there ought to be a federal statute to protect this, I don’t support. I do believe that the historically the way marriage has been regulated is at the state level. It has always been a state issue and I think that is the way it ought to be handled, on a state-by-state basis. … But I don’t have any problem with that. People ought to get a shot at that.”
Unless the Cheney family is at issue, it’s unimportant.
It’s an interesting take on civil rights, I must say. I suppose he’ll change his position on holding people without charges if his wife gets picked up, but I don’t really think I should have to rely on the personal experiences of the Cheney family to guide US law.
eemom
who the fuck cares what Dick Cheney thinks about ANYTHING?
hell or no hell, I look forward to the day when his fetid carcass departs this earth. That will be cause for celebration, and there will be no qualms on my part about speaking ill of the dead or any shred of sympathy for his bereaved family of she-devils.
gopher2b
@kay:
If you say so, but I think that’s a bit dramatic. Another interpretation is that he was trying to humanize his position to a hostile crowd.
If you want to focus on great moments in cynicism. I would go with this. Thanking Bush for (sort of) fixing a war he started is pretty rich stuff.
kay
@gopher2b:
It’s self-interest. He doesn’t even bother to ground his opinion in law, as you read in that statement, because that doesn’t matter, unless he indeed does not know Loving exists. He’s too chicken to buck the Federalist Society, so he pretends we don’t have any federal law on marriage.
What matters is him and his.
It’s the Right Thing to Do because Dick Cheney says so.
Funny how that works. Conservatives get hurt, personally, and I’m supposed to cheer their conversion.
No thanks. I don’t give a whole lot of credit for that. Would that he would extend this tolerance to someone else.
Fat. Chance.
Mothra
Yes, it has to impact them [conservatives] personally. This is one of their defining characteristics. They have no ability to put themselves in someone else’s shoes. Dick does not believe this out of any sort of human decency, I’ve never seen him show that once in his political career. This impacts him personally, so he gets it.
Sanka
Wait! You mean politicians are self-absorbed narcissists? Only looking to cover their arses?
Whodathunk?
Mnemosyne
@Sanka:
Not these people, obviously. But I guess it was okay since it was a white president, right?
Mark
gayveteran: “Is repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the proposed Pentagon budget? Or is Obama going to screw over yet another part of the Democratic Party?”
Gay people have been telling me for at least two years that Obama’s an anti-gay bigot. More gay people voted for McCain and Palin than in any previous election. People tell me today that Cheney is better on gay rights than the Democrats.
Obama can’t win. If he doesn’t repeal DADT, he’s a bigot who’s to the right of Republicans; if he does, he’s still a bigot who’s to the right of the Republicans.
I gotta say: DADT is a terrible policy. But it affects 60,000 people. Our piece of shit health insurance scam hurts at least 60 million people. After all the rhetoric about Obama being a bigot and McCain/Palin/Cheney being better than him, I think he should pass a solution to the issue that affects 1000 times as many people first.
Yutsano
@Mark:
At what point do I bother to mention Obama CAN’T just repeal DADT? It was an act of Congress that created this situation (that Clinton signed, not his best day) which means that an act of Congress is necessary to repeal it. All that Obama can do (and it looks like he’s taken steps in this direction) is not enforce the law. The repeal is in Congress right now. I don’t see much more that Obama can do on this issue. And I say that with someone with skin in the game.
MikeBoyScout
Sunday, February 14, 2010 ‘This Week’ Transcript: Former Vice President Dick Cheney
World: “Holder? Holder? Holder?”
USA: “Um, he’s sick. My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who saw the Attorney General pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it’s pretty serious.”
MikeBoyScout
Sunday, February 14, 2010 ‘This Week’ Transcript: Former Vice President Dick Cheney
World: “Holder? Holder? Holder?”
USA: “Um, he’s sick. My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who saw the Attorney General pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it’s pretty serious.”
Zach
@gbear:
Joe Biden has thought for several years that the only workable solution in Iraq is partitioning it into three countries. He thinks, literally, that doing otherwise will lead to unnecessary death. Yet, he does not vocally oppose Obama’s war plans and, in fact, helps implement them.
You sacrifice some capacity to make decisions and speak out when you accept the Vice Presidency in order to have your voice heard within the administration. Cheney notably exploited this private influence to an unprecedented level to accomplish a number of evil things. Biden’s countering common wisdom on Iraq behind closed doors, and I hope that Cheney took his opportunity to point out how short-sighted the gay bashing strategy was in ’02 and ’04. If he was prescient enough to do that, I hope he called everyone he made the prediction to in November ’08 and told them to look at the youth vote exit polls and the age distribution of self-identified Republican voters.
Gay Veteran
Mark: “Gay people have been telling me for at least two years that Obama’s an anti-gay bigot….”
do I think Obama is a bigot? No, just a coward.
“…Obama can’t win. If he doesn’t repeal DADT, he’s a bigot who’s to the right of Republicans; if he does, he’s still a bigot who’s to the right of the Republicans….”
wow. If DADT is repealed then Obama is to the right of the ReThugs? Is that what SOME Gay people are telling you? The fact is that Obama has done jackshit for Gays. My opinion will change if and when DADT is repealed.
“…I gotta say: DADT is a terrible policy. But it affects 60,000 people. Our piece of shit health insurance scam hurts at least 60 million people. After all the rhetoric about Obama being a bigot and McCain/Palin/Cheney being better than him, I think he should pass a solution to the issue that affects 1000 times as many people first.”
gee, we’re STILL waiting for either! And the current Senate bill should be entitled “The Insurance Companies’ Profit Protection Act of 2010”
Mark
gv: “The fact is that Obama has done jackshit for Gays.”
Total lie and you know it.
At any rate, gay support for Obama was tepid at best, and a significant number of gay people tried to say McCain, Palin and Cheney are better than Obama. No surprise the administration’s focus ended up elsewhere.
Gay Veteran
gee Mark, why don’t you tell all the great things Obama has done for Gays? shouldn’t take too long