Sometimes you just need to point and laugh (via Benen):
Senate candidate Liz Cheney improperly received a state resident fishing license based on an application with incorrect information, according to Wyoming Game and Fish Department records.
Cheney, who last month announced she will challenge Sen. Mike Enzi in the 2014 Republican primary, received her resident license just 72 days after closing on her Wilson house in May 2012. State law requires residents live in the state 365 consecutive days before they can receive a resident hunting or fishing license, which are cheaper than out-of-state licenses.
Cheney’s application also lists her as a 10-year resident of Wyoming.
The Game and Fish records are incorrect, Cheney told the Star-Tribune.
“The clerk must have made a mistake,” she said. “I never claimed to be a 10-year resident.”
Blaming the clerk is the cherry on top, because it’s obvious to everyone who isn’t paid to shill for Liz that she was trying to use that license to prove that she’s not a carpetbagger. If you think this is a nothingburger, think again: hunting and fishing are huge in Wyoming, and this will dog her until she either loses to Enzi or quits.
Something tells me Mike Enzi has a friend at Game and Fish, which is conducting an “ongoing investigation” into whether Liz is going to get a fine. Lesson one for Liz: real politics is a hell of a lot different from lying for money on Fox News.
Mark S.
Maybe, but I bet she’s so cheap she didn’t want to pay extra for an out of state license.
Linda Featheringill
Couldn’t happen to a nicer gal.
Why, oh why is she doing this to herself? Does she really think she’ll just wow everyone and walk out with more power than she came in with?
Oy.
c u n d gulag
““The clerk must have made a mistake…”
Yet another perfect example of “The Party of Personal Responsibility!”
Hey, “Daddies Little Draft Deferment,”
In Montana, ‘a river runs through it” – in Wyoming, it’s starting to look like they don’t want ‘ a river of your BS running through it.”
SRW1
You have to excuse her. Dad taught her fishing was shooting them things in a barrel.
Elizabelle
Yeah, The Washington Post gleefully reported Liz Cheney does not yet qualify for a “prized” Wyoming hunting license.
To get one, you have to reside in the state for 365 consecutive days.
Snarki, child of Loki
That Liz Cheney head is going to look really good on Enzi’s trophy wall.
Brian R.
Good. Fuck her.
Shakezula
fxd
Did she really think that a hunting/fishing license would be all it took to prove she was a realWyomingite?
mai naem
@Mark S.: I will never understand rich people running for office. The difference between the in state and out of state license was around fifty bucks. She’s probably never had a job where she’s made as little as $50/hr. Hell, she’s probably one of those $500/hr lawyers because of her daddy.
scav
shudda cut brush ‘nsteada cut bait to prove her western locality cred. Bested by Shrub. There’s a distinction.
MikeJ
@Shakezula:
Not having one would prove she isn’t.
RSA
Wyoming is the right place for this kind of carpetbagger move. By population, it’s about the same size as a medium-sized city like Albuquerque or Las Vegas, so there’s a huge bang for the buck (power gained versus election dollar spent) in getting into the Senate. Wyoming residents should be suspicious.
mistermix
@mai naem: This is absolutely not about the money – it is about proving she’s a native.
Tone In DC
I like this almost as much as I did Karl Rove’s “math” from a few years ago.
Man it’s getting hot hot hot
Man it’s getting hot
Hot around here
It’s a meltdown!
May Lizzy melt down as spectacularly as any of the foulest of the foul g00pers.
Poopyman
@scav: Speakin’ of Shrub, the Newsmax headline to the right, sez “Cardiologist: Job Stress Took Toll on Bush’s Heart”. Boo-frickin-hoo. Why doesn’t he ask Cheney if he can use one of Dick’s spares?
Poopyman
@MikeJ: Actually, the worst would be having an out of state license while trying to run for state office. Maybe she just should have skipped the hunting and fishing during the campaign.
MikeJ
What I don’t understand is why she didn’t buy a house in Wyoming years ago on the off chance she might one day run for office.
Schlemizel
OT but a historical note (I missed it yesterday) it was August 6th 12 years ago that the petulant 12 year old cowboy from Connecticut was handed a daily security briefing with the title “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US” and responded by saying “OK, you’ve covered your ass now you can go”
In the continuing downward spiral this country has been in for the last 40 years that marked a huge drop that has increased the speed of decline and deserves to be marked
gogol's wife
@Schlemizel:
Right.
Citizen_X
First version: “‘Mission Accomplished’ banner? Oh, the sailors did that, not us!”
feebog
Liz Cheney is simply borrowing from a chapter in her Father’s “Playbook for Political Cowards”. She could have taken on Mark Warner in Virginia where she actually, you know, lives, but that would have been a serious campaign against a well funded and popular incumbent. Instead, she is trying to get in through the back door by challenging Enzi from the right. Too bad it isn’t working out as planned.
JPL
@Schlemizel: There was such outrage in the country, he was impeached, except he wasn’t.
NonyNony
@RSA:
On the other hand – you saturate the airwaves VERY quickly with media buys for Wyoming and the surrounding states. There’s only so much you can buy, and so it becomes much more of a ground game. Residents expect to see the folks running for office our there – door to door campaigning by the candidates is still done because hey, it’s actually easy to meet most of the voters in the state between the time you announce and the time for the vote. Enzi has probably shaken hands with everyone who has voted for him in the past and with many people who voted against him.
Citizen_X
@Poopyman:
Pah. You know what else takes a toll on your heart? Having cluster munitions dropped on your ass, or having an IED set off under your Humvee.
Suffern ACE
@Mark S.: Yeah. That’s what I was thinking. Even without her father’s few hundred million fortune, she and her husband would be high upper middle class schmucks. So she’s too damn cheap to follow the laws of the state she hopes to represent and is unwilling to pay the fees to support her hobby.
Freeloader.
shelly
Well, Obama canceled his meeting with Putin. Maybe Cheney can go to Russia for some international face time. Look what it did for Romney.
NickT
Speaking of self-absorbed failures, this Deadspin piece on David Brooks is glorious:
http://deadspin.com/the-david-brooks-problem-1039691285
NonyNony
@MikeJ:
This is exactly what my family members in Wyoming keep asking.
They object to her swooping in on many grounds, but I think the fact that she apparently thinks that the state is full of stupid rubes who will vote for her in an election if she just throws enough money at it is the part that actually angers them.
Comrade Jake
You want to know what’s really annoying about all of this? Win or lose, Liz Cheney is still going to be a semi-regular on the Sunday political shows.
She’s an incredibly vile, angry little human being, always happy to spew all kinds of right-wing invective. And they’re happy to have her on, because she’s part of the Washington establishment, or some such nonsense. Terrible.
Mike in NC
Liz Cheney actually manages to make Sarah Palin look good.
raven
Washington (CNN) — President Barack Obama has canceled a visit to Moscow next month for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but will attend a G-20 summit in St. Petersburg, the White House announced Wednesday.
Punchy
Wait until she files for her hunting license, and is forced to list all the 10 year residents she plans to shoot in the face.
Belafon
@Citizen_X: Or waking up wondering how you are going to feed your kids.
Cluttered Mind
@NonyNony: Yeah, I think that was her biggest mistake too. Wyoming might be a really, really red state, but Enzi’s been in office for a while and hasn’t done anything to piss off his base that would warrant a challenge like this. In a state as low population as Wyoming, it wouldn’t have been that hard for him to cultivate personal relationships with key people in key positions in the state. He’s probably got friends and allies all over the place who are willing to help him out with stuff like this Game and Fish Department reveal. Cheney probably just assumed that she could drop in, outspend Enzi, and walk away with the senate seat, but given the population numbers and culture in Wyoming, what she’s doing is the equivalent of parachuting into a city she’s never lived in and assuming she should be appointed the mayor immediately. Everyone knows she’s an outsider…and worse, it’s obvious to them that she looks down on them. If it’s one thing midwesterners hate, it’s coastal elites (Liz Cheney would disagree with this label but if it ever applied to anyone, it’s her) looking down their noses at them and thinking they’re superior. Cheney’s toast.
dmbeaster
I think Liz has fished the Snake with Darth in the past, so I suspect she actually knows that she was breaking the rule for a resident fishing license.
Anyone who hunts and fishes absolutely knows the difference, particularly in a hunting and fishing destination like Wyoming.
scav
@Belafon: I’m sure you mean “Put food on your family.”
MattF
Liz needs to persuade Enzi that Wyoming needs a Vice Senator and that she’s the best person to decide who the Vice Senator should be. Or, just possibly, she’s tried that and it didn’t work.
TomG
@mai naem: I understand why rich people run for office: one reason is they are bored and seek a new challenge. (another reason is that they crave power).
But I know that if I were that well off, I’d value my privacy and free time way too much to waste my time on a run for any significant office.
NotMax
@dmbeaster
Ew.
Oh, you mean the river.
Never mind.
/Emily Litella
MattF
@NotMax: Classic comeback:
A: Oh, you have a blblical name!
B: Yeah, like my cousin, Snake.
The TIm Channel
This will put the kibosh on her friendly photo-ops fly fishing the streams in Wyoming. Enjoy.
SatanicPanic
I’m trying to imagine what kind of hobby other states would require you to participate in to show your “realness”… surfing in California? Tanning in New Jersey?
Rob in Buffalo
I am one of those manic progressives you folks like to mock and since Liz Cheney in the Senate would be one of the worst things I can imagine, I am going to assume that it will happen until it’s proven to be impossible.
It’s very slightly encouraging that so many others think she will lose but I’m not convinced yet.
dance around in your bones
I just wanted to say thank you to mistermix for apparently fixing the autofill nym etc – did some housecleaning on my computer MBAM and other scans – and after I rebooted everything looks nice and normal again. So, thanks!
mai naem
I looked up the Wyoming license stuff. She could have been out of the state for 6 months and still have maintained residency. I also heard that she had thought of running as a Rep in Va but decided it was going to be harder in Va, partly because the state’s becoming purple and that the primary was going to be tougher than Wy. I still don’t understand why, if she didn’t want to spend the money, her daddy didn’t just sign over his house to her.
Suffern ACE
@SatanicPanic: Eating Pimento Loaf in Wisconsin…
Roger Moore
@Linda Featheringill:
I’m going with “massive sense of personal entitlement”. She thinks she deserves to be a senator because of who she is, and expects that she’s going to be able to waltz in, proclaim herself a candidate, and win the election just like that.
maya
Shouldn’t she invite Don Toni on one of those guaranteed kill, cage and release hunting safaris?
Face
I had no idea that Liz Cheney has no legs.
Randy P
I demand to see the long form fishing license application!
@raven: Growing uand working in the middle of the Cold War, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to hearing St. Petersburg for Leningrad. It makes me feel like the tsars are back.
Or maybe it’s just being a curmudgeon. For me, it will also always be Washington National Airport, the Cabin John Bridge, and Hanoi.
Villago Delenda Est
My schadenfreude meter is going to need another overhall after Liz belly flops in the primary and Enzi crushes her.
She’s the vile fruit of two very poisonous trees.
Suffern ACE
@mai naem: I’m going to guess that Daddy has a few hundred acres. Carve out a 1 acre plot and put a prefab on it. This is not that hard. So not only is she a cheap freeloader, she’s either too entitled to believe that she has to even bother to bend the rules, or she’s too impulsive to plan.
Villago Delenda Est
@Randy P:
You mean Saigon, not Ho Chi Mihn City.
A friend of mine visited DC a few years back, and said that the “Reagan National Airport” sign was the most pissed on sign in DC.
SatanicPanic
@Suffern ACE: And I’ll bet it’s not easy to get a license to do that
hoodie
Her running makes no sense to me. Enzi is a longtime Wyoming businessman with deep connections across the state and already to the right of Attila the Hun. Her candidacy and the fishing license thing may be evidence that she’s simply a clueless, entitled twit who thinks being a Cheney makes her defacto royalty in Wyoming. Of course she blames the clerk; the little people are supposed to take care of details like that for her.
The Moar You Know
NICE TRY
She’s not going to be able to roll over in bed what with all the knives in her back by the time Enzi is done. These small-town states do things the small-town way; outsiders are alien invaders, it’s all about who you know, and she doesn’t know anybody. She’s going to get the shit kicked out of her, regardless of who her daddy is. Given that her daddy is one of the most hated people in the country, that may help her even less.
NonyNony
@Cluttered Mind:
Best quote from a family member – “She couldn’t even buy a house in Wyoming – she bought one in Jackson.” (Meaning Jackson Hole where “celebrities” buy summer houses).
I wouldn’t go that far yet. She’s got a big uphill climb, but while Enzi isn’t really unpopular he also isn’t particularly popular either. Which is unsurprising because he’s done fuck-all for the state in the last six years since he’s a Republican and they’re not allowed to do anything for their states. So she’s got a place to put a lever and tell people that he’s not doing enough and that she can do better if she wants to take that path. But it appears that she’s trying to attack him for doing too much rather than too little – which suggests to me that she really doesn’t understand the psychology of Wyoming at all and her experience in the state extends primarily to the people who live in the expensive houses in Jackson Hole but not the people who work in the state.
(Wyoming is one of those western states that is full of people that hate the restrictions that the Federales put on them but love the gravy that the Federales provide SO LONG AS they can kinda sorta pretend that they deserve it anyway and are just getting what they’re due because fuck yeah that’s why. Cheney needs to come in and make a lot of promises to get Wyoming a lot of stuff that Wyoming is “entitled to anyway” – preferably by making a big deal about how much Wyoming does for the country in energy and cattle and forest land but without ever providing actual numbers. She probably won’t do this – Republicans have stopped being good at doing this kind of thing when they used to be masters of it in Red states – but that’s the easiest path she has for unseating Enzi, since he’s stuck in the Tea Party vortex of do-nothingness in DC right now.)
Punchy
@Face: And wouldn’t A Real Wyomingite(TM) have both beer holders in use holding some Old Style Lites?
Yatsuno
@hoodie: I have this nagging feeling she’s doing this with her father’s blessing and also because there’s some kind of shady trick to be deployed against Enzi. Otherwise even her evil father would have to know this is a fool’s errand, regardless of his reputation in the state. There is some devil in the details here somewhere…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I figure she and Big Dick would see her election as some kind of vindication, and they want to see it before Satan calls him home. I admit I’m petty enough to be glad the plan seems to be failing.
Earl
@Brian R.:<blockquote cite="Good. Fuck her."Don’t have to lurk for long to find the correct comment…
Randy P
Yyjy@Villago Delenda Est: Yes, you’re right of course.
I also always say 6th Avenue and not Avenue of the Americas even though I’ve never lived in New York and have no reason to be grumpy on that one. I am just carrying on my dad’s grumpiness
NonyNony
@Rob in Buffalo:
Dude, you need to get your imagination tuned up.
Liz Cheney in the Senate would be exactly like Mike Enzi in the Senate. Normally I’d say “except that we’d have to deal with Liz Cheney on the Sunday shows”, except that Liz Cheney is already on all of the Sunday shows and nobody calls Mike Enzi. Also perhaps she would then have a run at the presidency, but forgive me if I don’t quail in my boots at the thought of someone using the position of “junior Senator from Wyoming” as a stepping stone to the presidency. She’s more likely to get that position the way her old man almost did – stick herself on as VP for an idiot who’ll dance for her and then have said idiot choke on a pretzel.
I mostly want to keep Liz Cheney out of office because the Cheney family name should never be allowed near anything political again (nor should the Bush family name), but I can’t rise to the idea that she’d actually be much different than Enzi in any measurable degree given the current makeup of the Senate.
Roger Moore
@SatanicPanic:
Depends on what part of the state. My district doesn’t have any beaches, so surfing would probably be out; hiking or fishing would be better outdoor activities to prove you’re a local. If you’re in good enough shape, you could run the Mt. Wilson trail race.
NotMax
@Randy P
Quip which made the rounds in Russia after the dissolution of the USSR:
I was born in St. Petersburg.
I grew up in Petrograd.
I labored in Leningrad.
And I’ll now die in St. Petersburg.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
In other news, Pittypat Graham’s Tea Party primary challenger re-tweets about the elephant in the closet
Yatsuno
@NonyNony:
There is something to that though. After all THAT ONE rose successfully to the Presidency from being the junior Senator from Illinois, and if a skinny blah guy can do it then certainly someone with the right background should be able to easily. At least we know she’s not doing it for the people of Wyoming, who deserve better than her and Enzi.
Also: we should keep an eye on the former Democratic governour whose name is escaping me right now. If he gets in this there might be real blood in the water.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: WHEE!!! Nothing like a little gay-bashing to get a teatard’s loins girded!
Rob in Buffalo
Nony Nony: Not in the sense of, she’d be replacing a much better person, but in the sense of, she’s such an irritatingly stupid privileged self-absorbed nasty punk that her being able to just waltz into the Senate should not be possible.
SatanicPanic
@Roger Moore: fishing? Isn’t that what they do in Wyoming? Besides, we all know what the real requirement for a successful politician in California is- an acting career. In the Golden State there’s nothing more real than that.
NonyNony
@Yatsuno:
This is actually exactly my point – Wyoming ain’t Illinois. If you’re going to start a national political power base Illinois (and more importantly Chicago) is one of the states in the country that it’s a really good idea to do it from (Texas, California, Massachusetts and New York are the others). High population making for lots of power in the Congress (so lots of natural allies to get stuff done back home), home to a lot of industry and money to help fund your ambitions, and a place where people with money actually live full-time (rather than as summer homes) who will want to schmooze up to you to buy influence with you (or at least associate with power if not outright buy influence).
Those are the only kinds of states where I see “junior Senator” being a significant step towards a Presidential ambition. In other states you should go for “governor” because you aren’t getting there as “junior Senator”. (And if Liz Cheney were running for governor of Wyoming I’d be more concerned, though even there I’d be asking “why Wyoming and not Texas?”)
Citizen_X
@SatanicPanic:
Actually, shooting someone in the face is the preferred hobby for establishing one’s NJ bone fides, so Cheney’s dad would fit right in there.
ruemara
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That neocon outreach is still going strong, I see.
ruemara
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That neocon outreach is still going strong, I see.
NotMax
@Satanic Panic
Those Dick Nixon/Jerry Brown buddy movies were a hoot.
NonyNony
@Rob in Buffalo:
Ah okay – it’s more worrisome about what it says about our government than about the political implications. That makes sense.
But let’s remember that this is the same august body that used to contain Jim DeMint and currently contains both Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. I actually find it hard to believe that she’s worse than etierh Jim DeMint or Rand Paul on the stupid, privileged, self-absorbed nasty punk front, but I’m willing to accept that the case could be made.
Yatsuno
@NonyNony:
Or Virginia, which is where she actually lives and is having a gubernatorial election this year. I honestly think she thinks she’s going for the path of least resistance here, and will (hopefully) be sorely disappointed.
NonyNony
@NotMax:
…
I would actually pay good money to see this.
Someone get a script going and we’ll see about getting funding Kickstarted.
Paul in KY
Eyick, do I hate asking a question that might excuplate Darth Deadeyes, but if she lived in Wyoming as a child, would that count on the 365 days consecutevily?
Paul in KY
@MikeJ: Because she’s been so spoiled all her life, with people doing all kinds of things & making problems go away so daddy didn’t fixate on them, she’s never had to think that ‘strategery’ stuff.
I sure hope she get’s taught a lesson.
Villago Delenda Est
@Paul in KY:
It’s highly problematic she’ll learn from it, though.
Paul in KY
@raven: I don’t doubt that Mrs. Palin is a nicer human being than Darth Deadeyes.
Mrs. Palin would cheerfully poison you, if she thought it would allow her to acheive her life’s ambition. Ms. Cheney is alot more hardcore than that.
Anya
OT — Am I the only one who finds Cory Booker inauthentic? Why is New Jersey voting for him? Exept for civil rights issues, I don’t see anything that recomends him. He’s too enomared with hedge fund managers and voucher peddlers.
Shakezula
Daddy, I want an Oompaloompa. And a U.S. Senate seat!
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
Much better than the Pete Wilson/Gray Davis ones, at least.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
When they start calling him “Huckleberry Closetcase” we’ll know things have moved into the REALLY real zone.
Paul in KY
@Yatsuno: Wouldn’t surprise me. Maybe she’s such a terror that daddy can’t really level with her on the futility of her quest?
The Moar You Know
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh yeah, that contest is going to set a new level for nastiness in American politics. Couldn’t happen to a better guy.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
Straight to video, as insomnia therapy.
Villago Delenda Est
@Shakezula:
Where do you want your internets delivered, Shakezula?
Ruckus
@MikeJ:
What I don’t understand is why she didn’t buy a house in Wyoming years ago on the off chance she might one day run for office.
1. She thought she could bully or buy her way into office.
2. That would require actual thought, not that addled bullshit that goes on in her head.
NotMax
@Roger Moore
Always sort of wondered who saddles their kid with the name Gray.
Figured they thought Beige was too provocative.
Roger Moore
@MikeJ:
And I don’t get why her daddy didn’t think about what was going to happen after Saddam Hussein was out of power. Long-term planning is apparently not a family strength.
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
Nominative determinism.
NotMax
@Roger Moore
Indeed.
Reminded of whichever sect it was in the 19th century (specifics elude me at the moment) that banned the ponderous hymn “Old Hundredth,” decreeing the tune to be too stimulating.
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: Her daddy knew exactly what was going to happen. He (and the neocons) wanted the country to implode. He miscalculated how that would end up playing out over here in realityland.
NonyNony
@Roger Moore:
He thought about it. It probably went along the lines of:
1) Kick Saddam out of power
2) Create a hell of a lot of chaos in which my corporate buddies can make a lot of money.
Dick Cheney is actually fantastically good at long term planning. For what’s good for Dick Cheney and his buddies. If you expected him to give even the slightest thought to how an invasion and occupation of Iraq was going to play out for the US (let alone anyone else in the world) well, that’s your problem for having the wrong expectations as to what he cares about.
dmsilev
@NotMax: Back in my days as a TA, I once had a student with the first name of ‘Bland’. He was Bland (lastname) III, so apparently there were a few generations of parents who thought this was a good idea.
Cluttered Mind
@Roger Moore: I see this a lot, and I’ve never agreed with it. I think the planners of the war knew full well what was going to happen and were completely okay with it. From the perspective of Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, etc., the Iraq War was a great success. They accomplished all of their actual goals, which were to get themselves and their friends filthy rich. Everyone who they care about came out of the war just fine. They don’t care about such silly things as global reputations, or a bunch of dead peasants. They carved the place up and sold it to their contractor friends and they got the big payout they wanted. In the sense that the real objectives of the war were achieved, the Iraq War was a victory. The problem is that the real objectives of the Iraq War were completely insane and barbarous by the standards of any civilized people.
Cluttered Mind
@NonyNony: You beat me to it :(
Paul in KY
@Cluttered Mind: The other motive was to remove Iraq as an anti-Israel power base.
mai naem
@Anya: I wouldn’t be shocked if Cory Booker ends up being a Joe Lieberman. The only thing that makes me think that I’m totally wrong is that Rachel Maddow appears to have a personal firendship with him and I don’t think Rachel would have a personal friendship with a Lieberman wanna be. But then, Barbara Boxer is a good buddy of Lieberman so who knows.
@Yatsuno: The theory I heard is that Enzi is old so this is an initial run for her and gets her in line so that if Enzi dies or doesn’t run the next time around, she’s fine for running for Sen or being appointed.The one thing the GOP is pretty good at is thinking ahead. The Dems for the most part, with the exception of WJC, are horrible at thinking ahead.
PaulW
@Paul in KY:
And is Iraq no longer an anti-Israel power base? I’m pretty sure the Iraqis are not all smiles and sunshine about the U.S. and Israel at the moment.
Yatsuno
@Paul in KY: Tertiary motivation: having a place where they could have a.military base to make it easy to strike Iran. Neocons fap over destroying the mullahs.
Hunter
@SRW1: Actually, I want to know if she shot that fish in the face.
daverave
That’s a nice fish….
PaulW
@mai naem:
Unless Enzi so thoroughly curb-stomps Cheney that there’s no way anyone will take her seriously as a replacement when the time comes. And I’m pretty sure there’s a few GOP officials in Wyoming who still have long-term plans of their own for that Senate seat.
catclub
@mai naem: “The Dems for the most part, with the exception of WJC, are horrible at thinking ahead. ”
Interesting choice of initials. I would have picked BHO.
Not sure if either one is great. BHO is doing very badly on Federal judges.
WJC had some impulsive moments, and not getting your successor elected is a key point in thinking ahead.
catclub
@Cluttered Mind: I mostly agree. But I think they expected to get the oil contracts as well. Missed that goal kind of wide.
Cluttered Mind
@catclub: In fairness, Al Gore did get elected. He just didn’t become the President. It’s worth remembering that.
Cluttered Mind
@catclub: My guess is that they were expecting the oil contracts too, but I don’t think they were expecting that they’d come out of the whole debacle more or less immune to any kind of prosecution for anything they or any of their affiliates ever did, no matter how horrible (Jamie Leigh Jones anyone?)
They may not have gotten all the oil contracts but they did get filthy rich and learn that they were essentially above the law, which they’ve sadly milked for all its worth overseas and at home.
David Hunt
@Paul in KY: She’s running now because Daddy Darth isn’t expected to be alive the next time an opportunity come up. Depending on your views of her you can say that’s a deciding factor because she wants him to see that she’s carrying on the family business of creating the country that will prove Orwell an optimist, or you can conclude that she figures that all of Daddy’s political connections will whither away right after the funeral (at the latest) so she has to run now to milk whatever benefit from him before his foul essence destroys his current heart.
Roger Moore
@NonyNony: @Cluttered Mind:
I don’t believe that Iraq worked out the way Cheney et. al. wanted and expected. They may have wanted some chaos to depress oil production and enrich their friends, but they wanted to get out after that. They failed to recognize that “go in, blow stuff up, get the hell out, and leave a stinking hellhole behind” was not a politically viable strategy, so we wound up with an indefinite combat commitment in somebody else’s civil war. Their failure to plan for that even though it was an inevitable result of what they did plan for is proof that they were not geniuses at long-term planning. Their success in leeching profits from the result of the fuck up is only proof that they’re thoroughly attached to the MIC, not that they got what they were planning on.
Roger Moore
@Paul in KY:
Yeah, and they wound up strengthening Iran. This is not exactly evidence of their brilliant long-term planning.
Roger Moore
@mai naem:
Clinton is not an example of planning ahead. His whole presidency was one improvisation after another. That’s basically what triangulation was all about: doing whatever was politically expedient to stay in power at the expense of any kind of long term strategy or vision.
David Hunt
@Roger Moore:
He and his buddies believe Akmed Challabi (sp) when he told them that the Iraqis would welcome him back with open arms so they were planning to install him as the new strongman who be friendly to U.S. interests. That’s what they did with the Shah of Iran and it took twenty years for that to go pear-shaped (from the POV of American Corporations). Cheney expected to be safely dead and buried before it came back to kick us in the teeth.
catclub
@Cluttered Mind: Correctamundo. I sit corrected.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Roger Moore: It hasn’t gotten much discussion that I’ve seen, but isn’t the clusterfuck in Syria part of the regional destabilization caused by the Iraq War?
catclub
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes and no.
I would guess the initial peaceful demonstrations were part of Arab spring.
The yes comes in when it is the Sunni’s getting their revenge after taking a beating in Iraq.
MikeSchilling
She’s a Cheney, so better a fishing license than a hunting license.
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t think the initial stages of the civil war were specifically a result of the destabilization from Iraq. The current stage, where every revolutionary and terrorist in MENA is heading to Syria to get in on the action, is at the very least worse than it otherwise would be because so many of those people cut their teeth in Iraq.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cluttered Mind:
The last time we saw a group of people like that, Godwin’s Law was born.
cckids
@mistermix:Sure, having the license would “prove” she’s a native, but it isn’t stretching the imagination to realize that this is going to come out. Does she think her party learned nothing from her father?
And, she has young-ish children, doesn’t she? She could easily play the “I’ve always loved hunting & fishing, but with being there for my kids & hubby & the challenges of my career, I just haven’t been able to for a few years”. FFS, I’m as far as you can get for a politician & I can come up with some of this crap off the top of my head. With the tiniest bit of thought she could do better.
Lazy, entitled & stupid, what a way to go through life.
Joey Maloney
@SatanicPanic: Lynching in Mississippi?
ranchandsyrup
Blame the clerk! Great idea Liz.
Thor Heyerdahl
So does this game & fish debacle make her eligible to be a contestant on “Wheel of Fish”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KezvwARhBIc
ranchandsyrup
I want to create a Battle of the Nepotism All-Stars show. My money would be on Lil’ Luke Russert. Oh, forgot to add that each show is to the death of one contestant.
Roger Moore
@ranchandsyrup:
No way. Shrub wins, hands down.
TS
@Mike in NC:
Nobody – but nobody – makes Sarah Palin look good.
ranchandsyrup
@Roger Moore: Even with the new stent in? Also, he couldn’t wear his codpiece.
pseudonymous in nc
Wyoming is sufficiently sparsely-populated that Enzi has everyone vaguely involved in politics and government on his Christmas card list, and he can sign those cards by hand. This is not news to people in the state.
I’m ambivalent on whether it should be a state, though I have a stronger opinion on whether it should have two senators.
pseudonymous in nc
The other point is that Enzi has been sufficiently safe from both primary and general election challenges for so long that he’s accumulated a Grand Teton-size stack of favours he can now call in. Probably without even asking.
Villago Delenda Est
@TS:
Not even the whores on 7th Avenue can do that.
Yatsuno
@pseudonymous in nc: To be fair, Wyoming used to be a progressive syate. They were one of the first to grant the right to vote to women. I’m not sure when everything went sideways there, but it wasn’t all wingnut all the time.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@pseudonymous in nc:
The only thing that could save our form of government, other than the abolition of the Senate, would be apportioning the vote—instead of 100 votes, there should be 438 I take it back, 876—and each senator gets the number of votes that their state has congressmen, from 1 to 54.
A rule of thumb for me would be: If you have more senators than congressmen, you don’t deserve to be a state. Just like if you can’t think of a name for your city (Sea-Tac?) you shouldn’t be one.
ETA: So the <strike> tag doesn’t work? Just mentally cross out 438 up above.
Roger Moore
@Yatsuno:
FTFY. There’s a reason Wyoming calls itself The Equality State. Technically speaking, Wyoming wasn’t the first state to give women the vote, because they were a territory when they did it and at least one state gave women the vote before they were admitted as a state. And, in something of a footnote, New Jersey actually gave women the vote when the country was founded, only to take it away in the early 19th Century.
Roger Moore
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
No, but you can do the same thing with the <del> tag.
lurker dean
@NickT: I was happy to see that piece on Deadspin, good to see people recognize Brooks for what he is.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@Roger Moore:
Thanks. On other FYWP blogs, I’ve learned to spell out <strike> instead of using just <s>, so here’s another idiosyncrasy to memorize.
Edit: Plus here’s what it says right below the window:
Trollhattan
The fish in that picture? Lizzard made it apologize for taking her bait. Then she killed it and left it in the trash where the Escalade was parked. Because, Fish.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
OK, seriously: FYWP!
Jay C
@pseudonymous in nc:
Like I opined on the last Liz Cheney Fail Parade thread (and I’m sure this won’t be the last of the series, either!), her chances in the GOP primary are going to probably depend mainly, if not solely on Sen. Enzi’s juice with the state Party machinery. He can’t stop people from voting for Liz, but he can sure make it harder for her. Gaffes like the fishing-license flap are embarrassing, but not necessarily fatal.
Unlike some here, I actually see a way Darthette can get elected: and it would depend on the extent to which she/her “machine” can convince the REAL constituents (the business/money interests that actually run Wyoming) that as Senator, she would 1) not upset any of the PTB’s local applecarts; 2) keep pushing policies (presumably, as Mike Enzi does) that benefit them, while 3) promise to maintain a diligently obstructionist policy in DC to placate the rubes.
Assuming that the bulk of her campaign is done in back rooms behind-the-scenes – subtly offering WY power-brokers the prospect of a better deal, I can see Liz grabbing just enough votes to edge Enzi out in the primary. Since of course, any campaign (well-financed, of course) directed at the state electorate is probably going to consist mainly of glibertarian bafflegab, anti-Obama hysteria, and smears of the Democrat in the race, I wouldn’t completely discount her chances, “carpetbaggery” or no….
Roger Moore
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
And you believed it? BTW, by not escaping all those things with < > tags, you seem to have severely borked the blog.
Paul in KY
@PaulW: But not able to do anything like use a powerful Iraq army against Israel or pay kin of suicide bombers $25,000 or other stuff that frosted those who wish for Eretz Israel.
Paul in KY
@Yatsuno: This too. Also, if a bunch of American troops were in country, there would be no major retaliation against Israel, no matter what she did.
Paul in KY
@David Hunt: Good point, hadn’t thought of that.
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: But Iran would not intervene if Israel expelled all the Palestinians or something like that.
Iranians are not Arabs.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Mike in NC:
I think she’s actually trying to become the American Marine Le Pen.
catclub
@Trollhattan: “taking her bait” A heavy insult in flyfishing country.
Trollhattan
@catclub:
To be sure, but Liz’ props in that pic, whatever they are, are only there to hide the fact she’s dynamite fishin’.
Now, if she were a noodler, I’d grant her a speck of respeck.
IowaOldLady
Oh, hee. I love the way an ad supporting Darthette just popped up on this site for me.
StringOnAStick
One good thing: white the Darthette is in heavy campaign mode, she should be too busy to be spewing her usual volume of neocon warmonger shit on Faux.*
*I know that’s not much, but it is something. The real joy is going to be in watching her lose in a spectacular fashion.
NickT
@StringOnAStick:
Liz Cheney cannot lose – she can only be lost.
Wingnut-Grifter Logic 101.
Trollhattan
@NickT:
Howlin Wolfe
@Citizen_X: Assumes facts not in evidence. Does W even have a heart?
NickT
@Trollhattan:
Surely someone could convince her that wearing a bacon costume and hiking in grizzly country are fundamental Wyoming traditions.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@Randy P: It’s still “Hanoi”; Saigon is officially “Ho Chi Minh City”, but I saw “Saigon” all over the place when I was there 10 years ago.
And I ONLY call “National Airport” that, NEVER “Reagan”.
MikeBoyScout
Clearly my Republican friends need to send Liz some $$$$.
Bitter Scribe
That apple didn’t fall very far from the tree. Or trees. Her mother is as useless as her father.
Aussiesmurf
@MattF: For the win.
Deborah
Who cares! She Is from Wyoming. If she wants to run it is her right to do so. It is up to the people of Wyoming to decide if they wish to support her.