Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Find someone who loves you the way trump and maga love traitors.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

So very ready.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

The lights are all blinking red.

Keep the Immigrants and deport the fascists!

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

T R E 4 5 O N

Fight them, without becoming them!

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

This fight is for everything.

You cannot shame the shameless.

You are here: Home / Politics / Republican Stupidity / The Cheney Political Bumbling Continues

The Cheney Political Bumbling Continues

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I did not fish with that man:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday was frank about his relationship with Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi (R), who faces a primary challenge from Cheney’s daughter Liz.

“Well, Mike also said he and I are fishing buddies, which is simply not true. Never happened,” Cheney said on ABC’s “This Week.”

In the 40+ years that both Enzi and Cheney have been in Wyoming politics, there’s probably some event where both of them fished in the same river at the same time, and I’ll bet the Enzi campaign is looking for that picture at this very moment, if they don’t have it already. That said, can a set of human beings be any more petty and dishonest than the Cheneys have been in Liz’s campaign?  Liz has already tried to throw the clerk who sold her a fishing license under the bus, Mary and Liz have been in a Facebook fight about gay marriage, and Lynn told Alan Simpson to shut up in front of witnesses. With Dick’s contribution, every single one of them has said something stupid and damaging almost a year before the primary.

Reader Interactions

98Comments

  1. 1.

    max

    That said, can a set of human beings be any more petty and dishonest than the Cheneys have been in Liz’s campaign?

    When has Dick Cheney ever not been petty and dishonest?

    He’s basically a Bircherite quasi-fascist, and the sick part is that the press treated the guy like he was anything other than a ratbag.

    max
    [‘W. was bad and Cheney was worse.’]

  2. 2.

    Turgidson

    So, after hearing Cheney’s take and doing the standard recalibration to correct for the fact that everything the man says is a brazen, easily-debunked lie, I come to the following conclusion: He and Enzi have fished together dozens, if not hundreds, of times, and that Dick felt that the fish would greet them as liberators. And at some point, Dick may have accidentally(?) gotten Enzi’s face stuck in his fishing hook. The media never got wind of that one, I guess.

  3. 3.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    That said, can a set of human beings be any more petty and dishonest than the Cheneys have been in Liz’s campaign about everything?

  4. 4.

    Ruckus

    With Dick’s contribution, every single one of them has said something stupid and damaging almost a year before the primary.

    I would expect nothing less.

  5. 5.

    Roger Moore

    That said, can a set of human beings be any more petty and dishonest than the Cheneys have been in Liz’s campaign?

    Yes, as I’m sure they’ll prove over the remainder of the campaign.

  6. 6.

    Keith P.

    Enzi said specifically which even it was in an interview yesterday. It was some fly fishing event (can’t recall the name, but I’m looking for it). I’m sure Enzi has some kind of proof he and Cheney fished together there.

    EDIT: My bad, interview was in July w/ NYT. The tournament was the One Fly Tournament.

  7. 7.

    The Red Pen

    Mike also said he and I are fishing buddies, which is simply not true.

    I read that as “fisting buddies” initially.

    Maybe that’s true and it was just a misquote?

  8. 8.

    jheartney

    Starting to think that Dubya was shrewd in allowing Darth to be his squire. Probably one of the few families that could make the Bush’s look good.

  9. 9.

    mdblanche

    Unless Senator Enzi can show us the scar from the time he was stabbed with a fishhook, I’m going to have to do something I’ve never done before and believe Dick Cheney.

  10. 10.

    Hunter Gathers

    I did not fish with him in a boat.
    I did not fish with him with a goat.
    I did not fish with that man.
    I did not fish with him, Marianne.

  12. 12.

    Michael G

    If someone had told me that Wyoming politics in the year 2013 would be one fishing related scandal after another, well… I guess that actually kinda makes sense.

  13. 13.

    Ruckus

    @Keith P.:
    Does it really matter?
    Is there anyone not named cheney that doesn’t know that if their lips are moving they are lying? And I’m sure this applies even when their lips are not moving. Some may think it’s OK that they are lying but they still know.

  14. 14.

    The Red Pen

    @Elizabelle:

    religion certainly is [the last refuge of a scoundrel]

    I’ve been following the Church of Creativity (sporadically) since the late 80s. I don’t know if they’ve ever had a court test, but they attempted to dodge taxes and shield their assets by claiming to be a religious organization. Their main tenet is that white people are intrinsically superior.

    Other than that, they are militant atheists. They claim that Christianity is a Jewish plot to make white people subservient to “mud races.” They refer to God as “the Jew spook.”

    In a heated debate with an atheist on Daily Kos, I suggested that “magic sky fairy” was just as offensive as “Jew spook,” and my opponent claimed that neither was offensive because both were accurate descriptions of the Judeo-Christian deity. Sadly, the flame war was deleted, but I felt pretty vindicated getting this fuckturd to deem rhetoric from Church of the Creator as acceptable.

  15. 15.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Dishonest and incompetent. EventheLiberalMSNBC spent close to half an hour talking to Peter Baker about his book, and I don’t think the word Iraq came up once. Definitely no mention of Plame/Libby.

    ETA: Speaking of MSNBC, Richard Posener is going to be on their young hipster show in a few minutes.

  17. 17.

    MattF

    Theological question here. Cheney sold his soul to the Devil, which I suppose he had the right to do— but how did he also have the right to sell the souls of everyone in his family? I don’t get that.

  18. 18.

    azlib

    I am not sure what this guy’s problem is. All he has to say is I am supporting my daughter – end of story.

  19. 19.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @MattF: I assume that was all part of the marriage contract when he asked Satan for Lynne’s hand in draft deferment.

  20. 20.

    opiejeanne

    Is Mary as bad as the rest? I haven’t kept track, but Liz, Lynn, and Dick are terrible human beings.

  21. 21.

    Ruckus

    @azlib:
    That would be the normal thing to do. Darth has never done the normal thing in his life. Everything has the smell stink of position and privilege. He doesn’t think he is better, he KNOWS it.

  23. 23.

    dmsilev

    @azlib: Anyone who opposes Cheney in any way is The Enemy, and therefore must be destroyed.

    I do think it’s hilarious watching Liz “too many federal jobs to easily count” Cheney trying to pass herself off as an outsider against the Washington Establishment.

  26. 26.

    kindness

    @opiejeanne: Eh. Mary got a job through Dad at some post during the bush43 years. She kept her head down and did not make a big issue of being Dick’s lesbian daughter. So, bad? It’s relative. I mean I might think she was awful because she didn’t come out and announce what sociopaths the bush43 regime was full of. But I don’t because I already knew that.

    So I will give the vote on Mary Cheney a two what evers.

  30. 30.

    Violet

    OT, but this is some good news:

    New abortion restrictions passed by the Texas Legislature are unconstitutional and will not take effect as scheduled on Tuesday, a federal judge has ruled.

    District Judge Lee Yeakel wrote Monday that the regulations violated the rights of abortion doctors to do what they think is best for their patients and would unreasonably restrict a woman’s access to abortion clinics.

  31. 31.

    Elizabelle

    @Violet:

    Heartened by that, but they’re sticking with the parts that make abortions harder to come by:

    Other provisions of the law will go into effect on Tuesday, including a ban on abortions after 20 weeks gestation Tuesday, and a requirement that facilities where abortions are performed meet the standards of emergency centers at hospitals.

    Hello there, transvaginal ultrasound. Haven’t we seen you before?

  34. 34.

    Keith P.

    @Ruckus: Not really. The whole situation is pretty pathetic, really. Daddy’s little girl got her cushy job due to daddy, ditto for her next one (she even keeps daddy’s last name after marriage), gets a pundit job due to her last name, then decides to run for office in her daddy’s state using his connections. Even tweets about what daddy says in terms of “Best VP ever says..”. Just a blatant case of nepotism if there ever was one.

  36. 36.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Cris (without an H):

    People who love the Cheneys

    So, the Village press? Because Cheney isn’t even liked in the GOP. He’s as popular as hookworm, which come to think of it the Villagers probably think builds character among those noble Heartland Americans and is a sign of why the Inner City Poor are getting a free ride.

  37. 37.

    Elizabelle

    @The Red Pen:

    Did not know the twisted history of that “Church”.

    More on Leith: it’s tragedy wrapped in some laughs:

    The good people of Leith have gone after the arriving white supremacists by enacting building codes (insisting that they live in habitable homes with water and sewer; no tents or campers) and even pursuing the Lysistrata solution.

    Deborah Dutton left with three older children after getting gas money from people in Leith on Saturday morning.

    Mrs. Dutton seems to have been the only adult female on the premises.

    Unfortunately, two Dutton kids, aged 4 and 5, remain with their father, Kynan — who has admitted to an alcohol problem (documented on video at a town meeting), and the supremacists. Social services is monitoring their condition.

    Picture of the four supremacists with link. One of them affects a hipster skinhead look.

  38. 38.

    scav

    I’m almost tempted to see the Cheneys as working hard to establish their white-trash populist political status. gonna wash that DC status right outta their hair, gunna wash that odor right outta their pits. Follow the political advantage / energy. They don’t clear brush to do it; they trash and shoot people. Smells a bit of reality TV PR.

  40. 40.

    Ruckus

    @Keith P.:
    I’ve re-read my post and it’s hard for me to see how anyone could take that as a positive view of The Darths.
    Mary could be the outlying member of the family, the rest of them sure are shitty peas in a shitty pod.

  41. 41.

    Kay

    Did Mike really say “buddy”? About Dick Cheney? I think that’s more doubtful than the fishing.

  42. 42.

    becca

    Such a small, petty and fearful little man. Typical of republican men these days.

    Scratch a GOP man, find a momma’s boy.

  43. 43.

    Trollhattan

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    “People who love the Cheneys” sounds like the world’s shortest list. Wait, how many Cheneys are there? Okay, that’s our list.

    O/T, how many billionaires does it take to lock up a stretch of California coastline? Just one, of course.

    A San Mateo County judge allowed a wealthy oceanfront property owner to block public access to a beach that has been enjoyed for at least a century by fishermen, tourists, sunbathers, families and surfers. Superior Court Judge Gerald Buchwald ruled Thursday that a billionaire landowner can legally block the only road into the sandy Half Moon Bay haven known as Martins Beach.

    Although the public is still allowed to use the 200-acre, crescent-shaped beach – with a distinctive pyramid-shaped rock and what surfers say are sweet waves – the ruling means the only way people can get there is from the ocean.

    Gary Redenbacher, the lawyer who filed the suit on behalf of the group Friends of Martins Beach, said he plans to appeal the ruling, which he contends violates the California Constitution.

    “The California Constitution specifically states that owners of beachfront property shall not prevent the public from having access to the beach … (but) that provision was swept to the side,” Redenbacher said. “I got an e-mail today from someone saying that now any rich guy can go and buy up all the land around a beach and exclude us poor people. That is, of course, what happened.”

    sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Surfers-lose-fight-to-access-Half-Moon-Bay-beach-4926919.phphttp:/

  44. 44.

    dmsilev

    @Elizabelle:

    Picture of the four supremacists with link. One of them affects a hipster skinhead look.

    He doesn’t subscribe to hatred of “mainstream” minorities, but instead hates new and obscure minorities that “you probably haven’t heard of”?

  46. 46.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:
    Calling darth a buddy may be a dig on Mike’s part. Just rubbing his nose in it so to speak. A little tongue in cheek fuck you as it were. And if there is one picture of them together?

  48. 48.

    GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)

    That said, can a set of human beings be any more petty and dishonest than the Cheneys have been in Liz’s campaign?

    If you consider Cheney and Rumsfeld to be a “set of human beings” (I don’t) then the run-up to the Iraq war would be a good example.

  49. 49.

    TG Chicago

    It’s funny to me that if Cheney had just said “Well, Mike also said he and I are fishing buddies, which is simply not true,” it would be tough for Enzi to rebut unless he had proof he had gone fishing with Cheney many times.

    But then Dick added “Never happened,” which implies that they never went fishing together. So by adding those two words, Cheney made it easy for Enzi to rebut as long as they fished together even once. Silly Cheney!

  50. 50.

    ? Martin

    @Trollhattan: Worth noting that the land was owned before California was a state, so the legal status of the land likely predates the public right to beach access. IIRC that’s been upheld in a number of other private beach cases.

  52. 52.

    Elizabelle

    @Trollhattan:

    I would LOVE to have a party boat that ferries surfers, tourists, beach lovers, Occupy activists, Rastafarians, and the occasional vagrant to that beach.

    It would feature a huge banner: “Tax the Rich! Vinod Khosla SUCKS!” and play “Three Blind Mice” in a continuous loop as it passes the great man’s estate.

    Drum circle optional.

  57. 57.

    Elizabelle

    @? Martin:

    I wonder if the land grant provision’s should attach, for all time, to owners not in the original family’s lineage?

    And this sounds like a complete black eye for billionaire Vinod Khosla.

    Wonder what happened to those 45 leased cabins?

    I hate the privatization of what should be public beauty.

  58. 58.

    Yatsuno

    @Elizabelle: He won’t care. All that matters is those poors, browns, and blahs won’t be sullying up his private beach. And even if the beach isn’t technically his, it is, because he haz all teh roads naow!

  59. 59.

    Felonius Monk

    When Native Americans in Wyoming (in particular, the Shoshone and Arapaho) want to call someone an Asshole, they say “He’s a Cheney.”

  60. 60.

    sharl

    Compliments of a commenter at TBogg’s former (FDL) site (comment #43 in this post), meet Liz Cheney: The Early Years:

    I had the unfortunate experience of having a pointless discussion with La Liz Cheney. It was 1992, last year of Papa Bush and Liz had been grifted into USAID as an “adviser” to the new eastern Europe/New Independent States Bureau of USAID (i.e. eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union). She knew nothing about anything, needless to say. I was the environment guy there. So there was a bunch of dubious grants to US religious NGOs (points of life!) to set up better orphanages to address a real problem, in fact, especially in Romania. My environmental review of the program required that they not cause more problems (basic sanitation, environmental pollution) than previously existed. So the 22 year old, heavily made up (think Tammy Faye Bakker) adviser meets me to harangue me with no facts or serious arguments whatsoever about why these grants should not have the required very simple environmental mitigations because it was about Christian organizations and freedom (yes). Other than the fact that her father was Defense Secretary she brought nothing whatsoever. I was amused. She didn’t even seem to believe her arguments, in fact. I blew her off with actual facts and she lost the argument and just went away. My impression at that time was that she was someone who felt seriously entitled but who basically had no real intelligence or ability to make a serious case for her side. So, unless she has very much changed over the last 20+ years she would make a poor Senator and Enzi would be able to blow her away with a puff of air.

    Somewhat relatedly, fans of Harry Shearer may appreciate an episode of Dick Cheney: Confidential! (8.57) from his Le Show, um, show. I could do without the distracting video myself, but when heard on the traditional magical voice box, his dark and pointed comedy usually works for me. (Warning: he uses a sawed-off shotgun in his shtick, so successors to the Darth-Dubya Administration also get hit by the grapeshot.)

  61. 61.

    Violet

    @Yatsuno:

    All that matters is those poors, browns, and blahs won’t be sullying up his private beach.

    With a name like Vinod Khosla, isn’t he probably one of those browns? I realize it’s not the same kind of brown as those south of the border, but I wonder how well he’s received by his lily white neighbors?

  62. 62.

    RaflW

    I hope Liz stays in the race as long as possible.

    She’s the perfect emblem of f*ked up rich white power-hungry shitheels the world over, or at least USA Republican style. More cowbell, Liz!

  63. 63.

    Trollhattan

    @Elizabelle:

    GMTA? My first thought was an endless procession of party boats. Maybe set up an excursion concession at Santa Cruz–you’d have at least one drum circle per boat.

  64. 64.

    Trollhattan

    @Violet:

    Dollars to donuts chapati he grew up upper caste and could teach a graduate seminar on keeping the riffraff under control.

  65. 65.

    Elizabelle

    Here’s another article on the Martins Beach/Khosla case.

    And can’t the original plaintiffs appeal to a higher court?

    The original owner of the property was Jose Maria Alviso, who received a provisional land grant from the Mexican government in the late 1830s. He later transferred the property to his brother, Jose Antonio Alviso, whose rights to the property were upheld under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which settled the Mexican-American War. The U.S. government challenged Alviso’s land patent, but the Supreme Court confirmed Alviso’s ownership in 1859.

    Judge apparently swayed by a pre-Civil War decision, when the plaintiff was a member of the family granted the land.

    It would seem that intervening years and changes in ownership and public use should be given weight also?

  66. 66.

    Trollhattan

    @sharl:
    At least Sarah Heath could give hockey scores on camera. Peas in a pod, only Lizzard doesn’t have a Tawd (or a pack o’ li’l Duffels).

  67. 67.

    Elizabelle

    @Trollhattan:

    Born in India, dad an officer in the military, studied at the best tech schools in India and then Stanford. Co-founded SUN Microsystems.

  68. 68.

    Tone in DC

    In a parallel universe (a la Star Trek DS9), I might pity Mary Cheney. Almost.

    Also, too… I really hope Enzi has a picture from that fishing tournament.

  70. 70.

    StringOnAStick

    @dmsilev: Liz has two major hills to try to climb in her DC high heels; one is trying to sell herself as a DC outsider after all her years there working the nepotism game, and the other is selling herself to Wyoming residents as a real downhome local girl. The latter is tough to do when she splashes her kids all over her ads, and these kids are the perfect exemplars of DC rich brat private schools. Hell, even her well-connected hubby/lobbyist has stayed on in DC and isn’t “living” in WY like Liz & kids (they moved there right before Liz announced so no, they weren’t residents before mama decided she deserved a Senatorship). I’m not sure how familiar WY residents are with the term ‘carpetbagger’, but I bet they are learning.

    Enzi is a winger, just a low key one, and he’s popular in WY. Even the WY GOP is pissed at Liz barging in there and deciding she gets to decide who they get to nominate. Li’l Miss Deferment #5 is gonna lose to Enzi, and it will be fun to watch.

  71. 71.

    Botsplainer

    @Elizabelle:

    It would seem that intervening years and changes in ownership and public use should be given weight also?

    If you want to know what a judicial opinion looks like when it is bought, take a good look at that one.

  74. 74.

    Trollhattan

    Speaking of our political Uberklasse, lunch with Nooners and the USCOC, on a Very Special Episode of Wonkette.

    The time had come for the President to just throw himself on the mercy of the American people, admit that the entire thing had been an unqualified disaster, and hope they would forgive him. She’d been hearing a lot of people – Democrats even – asking if anyone would be fired and how high the ax would swing.

    That had gotten Peggy thinking about scandals and how real Presidents handled them with “true accountability.” It reminded her, in fact, of the Iran-Contra affair. As scandals go, “that was a bit of a doozy.” It sure was, Peggy! It was the kind of thing that you might think twice about bringing up in public if you were employed by the administration that committed all those crimes! Peggy, though, thought that President Obama could take some cues from Ronald Reagan, blessings of peace be upon him, and his “cleaning house” response to Iran-Contra because it seemed like “a textbook on how to handle things like this” (things like bungling the launch of a potentially helpful new national health care program, or like violating an embargo to sell arms to Iran to order to illegally fund Nicaraguan rebels, which are roughly equivalent).

    wonkette.com/532782/peggy-noonan-says-swear-word-tells-obama-how-to-be-reagan-skips-dessert#more-532…

    The whole thing–read you.

  75. 75.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Trollhattan:

    The tea partiers would have to become more “intellectually ordered,” in Peggy’s delicate phrasing, in order to be taken seriously, but without them the GOP would be left without any fresh energy or ideas.

    No, the GOP would be left without any voters. Are the 1% so desperate not to admit that there aren’t enough of them to elect a dog catcher? CoC, the reason you’ve had a good run since Reagan is because he convinced the cultural conservatives that you were on their side. If the evangelicals and racists desert you, you don’t have a party!

  76. 76.

    Jebediah, RBG

    @MattF:

    Would it be wrong to spread a rumor that the reason she wants to be a Senator is that she’s got a wild crush on Sen. Cruz?

    Only “wrong” in the sense that I am pretty sure it isn’t a rumor, since I just read somewhere that Liz Cheney has a big ol’ Cruz crush.

  79. 79.

    shortstop

    I liked Dick’s huffing that “The media will not choose Wyoming’s next senator. The people of Wyoming will choose their next senator.” Yes, Dick, and you, your imperious wife and your noxious offspring are really, really not that popular among those people. Enzi (who is also a jerk) is, however. I would really love to see Liz come in at a percentage similar to the Alan Keyes 27.

  80. 80.

    sm*t cl*de

    That had gotten Peggy thinking about scandals and how real Presidents handled them with “true accountability.” It reminded her, in fact, of the Iran-Contra affair.

    So “true accountability” translates as “I can’t remember anything and I pardon everyone.”

  82. 82.

    Turgidson

    @mdblanche:

    Damn, beat me to it.

    Also, pretty sure the “Democrats, even!” are just Lanny Davis and one of the voices in Lanny Davis’s head.

  83. 83.

    StringOnAStick

    @Jebediah, RBG: Holy crap, I thought that was a joke. Maybe Liz really does see winning a senate seat as the easiest/safest way for a cloakroom canoodle with Calgary’s current fave export…

  85. 85.

    Elizabelle

    @Botsplainer:

    I fear you are right.

    But it might be hard for a “bought” (or shall we say, ideologically co-opted) judge going up against the public good.

    Unless said judge is a justice on a federal, state or Supreme bench.

  87. 87.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Trollhattan:

    Gary Redenbacher, the lawyer who filed the suit on behalf of the group Friends of Martins Beach, said he plans to appeal the ruling, which he contends violates the California Constitution.

    Popcorn in a good cause.

  88. 88.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @TG Chicago:

    I don’t even see what would be so damaging (on its own) about Cheney saying something like “Yeah, Mike Enzi and I fished together (once, twice, occasionally, frequently, a lot) but we have some profound disagreements on some key policy issues.” What’s wrong with that approach?

    Seriously, if you are someone’s political opponent on a specific issue or in a particular primary or even general campaign, why do you have to pretend that you oppose every.single.fucking.position your rival has ever taken on anything, any time, any where?

    I don’t get it.

  91. 91.

    Ruckus

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    When your choice is winger or complete, total, absolute fucking shithead asshole what choice do you really have?
    Yes I know it is a small difference but in this case at least it is a real one.

  97. 97.

    Bart

    Ya know, this would be funny if it weren’t for the fact that Cheney ruled the US for a good half dozen years.

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