Dear Media: Can We Forget About Liz Cheney Now?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Liz Cheney will not save us - from Donald Trump or anything else.
But the media doesn’t seem to - or doesn’t want to - get it. The “Lionization of Liz” has begun. Now that she’s lost her bid for another term in Congress, the media is adding her to the list of potential presidential candidates in 2024.
Of course, they note, she won’t win. But then, they say Pres. Biden is too old and Kamala Harris is too female, so they can’t win either. So who does that leave?
Cheney is making noises like she wants to run. And ain’t that just cool AF? Liz Cheney running for president. The prospect of another Cheney in the White House has the media breathless. God help us all.
According to The Washington Post: “The country needs, regardless of their positions on tax hikes or deregulation or free trade, more Liz Cheneys in government. Now, it will have one less.”
Umm…No it doesn’t. Really, it doesn’t.
The Post rightly points out that Cheney is a Republican through and through. But that’s the problem. Republicans - whether old-fashioned Ronald Reagan Republicans or the newly-minted MAGA Republicans - do not care about Democracy or this country. They only care about staying in power and pleasing their large donors, which helps them stay in power.
“…She did not lose because she surrendered her status as a card-carrying conservative. She’s an anti-abortion foreign policy hawk with a career score of 74 percent from Heritage Action, a conservative advocacy group, and a 79 percent score this session. She voted with Mr. Trump 93 percent of the time during his tenure…,” The Post said of Ms Cheney.
And that’s the problem. That’s why we don’t need more of her in Congress.
For example, according to FiveThirtyEight, Cheney voted “no” in December 2020 on a bill to increase Covid-19 relief payments to $2,000 from $600. In July 2020 she voted “no” on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. In February 2020 she voted “no” on disaster aid for Puerto Rico. In January 2017, she votes “yes” on a budget resolution to repeal the Affordable Care Act (one of about 4,567 attempts by Republicans to repeal the ACA).
So tell me again how we need more of her in Congress?
The media thinks Liz Cheney should run for president because she’s principled. She does not believe that the 2020 Presidential Election was stolen from Donald Trump. She believes that Joe Biden is the legitimate President of the United States and that he won the election fair and square.
These are good things.
When it comes to stolen presidential elections, however, Liz Cheney is suspiciously silent. To her credit, she will not say the 2020 election was stolen. But regarding another election, specifically the one in 2000 - which installed her father as vice president- she remains silent as well. On that election, which truly was stolen thanks to the Supreme Court, she has no opinion.
Over at The New York Times, Frank Bruni thinks Cheney has won a moral victory, even as she lost her re-election bid.
“She got many, many fewer votes than her opponent, an unscrupulous shape shifter unfit to shine her shoes, because she chose the tough world of truth over Donald Trump’s underworld of lies. That’s a moral victory,” Bruni writes in an editorial.
He said he was “sad and angry” when Cheney celebrated the overturn of Roe vs Wade. But he respects her for sticking to her convictions.
“But I grudgingly respected Cheney’s fidelity to her beliefs and readiness to alienate her newest fans,” he noted.
She apparently has a readiness to screw the country whenever she gets the chance. Remember when Liz Cheney came out against gay marriage, even though her sister is a lesbian? Yeah. But she has principles.
Really Frank? Even though she’s a lousy human being she’s OK in your book because she stands by her twisted principles?
He thinks she’s a “hero” because she “models independent-mindedness” at a time when her party spends its time genuflecting to Saint Trump.
“…The losers on Tuesday night were the Republican Party, which needs her more than she needs it, and the United States, which needs rescue from its ruinous indulgence of Trump. Cheney has made that case as forcefully as anyone, holding on to the greatest prize of all: her dignity,” Bruni writes.
So this is what it’s come down to? If you’re anti-Trump you’re A-Ok because he’s such a piece of crap. No one can possibly be worse.
It’s the lesser of two evils apparently. One evil cares only about himself and doesn’t mind if our Democracy is collateral damage. The other evil is a Republican and doesn’t really care about making the country better. But she has principles.
Come to think of it, what’s the difference? Which one is really the lesser evil?