Posted on 06/28/2014 3:19:35 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It’s not exactly the Ali-Frazier “Thrilla in Manilla,” but the ongoing Rand Paul-Dick Cheney pugilism certainly packs a punch.
The libertarian ophthalmologist and the warlord emeritus have been pounding each other for months, and while it’s tempting to just kick back with popcorn and behold the entertainment, we do need to acknowledge the bout’s deeper meaning. Because this is really about something quite serious.
Republicans are profoundly split these days over foreign policy: between the non-interventionists who are increasingly wary of American military involvement abroad; and the neoconservative hawks who blundered us into Iraq and want us to keep flexing military muscle. Senator Paul is a leader of the non-interventionsts, a GOP faction that used to be tiny, but not anymore. The Iraq disaster has swelled their ranks, and Paul hopes to speak for them in the 2016 presidential primaries.
Cheney is freaked out about that; hence his creation of a new group, Alliance for a Stronger America, which is geared to rebut Paul at every turn. Cheney clearly hopes to influence the GOP’s foreign policy debate; his new group is set up to raise money from anonymous donors and steer the bucks to like-minded candidates.
Paul delivered the latest flurry of punches. Last Thursday, in his own Wall Street Journal column, he was clearly talking about Cheney: “Many of those clamoring for military action now (in Iraq) are the same people who made every false assumption imaginable about the cost, challenge and purpose of the Iraq war. They have been wrong for so long, why should we listen to them again?” Paul followed his column up with a weekend appearance on Meet the Press, where he questioned the credibility “of those who supported the Iraq war.” Cheney quickly retaliated on ABC’s This Week, labeling Paul as an “isolationist” and saying his views “didn’t work in the 1930s, it sure as heck won’t work in the aftermath of 9/11.”
It’s hard to say who started this spat, but Paul arguably did so in 2009, when he was caught on video suggesting that Cheney dragged us into Iraq to profit his old cronies at Halliburton. In the video, which surfaced this spring, Paul tells an audience of college students: “We need to be fearful of companies that get so big that they can actually be directing policy….Dick Cheney (during the ’90s) goes to work for Halliburton, makes hundreds of millions of dollars as their CEO. The next thing you know, he’s back in government, and it’s a good thing to go into Iraq.”
That was quite an insinuation, to say that Cheney ginned up a war to make money for his pals. When asked about the video this spring, Paul retreated a tad: “I’m not questioning Dick Cheney’s motives,” but nevertheless said: “When people go from high levels of government (Pentagon chief for Bush the elder) to high levels of industry that are dependent on government money, there’s a chance for a conflict of interest.”
Wow. You rarely hear that kind of talk in GOP circles, and Team Cheney didn’t like it. Cheney dispatched his daughter Liz (the daughter who bombed out in the Wyoming Senate race) to assert: “Senator Paul often seems to get his foreign policy talking points from Rachel Maddow.” Dad defended himself on CNN: “I had no relationship at all with the company throughout the time that I was vice president. I didn’t even talk to them…. So (Paul) is obviously not familiar with the facts.”
Dick Cheney, of all people, claiming that someone else is fact-challenged. Insert joke here.
Who should we root for in this ongoing Republican intramural? Probably Paul (grading on a curve), if only because of Cheney’s serial lies and performance failures. What’s unknowable is whether Paul can actually win the GOP nomination as a non-interventionist. Paul is currently first (just barely) in the latest Real Clear Politics aggregation of polls of a crowded field of potential 2016 candidates, but the truth is, most GOP primary voters traditionally favor a muscular foreign policy.
It’d be nice if the party found a middle ground (is there no such thing as prudent, fact-based interventionism?), but that won’t happen any time soon. As Paul warned the Cheney camp back in April, “sharpen your knives, because the battle once begun will not end easily.”
He is that. I think they have meds for this now - he should look into them. (and as a bonus, those meds will likely be American made!!!!!)
You know, despite the cries of Ron Paul is a nut
, I think he would have been a better president in 2004/2880/2012 than who we got. — Remember that the whole point of the Congress being involved w/ cabinet-member confirmation is to provide tempering against crazy
, radical
, and tyranny.
I’m with Cheney on this. Paul can GFH, as far as I’m concerned. Between his stance on Voter ID, (against the Reps and with the Dems), his stance on felon voting rights (with the Dems and Harry Reid), his stance on legalizing some 40% of the illegal immigrants that he claims merely “lost” their documentation, and his current War on Cheney, he has proven himself to be an even bigger RINO than Romney.
The last thing we on the right need (especially now) is yet another ahole that spends more time agreeing with Democrats and demonizing Republicans than he does fighting the leftist agenda. Screw that.
Last year China imported 440 billion dollars worth of goods, into America.
Last year America only exported 122 billion dollars worth of goods, into China.
Just saying.
America needs to export more, or we need to import less.
One or the other.
Left wing? I am so far to the Right, I’d be banned in Massachusetts!
My point is that Cheney’s ideas have not served us well. Since 9/11 we have experienced a substantial loss of freedom. Armed FDA raids on the Amish anyone? We don’t need a Nanny State armed to the teeth dictating our every move. Cheney is about stripping us of freedom while handing out no-bid contracts to his connected friends. Cheney is what’s wrong with Washington.
Real Americans stand up for freedom. That means no government interference, respecting personal liberty and property rights, and minimal federal compulsion.
If it were up to me, I would shred the federal government to quarter or less of it’s present size. The Cheney’s of the world increase both the government and it’s reach (read DHS).
Cheney is no conservative.
How about we bring back jobs to America, then?
For an entire generation we have sent jobs offshore. Ever more jobs, offshore.
Republicans, and democrats, are both sending American jobs offshore. Who is saying we need to bring them back?
Who?
Bring jobs back here.
Like C. Edmund Wright said, you ought to take your meds; they’re probably American made!
All I am saying is, Americans need to work.
We seriously, need to bring back American jobs, and do things more for ourselves.
Someone needs to run with American employment, as a position.
I hope it is the GOP who gets with it.
I fear the GOP won’t do anything, and will instead wait for the democrats to do something, which will entail some sort of communism.
Wake up GOP. Americans need more jobs.
Jobs.
Bullspit. (or some such other substance)
Here's a newsflash for ya. Cheney hasn't had any power in America to 'effect change' whatsoever since 2007, when the Democrats took control of both houses of Congress... making Cheney's boss, Bush, a lame duck president. Cheney isn't to blame for the current c'fuk we're in right now. That blame would be the Democratic Party's.....who have been in majority control of government for over seven years now.
But sure, if it makes you feel better to blame a Republican for the current disaster we're in for the past 7+ years, go ahead. And know that you are agreeing with the majority of leftists in America.
Well someone needs to do something.
The GOP isn’t doing one single thing. The democrats are not doing anything.
Just saying.
He is obsessed - with this topic and China in particular. It cannot be healthy. He MUST start his meds. He’s gonna end up a serial killer or something.
He is obsessed - with this topic and China in particular. It cannot be healthy. He MUST start his meds. He’s gonna end up a serial killer or something.
I’m not blaming him for the current disasters, those are totally King Obongo’s. I am blaming him for his own disasters, and calling him out as not being a real Conservative.
Cheney is no Reagan, but he has some conservtive thoughts. But that’s not my main point…..
Which is: you might be right wing, but you slipped some liberal left wing bulsh-t into your post. Go back and see if you can pick it out.
I would seriously suggest to you that you have reached the point of diminishing returns with your incessant postings. No one pays any attention to them anymore, since they saturate every thread. In short, they don’t work any more; people just ignore them, shake their heads and go on. Try a new hobby.
Polman cloaking himself as a moderate? Another rabid leftist dog has snapped his chain and is running around biting people with whom he has no business. The last time he voted for a Republican was for student council in home room.
China is now according to some numbers, the world’s largest manufacturer.
China is growing. Rapidly. Their population is also four or five times ours.
China exports a (lot) more than it imports.
Just saying. Someone needs to talk about American production.
Rand Paul is a lightweight struggling in a strong wind.
Cheyney............Paul
W. Germany.........E. Germany
Japan..............China
S. Korea...........N.Korea
Russia.............USSR
Kurdistan..........Iran
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