GOP Strategists to Cheney: Enough, Already--Concerned Cheney Will Be Seen As Party Spokesman

US News and World Report ^ | Posted May 13, 2009 | Kenneth Walsh

[lewisglad]

Enough, already. That's the reaction of many Republicans to Dick Cheney's surge of media appearances to defend the Bush administration, especially on national security issues. "I don't think anybody would call him and say, 'Shut up.' It wouldn't work," says a GOP strategist who formerly advised Ronald Reagan. "He obviously feels that his work as vice president is under attack. But he is not our best spokesman."

The concern among Republican strategists is that the public will think Cheney is speaking for the GOP, and this won't be helpful because the former vice president remains an unpopular figure across the country. Another prominent GOP strategist says Cheney should lower his visibility and give younger party leaders a chance to take the spotlight.

Meanwhile, White House officials are pleased that the abrasive Cheney is drawing so much attention. "The former vice president has made his views pretty clear, and the president has made his views pretty clear," an Obama adviser said today. "We had a big debate on this during the campaign, and the president sees it as a debate that has been resolved because the American people spoke so clearly [in the election]."

Cheney's reasoning for going public has become a favorite topic on the political circuit in Washington. Some of those who know Cheney well say he is motivated by a desire to defend his legacy as a principal architect of George W. Bush's national security policies that are under attack from the Obama administration and congressional Democrats—especially the waterboarding of suspected terrorists that President Obama has defined as torture.

Cheney is said to genuinely believe that Obama is taking the wrong approach on national security, leaving America weaker. He is also angry that former Bush advisers may be prosecuted or face disbarment or legal censure because of the advice they gave internally to justify waterboarding. Cheney is described as deeply disappointed that President Bush didn't pardon Lewis Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, after Libby's conviction for misleading prosecutors trying to investigate leaks. (Bush did commute Libby's 30-month prison sentence.) And Cheney doesn't want other Bush advisers to be punished for, in his assessment, simply doing their jobs.

The former vice president stirred the pot Sunday in a CBS interview, arguing that "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding did not represent torture. The former vice president said that such methods were legal and that they generated important intelligence on terrorist activities. He argued that Obama's reversal of some of those policies made America less safe. Yesterday, in an interview on Fox News, Cheney repeated his criticisms. A week from tomorrow, Cheney is scheduled to address the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. His topic: "Keeping America Safe."

[SaraJohnson]

Speaking of “spokemen” morons I’m thinking of a straterist like that Republican powerhouse Meghan McCain or McCain’s failed campaign advisor. Maybe it was that other brilliant Republican advisor, Colin Powell.

McCain is in up to his ears in the Democrats’ little waterboarding witch hunt here. He’s seen the polls where the majority of the public supports Cheney in waterboarding these characters to save American lives.

I would want the adults to shut up if I were McCain or one of his little Rino cult followers stationed in the pup tent.

[Theodore R.]

Yes, it’s Cheney or no one, and the American people vote for “no one” in this case. How sad are the American people frittering away their freedoms awaiting a government “check in the mail.” And the check isn’t even in the mail, but the sheeple haven’t figured it out.

[snowsislander]

Enough, already. That's the reaction of many Republicans to Dick Cheney's surge of media appearances to defend the Bush administration, especially on national security issues. "I don't think anybody would call him and say, 'Shut up.' It wouldn't work," says a GOP strategist who formerly advised Ronald Reagan. "He obviously feels that his work as vice president is under attack. But he is not our best spokesman."

There are very few people that match that description of being a GOP strategist who advised President Reagan, and I suspect that this is Mr. James Baker or one of his ilk.

My own opinion is that I am very glad that Mr. Cheney is speaking out; he is a better representative than whoever this anonymous backbiter might be.

[gidget7]

Did they speak?? Not a name mentioned, not one. I would say the main problem with the GOP, if this article is true, is the strategists!

[Liberty Valance]

It’s too bad for these ‘GOP Strategists’ that Dick Cheney is the only Republican out there showing leadership. I’d like to see a conservative summit/workshop with Cheney, Palin, Jindal, Coburn, Ted Poe and other conservatives moderated by Mark Steyn, Thomas Sowell and Brit Hume ;o)

[MES401067]

This man has paid his dues been called every name in the book.Yet he ain’t afraid if anyone likes him or going to get butt hurt over what he has to say.He speaks to the truth and the libs go out of their minds its like sun light on vampires.As far as a GOP spokesperson goes give me a break all I ever hear is sorry this sorry that go screw.

[altura]

What message would ‘we’ be articulating and why aren’t ‘we’ doing it?

[Paladin2]

"straterist"

HHmmm, looks like I left the "g" out of strategerist.

[taildragger]

Dick Cheney is WHY FUBO has changed his mind on the torture photos.

I have been thinking that all day.

What does Dick know that the Bamster doesn't want out that if he lets it rip will cripple the Bamsters cred.

Does Cheney still get briefings?

I want to know what the Generals really told Obama, perhaps a mass resignation? Just thinking out of the box.....

[Ann Archy]

Cheney is a MAN....these Girlie Men Strategerists are SPINELESS!!

[jimfree]

Cheney speaks for me.

[SaraJohnson]

I was counting on you to get it right! :)

[3niner]

Yeah, because we’re better off with Michael Steele and Megan McCain. I don’t really need the tag do I?

[SoldierDad]

GO Cheney Go - Give em Ell

[Darth Tokarev]

We need to know who this idiot is so we know who to tar and feather. Cheney is out of office. He can speak his mind and draw all the fire that the rest of the Washington Pubbies are afraid to. He’s being the bogeyman they so desperately need and saying what the rest are too cowardly to.

It’s a win win for real conservatives, and should be a win win for RINO’s too. Looks like they’re missing the tops of their spines in addition to the part that’s supposed to be in their backbones.

[Deagle]

Folks... that is what your representatives currently think of your ideas... Have you not received the message yet?

It’s either time for a third party OR a revolution within the Republican Party...your choice.

[LucyJo]

The concern among Republican strategists is that the public will think Cheney is speaking for the GOP, and this won't be helpful because the former vice president remains an unpopular figure across the country. Another prominent GOP strategist says Cheney should lower his visibility and give younger party leaders a chance to take the spotlight.

If Dick Cheney is perceived as an "unpopular figure across the country" by anyone other than hardcore leftists, Dem activists, and their blind followers, it's because enough people on our side haven't been speaking up often enough, thereby letting the people with whom he is most unpopular define him (and other Conservatives), the actions he has taken, and the things for which he stands.

The only way to change the erroneous perceptions is to do exactly what he is doing...speak up and tell the truth in the face of lies.

The "young party leaders" need to join him in standing up and speaking out. Dick Cheney has spent a lifetime standing for what's right for this country. "Young party leaders" could earn a good amount of credibility by showing respect for him and helping him defend our country by speaking the truth with the same boldness.

[zerosix]

"GOP strategists" go to HELL!!!

You guys (girly boys and women) need a huge dose of testosterone from Cheney, and he's providing it. Rush gives it three hours 5 days a week and you still can't figure it out.

It's way past time to fire whoever these "strategists" are (I'm thinking that they are mostly the cowards in Congress who hate going to liberal cocktail parties and explaining why they let Cheney "tarnish" the RINO "message.")

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

I doubt if Cheney cares about what they think. They did not lift a finger to defend him and Bush against the Rats, and so he’s now going for broke and telling it like it is. They want him to shut up, go away, and leave the party to the RINOs. Ain’t going to happen.

[nathanbedford]

Back in April when Cheney first started speaking out I posted my understanding of his motives:

Cheney Unleashed

I have long pondered the seeming incomprehensibility of the failure of the Bush administration to defend itself even as it was dying of a thousand cuts. It is not necessary here to rehearse the rope a dope strategy which brought Bush down into the depths of approval ratings and left his administration toothless.

One primary example of this inexplicable taciturnity was brought to light in a remarkable press interview of Carl Rove which I saw on CNN international . Rove commented that perhaps the biggest mistake of the Bush administration was its failure to defend itself against the mantra, "Bush lied and people died" in the wake of the failure to find WMDs in Iraq. Rove said he went to President Bush and explained to him that the slander that Bush lied was gaining coinage in the absence of the administration telling its side of the story. Who could blame the electorate? President Bush forbade Rove from campaigning in public or otherwise to defend the administration, saying that there were other more important issues and political capital should not be wasted on this issue. I believe Bush said that he would be content to have history judge of the matter. Unfortunately, the rest is history.

I believe that this mindless policy is responsible in some unmeasurable way for putting the Manchurian Marxist in the White House. We know what happens to history when Marxists make it and when Marxists write it. In any event, Barak Obama is even today running against George Bush. Republicans cannot defend the record because of Bush's massive unpopularity. George Bush has left the party in a lose -lose situation.

While I was railing against this in post after post I could not understand where Dick Cheney stood in this affair. I think his role is now becoming clearer. Although always a relatively taciturn man, Dick Cheney is no pushover and he is certainly not bashful about speaking out on behalf of policies he believes in especially a policy that he so dearly believes in like national security. Cheney was clearly a dutiful vice president and felt obliged to follow the wishes of his chief executive. There is reason now to believe that Cheney considers the circumstances to have changed.

First, there was Cheney's offhand remark that he speaks to the president "occasionally" indicating that their once very intimate relationship might have cooled. I believe that it cooled dramatically in the last days of the administration when Bush rebuffed Cheney's pleas for a full pardon for Scooter Libby. Bush's passivity, indeed his pusillanimity especially during the early stages of the Valery Plame affair, stand as a morality lesson in irony for his entire administration. It is entirely possible that President Bush will be indicted because the Liberals acquired a blood taste for prosecutions that resulted in travesty done to Scooter Libby. The parallels to Katrina are also obvious.

Second, Cheney is no longer serving his commander in chief and therefore he is more free to speak out.

Thirdly, obviously Cheney is greatly exercised about what he regards to be the security lapses being committed by this administration and what Cheney yesterday acknowledged to be Obama's attempts to "socialize the American economy."

I believe Dick Cheney is a passionate patriot but one who never loses his cool. I believe he is profoundly motivated to speak out now, not in defense of the administration, but in defense of his country.