Video:DickandLizCheneyannouncethey’reforming

Video: Dick and Liz Cheney announce they’re forming a nonprofit to counter Obama’s foreign policy

posted at 4:01 pm on June 18, 2014 by Allahpundit

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So that’s why that op-ed appeared in the Journal today. Here’s the organization’s new website; if you’re a hawk of the McCain/Graham/Rubio variety, you’ll find plenty to like.

Is there a deeper strategy to this rollout, though? I’ll give you three possibilities. One: It’s exactly what it looks like, a platform from which to attack President Bumblefark as he works another two and a half years of Hopenchange foreign policy magic. Okay, but this is an odd moment for Dick Cheney, of all people, to be picking a fight with The One. He did a solid job of countering Obama when they clashed on enhanced interrogation and Gitmo back in 2009, but opinion on those issues has always been more equivocal than opinion on Iraq is now. Why would a guy whom the public remembers as a prime mover in the Iraq war debacle want to take the lead in arguing that O’s not being aggressive enough overseas, at a moment when Iraq is at the top of the foreign policy agenda? Yesterday Glenn Beck told liberals on his radio show that they were right to oppose invading Iraq; today, conservative journalist Byron York surveys the op-eds lately from Iraq war supporters calling for a new round of intervention and marvels at the lack of humility in most of them. If even commentators who are normally sympathetic to hawks are thinking twice about dropping more bombs in Anbar province, maybe Bush’s VP isn’t the guy to make the case for more muscle to the wider public. E.g.:

After Cheney op-ed says Obama “so wrong about so much at the expense of so many” – Jay Carney snarks “Which president was he talking about?”

— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) June 18, 2014

Cheney, a savvy pol, obviously understands all that. So perhaps this is about more than trying to drum up popular opinion against O.

Two: Maybe it’s a vehicle for getting Liz back in the political game after her primary bid against Mike Enzi fizzled. Clearly she’s going to run for office again someday, whether in Wyoming or Virginia. Running a nonprofit designed to attack Obama will put her name in front of grassroots conservatives. It’s a smart way to keep positive buzz flowing on the right, except among libertarians of course.

Three, my pet theory: This isn’t about Obama at all, it’s about building a hawkish platform from which to attack Rand Paul as he runs for the GOP nomination in 2016. Really, why would you even need to attack O on foreign policy at this point? His numbers are already in the toilet; Chuck Todd read his political obituary on the air just this morning. He’s the lamest of lame ducks. The guy whom hawks are worried about is Paul, who could do a lot of damage to the interventionist cause by succeeding with a more dovish foreign policy agenda in the GOP primary. Remember, too, that the Cheneys have a history with Paul: He eagerly endorsed Enzi after Liz announced her primary challenge and offered to campaign personally for him in Wyoming in the name of squashing a famous hawk with the Cheney name. The Cheneys are going to repay the kindness next year by attacking him as a dangerously irresponsible appeaser who’ll build on Obama’s legacy of failure. That’s where the new group comes in, I think. By rolling it out now against Obama, they’re going to build goodwill among righties. Then they’ll put that goodwill to use next year in hammering Paul.

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Tags: Dick Cheney, dove, hawk, Liz Cheney, obama, stronger america

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Cheneysripthe“collapsingObamadoctrine” posted

Cheneys rip the “collapsing Obama doctrine”

posted at 9:21 am on June 18, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

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Call this the great We told you so from the neocons, written by one of the best thinkers of the group. Former VP Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney partner for a broadside against the Obama administration’s confused and drifting foreign policy, especially in regard to Iraq and Afghanistan. They write that allies in that region have asked them in dismay to explain what Obama’s strategic plan is, why he’s tossing way hard-fought gains in Iraq, and why all of a sudden he’s playing footsie with Iran:

On a trip to the Middle East this spring, we heard a constant refrain in capitals from the Persian Gulf to Israel, “Can you please explain what your president is doing?” “Why is he walking away?” “Why is he so blithely sacrificing the hard fought gains you secured in Iraq?” “Why is he abandoning your friends?” “Why is he doing deals with your enemies?”

In one Arab capital, a senior official pulled out a map of Syria and Iraq. Drawing an arc with his finger from Raqqa province in northern Syria to Anbar province in western Iraq, he said, “They will control this territory. Al Qaeda is building safe havens and training camps here. Don’t the Americans care?”

Our president doesn’t seem to. Iraq is at risk of falling to a radical Islamic terror group and Mr. Obama is talking climate change. Terrorists take control of more territory and resources than ever before in history, and he goes golfing. He seems blithely unaware, or indifferent to the fact, that a resurgent al Qaeda presents a clear and present danger to the United States of America.

When Mr. Obama and his team came into office in 2009, al Qaeda in Iraq had been largely defeated, thanks primarily to the heroic efforts of U.S. armed forces during the surge. Mr. Obama had only to negotiate an agreement to leave behind some residual American forces, training and intelligence capabilities to help secure the peace. Instead, he abandoned Iraq and we are watching American defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.

The tragedy unfolding in Iraq today is only part of the story. Al Qaeda and its affiliates are resurgent across the globe. According to a recent Rand study, between 2010 and 2013, there was a 58% increase in the number of Salafi-jihadist terror groups around the world. During that same period, the number of terrorists doubled.

In the face of this threat, Mr. Obama is busy ushering America’s adversaries into positions of power in the Middle East. First it was the Russians in Syria. Now, in a move that defies credulity, he toys with the idea of ushering Iran into Iraq. Only a fool would believe American policy in Iraq should be ceded to Iran, the world’s largest state sponsor of terror.

The impulse to ally with Iran and to essentially flip American policy on its head is a dead giveaway about Obama’s strategic thinking. It’s non-existent. American policy in this region has been entirely reactionary, a game of checkers in a region where everyone else plays three-dimensional chess. The only strategy Obama has is withdrawal, and the White House has so little preparation for the predictable outcomes of that strategy that they grasp at straws when they arise.

Hence, we have the strange sight of an American outreach to Iran to intercede in Iraq when the rest of the Sunni states in the area have aligned with the US precisely because they fear increased Iranian hegemony. We were prepared to bomb Syria with little forethought on the consequences, and now we’re lining up with the state sponsor of Hezbollah to deal with our failure in Iraq — even though Hezbollah is propping up the regime we wanted to bomb last year in Syria. It’s one reaction after another.

On the other hand, the Cheneys are likely whistling into the wind here. There hasn’t been much polling on Iraq, but the PPP poll taken over the weekend shows that the neocon policy is even less popular than Obama’s leadership at the moment. Even with the looming disaster facing Baghdad and by extension American policy, and even with the threat that ISIS represents to the region and eventually to the US directly, only 20% want American troops back in Iraq. The majority want a diplomatic “mobilization” to deal with ISIS, which as I wrote yesterday would look pretty strange, since ISIS is an unapologetic terrorist organization. The American public is as confused as the Obama administration at the moment, and Obama’s leadership will likely keep them that way … as well as everyone else in the world too, especially our allies.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Dick Cheney, foreign policy, Iran, Iraq, ISIS, Liz Cheney, smart power, withdrawal

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CheneydropsSenatebidagainstEnziinWyoming

Cheney drops Senate bid against Enzi in Wyoming

posted at 8:01 am on January 6, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

This comes as a surprise, perhaps to Mike Enzi more than anyone. Liz Cheney, who started an intramural feud in the Wyoming GOP and then another within her family, has decided not to run against Enzi for the Republican nomination to the US Senate after all:

Liz Cheney, whose upstart bid to unseat Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi sparked a round of warfare in the Republican Party and even within her own family, is dropping out of the Senate primary, sources told CNN late Sunday.

Cheney, the eldest daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, began telling associates of her decision over the weekend and could make an official announcement about the race as early as Monday.

Charlie Spiering reports for the Washington Examiner that Cheney has made it official:

“Serious health issues have recently arisen in our family, and under the circumstances, I have decided to discontinue my campaign. My children and their futures were the motivation for our campaign and their health and well-being will always be my overriding priority,” Cheney said in a statement.

Cheney was already facing an uphill fight against Enzi, but her decision might be based on more than just politics. Her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, had a heart transplant in 2012, and she had a very public dispute with her sister, Mary, a lesbian, over the issue of gay marriage.

True, but the former Vice President had already had his heart transplant by the time Liz Cheney announced her bid. The fight with her sister Mary had already been fought in public, too. If those were the hurdles, Cheney had already vaulted past them. This statement seems to suggest that other health issues have arisen that are more directly related to Cheney or her nuclear family.

Perhaps it’s just as well. This campaign always seemed a bit ill-considered. Enzi didn’t have a particularly RINO-ish reputation until Cheney decided to go after him; the American Conservative Union (which hosts CPAC in March) rated Enzi at 92.73% for 2012, 89% in 2011, and 96% in 2010. On top of that, questions immediately arose as to Cheney’s connection to Wyoming, where she had lived sparingly at best for the last several years.  The sudden exit makes the decision to challenge Enzi even more questionable.

The big question now will be whether the intraparty rift in Wyoming will heal, and what this does for the credibility of groups that lined up behind Cheney against Enzi. That may depend on whether they quietly switch to supporting the incumbent in an otherwise safe seat, or attempt to push another primary opponent instead.

Tags: 2014 election, Liz Cheney, Mike Enzi, US Senate, Wyoming

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Video:LizCheneyendorsestraditionalmarriage,sparkingwar

Video: Liz Cheney endorses traditional marriage, sparking war of words with gay sister

posted at 10:51 am on November 18, 2013 by Allahpundit

I’m tempted to call this a clever Cheney family ploy to burnish Liz’s conservative credentials ahead of her primary against Mike Enzi, except … Enzi’s opposed to gay marriage too. It may help her pass a tea-party litmus test but it doesn’t actually gain her anything against the incumbent. On the contrary, all the attention to this subject is likely to remind Wyoming conservatives not only that the Cheney family is notably pro-gay among Republican royalty — Dick Cheney’s other daughter is herself married to a woman — but that Liz herself was widely assumed to be pro-SSM based on things she’s said in the past. Either (a) everyone misunderstood her position before, (b) she’s an exceedingly rare example of someone who used to support gay marriage but has since “evolved” in the other direction, or (c) her endorsement of traditional marriage on “Fox News Sunday” is just an empty pander to tea partiers.

Here’s Heather Poe, who’s married to Liz’s sister Mary, responding to her opposition of SSM yesterday on Facebook. I wonder which of the three explanations above she favors.

I was watching my sister-in-law on Fox News Sunday (yes Liz, in fifteen states and the District of Columbia you are my sister-in-law) and was very disappointed to hear her say “I do believe in the traditional definition of marriage.”

Liz has been a guest in our home, has spent time and shared holidays with our children, and when Mary and I got married in 2012 – she didn’t hesitate to tell us how happy she was for us.

To have her now say she doesn’t support our right to marry is offensive to say the least

I can’t help but wonder how Liz would feel if as she moved from state to state, she discovered that her family was protected in one but not the other.

I always thought freedom meant freedom for EVERYONE.

Mary Cheney, Liz’s sister and Poe’s spouse, replied, “Couldn’t have said it better myself.” Legit sibling feud or campaign charade aimed at highlighting Liz’s ostensible social conservatism? The NYT thinks it’s the former:

The situation has deteriorated so much that the two sisters have not spoken since the summer, and the quarrel threatens to get in the way of something former Vice President Dick Cheney desperately wants — a United States Senate seat for Liz…

People who have spoken to Liz Cheney say she is irritated that her sister is making their dispute public and believes it is hypocritical for Mary Cheney to take such a hard line now, given that she worked for the re-election of President Bush, an opponent of same-sex marriage…

Mary Cheney, 44, said in a phone interview Sunday that she presumed her sister shared her father’s views on marriage, and that view was reinforced because Liz Cheney “was always very supportive” of her relationship with Ms. Poe and the couple’s two children. She learned otherwise in August when Liz Cheney declared, shortly after announcing her Senate candidacy, that she was opposed to same-sex marriage rights. Mary Cheney said it is now “impossible” for the sisters to reconcile as long as Liz Cheney maintains that position.

“What amazes me is that she says she’s running to be a new generation of leader,” Mary Cheney said, citing her 47-year-old sister’s slogan in her campaign against Mr. Enzi, 69. “I’m not sure how sticking to the positions of the last 20 or 30 years is the best way to do that.”

That last paragraph is the killer, since one of Liz’s big headaches in the primary is reassuring primary voters that she’s a bona fide conservative and a bona fide Wyomingite. Enzi and his surrogates, like Rand Paul, have needled her about her east-coast pedigree, knowing that calling her authenticity into question on one point may lead voters to question it on the other. Liz’s counter to all that is that the Senate needs new blood; now here comes Mary Cheney to question whether Liz’s supposed advantage over Enzi — youth and fresh thinking — is much of an advantage after all. Result: Some social-con voters may doubt whether Liz is really as much a supporter of traditional marriage as she says and others may doubt whether she’s really that much different from Enzi. Not a good place to be — especially with Enzi getting good press lately for his early skepticism of ObamaCare and reaching out to tea partiers by publishing op-eds at sites widely read by grassroots conservatives.

Here’s what she said yesterday, and beneath it is what she said in 2009. She never explicitly says in the latter that she supports legalizing gay marriage, but she does say that her “family” endorses the idea that “freedom means freedom for everyone” — the very words that Poe threw back at her in yesterday’s Facebook post. Draw your own conclusions about what her position was at the time.

Tags: Dick Cheney, enzi, gay marriage, heather poe, Liz Cheney, mary cheney, same sex, traditional, Wyoming

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DickCheneynotsuchanEnzifanthese

Dick Cheney not such an Enzi fan these days it seems

posted at 3:31 pm on October 27, 2013 by Jazz Shaw

This was a pretty good interview with Dick Cheney all around on ABC this morning. It was broken out into a few segments and covered plenty of ground. Portions of it had to do with his new book in which he discusses some fairly heavy, non-policy topics, specifically dealing with his own mortality while waiting for his heart surgery.

We’ll have the video in a second, but it’s worth noting that the political stuff he did cover was fairly spicy, as you’ve come to expect. When asked about Liz’s run back home in Wyoming, he wasn’t just cheerleading for her… he was taking some shots at Enzi.

“Mike has a record, if you go back and review his finances, of getting about 84 percent of his campaign funds from Washington-based PACs. That’s more than any senator of either party. He doesn’t get much money from Wyoming,” Cheney told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” Sunday. “In the quarter just reported, Liz got 25 percent of her funds from Wyoming; he got 13 percent of his from Wyoming. She outraised him in the last quarter, over a million dollars in the first quarter out there.”

Cheney also took Enzi to task for saying that the pair are fishing buddies in an interview this week with The Daily Beast.

“Mike also said he and I are fishing buddies, which is simply not true. Never happened,” Cheney said.

I can see criticizing Mike Enzi on the fundraising thing. I mean, it’s not much to go on, but nobody has had much luck finding anything to throw at Enzi’s wall that’s sticking with Wyoming voters. But the fishing comment? That’s just hurtful, Dick. Is there nothing left which can cross political boundaries and bind us all together? As a lifetime fisherman, I’d hope it could at least be that. But alas… apparently not.

Exit question, as I prepare for the Jets game. (We’re going to win, by the way. That’s why Ed didn’t pick the game.) Dick Cheney is no stranger to political battles at any level. How much of this is him seeing something in the Enzi race that nobody else is talking about, and how much is putting on the required good face for his daughter? Is there really any bad blood between he and Enzi which just never made headlines before, or is this just part of the theater of politics and all will be forgiven and forgotten once the race is over?

Tags: 2014 election, Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney, Mike Enzi, US Senate, Wyoming

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