I’m talking about the US Civil War, not Iraq. Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy were a greater existential threat to the US than Donald Trump, contrary to Cheney’s statement that Trump is the greatest threat to the republic.
Also, I would prefer the thread focus on the repercussions of Cheney’s endorsement on the election rather than rehash the justifications for the Iraq War.
Totally disagree because the Confederacy was doomed from the start, but that is the subject for another thread.
And it wasn’t reasonable to presume that Hans Blix had done his job correctly? As I recall, however explicitly he might have reported that Saddam wanted the world to think he had WMDs, he also reported data that heavily implied that Saddam was only fooling himself on that score.
Cheney definitely wanted to pursue that unjust, unnecessary war of choice in order to further his PNAC evilness.
That said, to echo Christopher Moore, welcome aboard, Dick. And we’re serious about the fish in the microwave thing.
In his UN report, Blix said
If Iraq had provided the necessary cooperation in 1991, the phase of disarmament – under resolution 687 – could have been short and a decade of sanctions could have been avoided.
It is well know that Hussien hampered Blix in his investigation.
And the US intelligence community interpret the results differently and gave their advice to W. I’m not disputing you, I’m just saying the blame may not lay with W. but his advisors.
But for those that missed the Grand Opening, this discussion is now in this thread to avoid hijacking this one. Not my idea but Whack-a-Mole’s.
And a good idea it was, too. Thanks for the notification.
What I’m seeing in the Twitter replies from the MAGA-inclined is that
A) Cheney is a horrible warmonger who’s afraid that Trump will stop shoveling money to the military-industrial complex in support of Ukraine
B) Just bitter about his daughter’s career being wiped out by the MAGA faithful
C) Cheney is evil and if he’s on your side you’re clearly in the wrong
None of these are even entirely false, though (A) especially is basically regurgitating the Russian propaganda that right-wing influencers have been paid to spread by the Kremlin.
Well, obviously Harris sees trumpeting Cheney’s endorsement as a net positive. I have my doubts but I’m just a guy on the internet. I’m not sure who and how many of these “establishment Republicans” there are for whom Dick Cheney’s say-so finally gives them the courage to break with Trump. And it risks alienating some portion of her progressive supporters who justifiably revile Cheney for the Iraq War.
If Trump had any strategic sense, this could create an opening for him in the debate. “You said you were proud to have the support of Dick Cheney. Are you proud of what he did in Iraq? Are you proud of 5,000 dead Americans and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, and Iraq is still a dumpster fire? What about his record makes you proud to have his support?” Puts her in the awkward position of either criticizing Cheney (and risk alienating those “establishment Republicans”) or defending the indefensible (and risk alienating progressive voters still upset with her Gaza stance).
Meh. The rhetorical strategy here is “even Cheney of all people doesn’t support Trump.” The fact that Democrats all are against everything he did is part of that message.
It’s not about getting people who admire Cheney to agree. Just to think that Harris is the lesser of two evils.
2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Keyhotea Cornfielded Posts
I wonder if he did this to set up a Presidential run for Liz in 2028.
If this is the idea then I think she’d have been better off to just let Cheney’s statement speak for herself or made a more milquetoast statement about it. But saying she’s “proud” to have his endorsement – that’s going to rankle some people in her camp. Sure, she can try to make the distinction that she’s proud of the endorsement and not proud of the man but, “I’m proud to have the endorsement of a man that many consider an unmitigated disaster for our country” is a tough needle to thread.
One of the absolute best things you can do in politics is to create conflict between two of your opponent’s constituencies. I think there’s some opening here that a smart Republican candidate could use to stoke acrimony between the progressives and never/reluctant Trumper corners of Harris’ coalition, but Trump’s too dumb to see it.
Hypothetically, yes, I suppose, but for her to have any shot at all, the GOP would have to radically change, and completely purge itself of Trumpism.
At this point in time, I’d wager that most MAGA supporters (which are a substantial fraction, if not an absolutely majority, of Republican voters) consider Liz Cheney to not only a RINO, but an evil traitor to the cause, and it’s really hard to see how conservative voters would change their minds about her so drastically in just four years, especially if Trump is still alive.
I think Cheney and her father did this based on principle. They deserve recognition for doing the right thing at the same level of the complaints concerning the times they done the wrong thing.
Even if we’ll never be able to say that again about them they deserve credit for what they’re doing this time.
Making one statement about it is hardly “trumpeting”. She’s acknowledging it, and it’d be folly not to. She won’t and shouldn’t make it a major campaign point.
Yup. As P.J.O’Rourke said of Hillary Clinton when announcing (on “Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me” of all places) that he was voting for her: “She’s wrong about absolutely everything. But she’s wrong within normal parameters.”
I think she’s safe from that gambit. Not only does Trump have no “strategic sense,” he has never shown the ability to lay out a coherent series of ideas, nor to remember that many facts that aren’t about him.
Yes. And those that it rankles are not going to rankled enough to not vote for her. They are typically more engaged voters. The college student upset about policies in the Mid East today? Few of them know who that old coot is. It’s mostly us somewhat older voters who have reactions to him one way or the other. Those of us old farts who understand him to be evil will tolerate that “proud” statement. And a few old farts who respected him, the I vote for my team so I vote Trump even not liking him old farts, may have this one be a heavy enough bit of straw.
No implosion results but a few more at the edges in an election that likely will be decided at the edges and with turnout by each side.
Henry Wallace, Roosevelt’s second VP, ran against Roosevelt’s third VP, Harry Truman, as a third-party candidate in 1948. Wallace failed to win any states, but he got more than 500,000 votes in New York, which Truman lost to Dewey by 80,000 votes,
She’s safe from the gambit of Trump bringing up Iraqi civilian deaths. But some of the rest Trump might use. I can see Trump saying that Harris is a warmonger who will start a nuclear war since he has basically said that before.
As for Trump working in the Cheney endorsement, that would be a mistake because low info swing voters forget him. It would make a bit more sense for Trump to say that warmonger GW Bush favors Harris. Not true? What difference would that make?