That is the first paragraph of an op ed by one of my favorite pundits, Derrick Jackson, of the Boston Globe, which is entitled Cheney talks and the GOP squirms.
The second will give you the real flavor:
Now we know why he was so hunkered down as vice president, except to proclaim that we would be welcomed as liberators in Iraq. Had he been more candid sooner, even more Republicans would have staked their lawns with Obama signs, ashamed of the rock their party lives under.
I am going to strongly urge that before you do anything else, you take the time fo read Jackson's entire piece. Selective quotation simply is insufficient in this case.
Of course, to justify the diary, I will quote a few more snips, and offer a few reflections of my own. But if I get you to read the Jackson in the original, my task is complete.
After reminding us of the incredibly low opinion Americans have had and still have about Cheney, Jackson notes that Cheney never has seemed to care, especially given what we have seen from him starting with his secretive energy panel and going forward. Before evaluating the recent spate of public appearances by the former (vice-)president, Jackson writes
So there is no reason to expect sensitivity from him now, blubbering to an excess that serves only to further creep out Americans on the Republican brand.
blubbering to an excess - what a phrase
further creep out Americans on the Republican brand - as if the licking they have taken in the last two Federal elections had not already demonstrated that Americans were tired of the same-old same-old offered by the great election minds of the likes of Karl Rove.
Cheney's attempted sale of the idea that Obama is making America less safe, which in retrospect further justifies the atrocities of the (Bush-)Cheney regime is being rejected by our fellow citizens, who by a 2-1 margin approve of Obama's handling of terrorism and by almost a 3-1 margin do NOT think Obama's policies have made us more vulnerable to attack. On the latter point, it is worth adding to what Jackson writes this observation: Obama right now is probably the most popular person in the world - he is more popular in Britain than any of their politicians, he is greatly admired in Africa, and people in the Muslim world desperately want him to succeed because they believe that perhaps for the first time there is an American president who understands their aspirations.
Think about that for a minute. Even people and leaders in nations with a tradition of at least skepticism if not downright hostility towards American governments in recent decades want Obama to succeed. Contrast that to the words of the likes of Rush Limbaugh, who makes clear that he wants Obama to fail - for purely political reasons. And then remember that Cheney has clearly said the he prefers an association with the likes of Limbaugh and is willing to reject the sanity of a Colin Powell, speaking of him dismissively, that Cheney thought he had already left the party. As to Cheney's insistence that the Republicans ought not to moderate, that they should continue to hew to the hardline right positions, Jackson notes
What Cheney does not get is that many Americans felt betrayed by the Republican hard line on many social and economic issues in the last election, handing the Democrats leadership of the White House and the Hill.
Of course Jackson refers to the Specter departure, to the two women in Maine being among the last Republican moderates on the Hill (and I would add to their names only a few others, perhaps Mike Castle of Delaware - others are considered moderates only in comparison to the extreme hard right positions of the bulk of the Republicans in Congress).
It is not just the Specter left. Consider that Tom Ridge decided not to run for that Senate seat. The most popular Republican in recent Pennsylvania history has criticized the insistence on the hard right tilt of the party, which of course would subject him to the scorn of Rush and his dittoheads. It was not clear that he would much more successful in a primary against Pat Toomey than Specter would have been. Here is the man who was perhaps the top choice of the last two Republican presidential nominees as their running mate and neither dared to pick him because of the fear of the hard right base.
And to the two Pennsylvanians, we can now add someone from Utah, if the current rumors about Gov. Huntsman deciding to become Ambassador to China are true - could he get the nomination, in some ways Huntsman would represent the most formidable threat to the reelection chances of Obama; now he is seemingly out of the running for 2012.
Jackson notes the major improvement in the right track number in the CBS poll, rising from a dismal 7% in October to the most recent 45%. Apparently "hope" is something that is important to most Americans, even if Republicans of the likes of those Cheney thinks should dominate the party were so dismissive of it, calling it empty rhetoric.
Jackson is, always has been, a perceptive critic of this nation. He has an ability to phrase things in a way that sticks in your mind. So consider his final paragraph:
Cheney, who thinks the party of Lincoln should now become the party of Limbaugh, says he sees only a "semantic problem" with the Republicans. Americans saw right through this in November and continue to see through it. They see a seismic problem.
Not a "semantic problem" but a seismic problem.
That does not mean that massive numbers of Republicans have now become Democrats, although several hundred thousand mmoderate Republicans in Pennsylvania did change their registration in the last year. But the evidence is clear that several million - perhaps more - have cut their personal connection with the Republican party, continuing a trend that was clear in 2006. Having walked away from that party, they are now far more willing not to reflexively reject Democratic ideas and candidates. And once they begin to listen, they are increasingly likely to begin to understand that Democrats of almost all stripes are far more concerned about ordinary folks than the Republican fealty to a hard-right social view will allow. They may even begin to discover that the truth has a liberal bias.
The Republican party is as of right now two-face, the faces being those of Cheney and Limbaugh. But it could get worse. There is third face attempting to reinsert himself into the discussion, that of Newt Gingrich. And if three-faced, or perhaps better, three-headed, perhaps one will be reminded of an ancient image, that of Cerberus, the dog that guarded Hades, the underworld of the dead. His task was to prevent those who have crossed the river Styx into that undderworld from ever escaping. Cheney and his fellows seem determined to keep the Republican party locked in the hell of their creation, detached from and opposed to the interests and concerns of most of the American people.
That makes me want to end as I began, with words of Derrick Jackson.
PLEASE, Dick Cheney, keep talking!
Peace.