Worst. Idea. Ever.
At an Alabama fundraiser for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R) earlier this week, Dick Cheney started his speech by telling the same joke he tells at all of his recent events. “Thank you,” the VP said over the applause. “A reception like that is almost enough to make you want to run for office again. (Dramatic pause) Almost.”
Today, the New York Sun ran an editorial arguing that this isn’t something Cheney should joke about — this is something Cheney should actually consider.
Mr. Cheney has virtues as a candidate in his own right. He has foreign policy experience by virtue of having served as defense secretary, and he has economic policy experience, having served as a leading tax-cutter while a member of the House of Representatives. His wife, Lynne, would be an asset to the ticket in her own right, a point made by Kathryn Jean Lopez in a post on the topic at National Review Online back in February. By our rights, Lynne Cheney would make one of the greatest First Ladies in history. Mr. Cheney, in any event, is more than four years younger than Mr. McCain, and, if elected, would be 67 years old at his inauguration, younger than Reagan was when he took office. His health, while a topic of frequent speculation, hasn’t interfered with his service as vice president.
Lawrence Kudlow wrote a column a while back saying he hoped President Bush asked Vice President Cheney to run for president in 2008. It was a fine idea then and it still is — not because the current field is particularly weak, but because Mr. Cheney is so much more experienced and shrewd a figure, one who could help settle some of the arguments about the Bush years in favor of Mr. Bush. A White House aiming to get Mr. Cheney elected could also avoid some of the hazards that befall lame-ducks — drift, brain drain, irrelevance. Such a campaign might lift Mr. Cheney ’s own standing in the polls.
I had to double check the byline to make sure this wasn’t an April Fools’ joke. It isn’t; the piece ran today, not Sunday. It appears to be sincere.
I’ll spare you the detailed explanation of Cheney’s job performance since taking office in 2001 — suffice it to say, many horrifying books will no doubt be written on the subject — but I will ask a few questions of the fine editors at the New York Sun.
* Dick Cheney’s approval rating is on par with Nixon’s when he was forced to resign in disgrace. Is there any Democratic candidate who couldn’t beat Cheney in at least 45 states?
* There are approximately seven Americans not named “Cheney” who believe the VP deserves a promotion. Are all seven currently on the Sun’s payroll?
* Can anyone (at the Sun or anywhere else) point to a single thing Cheney has been right about since taking office?
* Does the Sun’s editorial board realize that 61% of Republicans recently said that Cheney would not be an “acceptable” presidential nominee?
* If Dems ask really nicely, and promise to campaign with one arm tied behind our backs, would the Republicans nominate Cheney? Please?
In fact, on that last point, I’m probably going about this the wrong way. Allow me to reverse course — I’m terrified of a Cheney campaign. He’d be all but unbeatable. It’s not a question of whether he’d win, but rather, how big a margin he’d win by. Dems can only hope this unstoppable juggernaut doesn’t run and crush our feeble field of candidates.
Yeah. That’s it. That’s what I meant to say.
Vote for Cheney! (…or he’ll tell you to fuck off and shoot you in the face.)
Cheney should run for Chancellor…
See Dick run. Run, Dick, run!
Why switch Dicks in the middle of a screw?
I wonder who would run as VP on that ticket.
Having Cheney run for President on the GOP ticket should pretty much guarantee a Democratic victory, don’t you think?
I wonder who would run as VP on that ticket.”
Only one man could match Cheney’s ready wit, sunny personality, and steady hand at leadership: Donald Rumsfeld.
Vote Cheney/Rumsfeld ‘08!
Gonzalez for Attorney General!
Here’s his campaign theme song
YES YES YES…please run Cheney, please! I can’t think of anything more certain to ensure a democratic victory than good ‘ole sharpshooting Dick on the ballot.
Scott - “Not Let the Eagles Soar”?
Actually Dick can’t run for President. He has a lesbian daughter who is having a child. Doesn’t pass the Dobson litmus test.
As for VP to Dick, how about the handpuppet selling auto insurance?
Maybe this editorial - following close on the McCain-in-Iraq debacle, the Goodling-fifth, the the withdrawal vote - finally marks the point that Republicans went from panic mode into batshit-terrified-flailing-at-any-pathetic-strands-of-ludicrously-unjustified-hope mode. Well, here’s hoping.
Best. Idea. Ever.
How about Dan Quail for VP?
By our rights, Lynne Cheney would make one of the greatest First Ladies in history.
Professional writers should know that the phrase is “by all rights”, not “by our rights”. I think there’s a Freudian slip lurking somewhere in that sentence.
LG
We’ll save that one for when Ashcroft runs in 2016.
“I wonder who would run as VP on that ticket.” Why not Jeb or Neal Bush?
“He has a lesbian daughter who is having a child.” Don’t forget ‘out of wedlock.’
Think Dick. Vote Cheney.
He does have the advantage of still being married to his first wife, fairly unusual in a Republican. Almost quaint, really.
Plus, as we should all know by now, the right-wing is a personality cult, and irrational, so they’d back Dick.
It would, however, be glorious to see everyone else in the country voting Democratic out of loathing for the man, given that he was an insane autocrat even before his heart treatments made him a paranoid psychotic.
A little Background
I’m not surprised as the Sun was founded in part by soon to be on trial Conrad Black–a Cannuckistani (whom I’m ashamed to be associated with by virtue of being Canadian) and noted meddler in both Canadian and US politics who selects editorial staff on the basis of agreement with his own political views which are right wing. The prosecution is done by one Patrick Fitzgerald of the Plame affair.
Despite the financial and eventual legal demise of Black, many of his little media minions still are around and polluting the airwaves with the refrain of Black’s vision of refried feudalism where the elite do as they please to while us peasants wait on them hand and foot.
This “vision” might explain why he wanted to be a British noble so bad that he chucked his Canadian citizenship into the garbage. Ironically, if he had remained a Canadian it would have kept him from being extradited to the Chicago for trial–heehee.
Yes, I too am totally scared of a Cheney presidential run. I’d probably just cash-in my last welfare check, gather-up my two possessions, and move back to my terrorist masters in France. Don’t do it, Republicans! You’d be too powerful and manly and you might even finally get laid. I’m already quaking in my stinky sandals just thinking about it.
If he got DieBold’s vote, …
No, too scary to contemplate.
* Dick Cheney’s approval rating is on par with Nixon’s when he was forced to resign in disgrace. Is there any Democratic candidate who couldn’t beat Cheney in at least 45 states?
Lyndon Baines Johnson (if we can dig him up and manage to reanimate his filthy rotten corpse). Other than that, Kucinich. He’d only carry 43 or 44 states against Cheney….
* There are approximately seven Americans not named “Cheney” who believe the VP deserves a promotion. Are all seven currently on the Sun’s payroll?
No. There’s the quail that got away when Cheney shot his hunting partner instead….
* Can anyone (at the Sun or anywhere else) point to a single thing Cheney has been right about since taking office?
Being the VP. Imagine if he’d been the DefSec, or even (gods forgive me for saying this) AG….
* Does the Sun’s editorial board realize that 61% of Republicans recently said that Cheney would not be an “acceptable” presidential nominee?
That translates to 39% who “do not” think he’s unacceptable; it’s more that Bush’s “Base….”
* If Dems ask really nicely, and promise to campaign with one arm tied behind our backs, would the Republicans nominate Cheney? Please?
I think that there might be more than a few “Republicans” who can see Cheney as a “Manchurian Candidate” type.
Sorry, CB…couldn’t………………….help…….it….
You forgot the two most important questions for the authors of this piece:
1) what were you smoking when you thought this up?
2) where can I get some?
I forgot about Diebold. Cheney could win. And with this Supreme Court to reject any recounts….
I guess a nuclear attack of every country and blue state which has ever irritated him would help with Global Warming,
I can see his ads now:
“Vote for me or I’ll shoot you in the face.”
I’d vote for him… if he had the drop on me.
I’d been hoping the goopers would nominate Brownback (c’mon goopers! You know you want to!), but I’ll take Cheney as a second choice.
You can’t fault him for not having a vision for the country.
Shameless whores!
Further proof that the New York Sun makes the very best litterbox liner in America. Probably not very good for wrapping fish with, though. And you definitely wouldn’t want to use it as toiletpaper substitute.
I do apologize
“Put a Dick in the Oval Office.”
“Get a bigger Dick in 2008.” (Great for the Viagra & Enzyte crowd)
“Dick Cheney: His is bigger.”
“America needs more Dick.”
And in honour of his health problems:
“Dick takes a licking and keeps on ticking.”
I would love to see him run, if only to watch Jon Stewart flash his dimples through out the campaign.
Please Dick, the people of America need you. Especially those Americans who write comedy. And those Americans who are terminally immature…
Romney would be worse.
tAiO - You overlooked the most obvious bumpersticker slogan: “Dick for Dictator in ‘08.” Or should it be spelled “Dicktator?”
That is not only the worst idea ever, that is a freakin’ nightmare of biblical proportions. Shudder.
His campaign slogan;
“Dick Cheney before Cheney dicks you!”
How about: ‘Didn’t like Bush? Try Dick!’
“Please to meet you, hope you guess my name,” Dick Cheney 1968
Ref. Nr. 2:
Chancellor of what, please?
“How about: ‘Didn’t like Bush? Try Dick!’ ”
I think it might sound better if this was:
Don’t like Bush? Try a little Dick! Cheney/08
Does anyone really want this, besides that rag? They must have been smoking something really good-I want some! I’ll need it if this ever happens!
Must have been a very slow news day for the editors.
If Dick Cheney were elected president, I’d consider it a sign that the Apocalypse was no longer only imminent, but actually under way.