Al Simpson lays into Lynne Cheney in his hometown paper:
In public life I have been called everything – and that goes with the territory. It’s a contact sport. I’ve been called fool, idiot, boob, bonehead, dink, slob, greenie, soot-covered slob, all the rest – and that is “fair,” believe it or not, in politics. But what is not “fair” in my mind – and never has been – is when someone tries to distort who I am – as a person – and that was done on that evening of Sept. 21. In all of my 35-40 years of public life in Wyoming, I’ve never been called one particularly offensive name – and that is, a liar. And this is what Lynne Cheney said in her statement about this sad evening, and I quote her: “As to the story posted on Facebook I have to admit I am at a bit of a loss. That simply did not happen.” And that twisted comment is one damn bald-faced lie and I have had a belly full of it! I have never been called a liar before and it sure as hell won’t work this time. Now I know folks can go into the old pitch of “he said, she said” and so I’ll just leave it to the good people of Wyoming to know who is telling the truth here. I lay my reputation flat on the line before my fellow Wyomingites who know Ann and me, but I sure don’t have to take that guff from anyone – whenever – whoever – ever!
Read the whole long, rambling, strange emission if you want to get every minute detail about the reason Lynne went off on Al, but the short story is this: Lynne told Al to shut up last Saturday, and Simpson’s daughter-in-law posted about it on Facebook the next day. On Tuesday, Liz’ campaign called Simpson a liar after the state’s biggest paper picked up the story. Since then, the Star-Tribune had another story on the incident, and Al cranked his magnum opus of senile rage out of his Underwood portable yesterday.
If the Cheney camp could have apologized or just shut up, this thing would have gone away. But the Cheneys did what Cheneys do–told a lie–and now Liz has had another dismal week, about a year from the primary she will surely lose barring some Deus ex Machina event. I realize that the fun of this is lost on some of you, but it is goddam hilarious.
gogol's wife
Well, I was going to say, there’s nothing senile about this, that’s just more ageism, then I got to this part:
“now I’ll get back to work on much more important ‘stuff’ and that is, working with Democrat Erskine Bowles to see how the hell we can get Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate to drop their harsh and nasty partisanship and work together as citizens of the United States instead of slapping each other around simply for Party advantage. Let them pull together, not pull apart – and realize that they are not just members of a singular political party but Americans first – and always!”
Linda Featheringill
I’ve often thought that all of the Cheneys took etiquette lessons from Oscar the Grouch, except for one thing: Oscar means no harm and I can’t honestly say that about the Cheneys.
Whoever is running Liz’s campaign is an idiot.
Comrade Mary
“There ain’t no party like a Cheney party, and it wouldn’t be a Cheney party without old Dick!”
MattF
@gogol’s wife: Reminds me of my old Uncle Al. Al was always at something of an angle to the rest of reality. Not in a bad way, but it helped if you stayed aware of it.
BerkeleyMom
Good god these people are petty.
Cathyx
Senior on senior sounds dirty.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
If only there was a Thunderdome to put Al and Liz in.
c u n d gulag
That list is a pretty good piece of self-analysis that former Senator Simpleton gave of himself, there.
And he may be stupid, ignorant, and un-empathetic, but everyone – with the possible exception of the lesbian daughter – in the Cheney family, is a stupid, ignorant, and sociopathically evil, liar!
Bill E Pilgrim
It’s like watching the Monitor and the Merrimack going after each other 50 years after they both sank.
Belafon
OT: Ted Cruz tweets (the link is to the Daily Kos article) a picture of a chess board to Mike Lee with the comment “Your move” (I have to play a lot of Yugioh a few years ago with my kids so I only hear those words in song). But, as DK points out, the king and queen are on the wrong colors.
SiubhanDuinne
@Cathyx: I suspect that’s what mistermix had in mind. Anything for the clicks.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
This is Dick Cheney’s fault for making the last shooting look like a hunting accident. That doesn’t scare anyone except the people who go hunting with you.
MikeJ
@c u n d gulag: It’s possible to be a stupid, ignorant, and sociopathically evil, liar AND a lesbian.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Belafon: Just to show that you can be both gender confused and square all at the same time.
mistermix
@SiubhanDuinne: I deny that I make sophomoric double entendres for the clicks. I make them because I am easily amused.
taylormattd
My favorite part of that letter is the long, detailed love note to Dick Cheney. Simpson put that in there for the purpose of making Dick Cheney, should he get involved in the argument, look like an asshole attacking an elderly friend.
Bill E Pilgrim
That gets better the second time you read it. Can’t beat “Snoopy Snoopy Poopy Pants” as the best thing he’s ever said, but it’s pretty good.
Now I’ve been called an idiot, a fool, a wingo, “Hank the Explorer”, and a half-cranked dehooziwitzit. I ain’t never been called a half-cranked dehooziwitzit though, and I don’t plan to start now.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@taylormattd:
I see what you did there.
rikyrah
Like you, I find this entire situation hilarious.
SiubhanDuinne
@mistermix: Clicks is gravy.
Violet
This whole situation is some of the best political soap opera out there. The entitled blonde from the rich, well-connected family. The long-serving Senator who knows his state well. The former Senator who is definitely picking sides. The power-behind-the-throne mother. The daughter-in-law firestarter. The small population, high plains state that’s a far cry from Washington.
Someone could make a TV show about these people and no one would believe it resembled reality.
mistermix
@taylormattd: This is the core of the whole Cheney problem – she and her team think that Wyoming politicians are a bunch of country morons and their whole approach oozes condescension to the country rubes. But Simpson and Enzi are not stupid about how Wyoming works, so they’re capitalizing on every misstep.
Kyle
“No one could have expected” that a family of sociopathic authoritarian assholes would be less than ethical. Or that a mendacious Catfood Commissioner would have an oh-so-delicate ego.
Either way, it’s like the Iran-Iraq war — you wish both sides could lose badly.
MikeJ
@Belafon: What’s the deal with board anyway? That step thing the pieces are on I mean.
The pieces are pretty ugly too. I only play with good old standard Staunton.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@MikeJ:
Three dimensional chess. You prolly didn’t recognize it because yer used to looking at 11 dimensional chess.
Redshift
@Belafon: Plus the fact that tweeting to a fellow conservative Republican senator, rather than Democrats or Boehner, pretty much confirms that Cruz’ “game” is to blow up the Republican Party so he can be king of the biggest piece, not anything to do with the budget or Obamacare.
Yatsuno
@MikeJ: I noticed the queen had big knockers. It’s a pretty tacky set.
Belafon
@MikeJ: It seems to me to be a type of chess set just for show, not for actually playing. the whole raised section thing would probably throw a number of people off.
beer time somewhere
Dear United States of America,
We do not want Calgary Cruz back. Fuck that asshole, we have enough already and don’t need another one.
ktksbai,
Canada
PS. Go ‘eers.
Villago Delenda Est
The entire Cheney clan is just despicable. Not one of them worthy of continued consumption of oxygen.
Roger Moore
@gogol’s wife:
Free hint, Al: focus on the Republicans.
GregB
I am of the school thought that both Liz and Lynne Cheney are bigger dinks than Alan Simpson.
Yatsuno
@efgoldman: I’m gay, not blind. :P
Jay S
Apparently Al wanted to take his name of a “Celebrity football” that he had signed earlier. The reason for wanting to do it seems pretty bizarre. Sure it could be auctioned off for a cause you don’t support, but so what?
Anyway, I wonder how you do that. Do they have some kind of ball cleaner at celebrity signing events to clean up mistakes?
Trollhattan
@Belafon: mike Lee should Tweet back a picture of a Candyland board.
Jay C
Most of what I’ve read about the Cheney/Enzi contretemps in Wyoming (admittedly, on the Internet, so caveat lector) seems to underscore that the whole thing is basically a “carpetbagging” issue: the WY GOP is, by all accounts, a fairly tight-knit and clannish operation, where who and who isn’t “One Of Us” is of prime importance in determining who gets the front spots in local/national offices. Mike Enzi, nonentity as he might appear to most of the rest of the universe, is definitely OOU; and the Cheneys (any of ’em) are, despite their apparent “national” cachet, to a large extent NOOU – and it’s probably going to hurt Liz’s chances. Badly.
Ash Can
Regardless of how much of an ass Simpson may be otherwise, I give him props for having the spine to kick one of those sociopath Cheneys in public. Not enough people are like that.
gogol's wife
@mistermix:
Are you from Wyoming? I have family connections there, and the name “Gillette” has a Proustian ring to it for me.
gogol's wife
@Yatsuno:
You made me click on it. That is HILARIOUS! It’s the Playboy Annie Fannie chess set!
TG Chicago
@Jay S: It’s hard enough for me to understand why anybody would want Alan Simpson’s autograph. But there is no way I’m going to figure out why someone would want Alan Simpson’s autograph… on a football.
gogol's wife
@TG Chicago:
Yes, that puzzled me too.
gogol's wife
@efgoldman:
LOL
WP just told me I’m posting comments too quickly and I should slow down. whiskeytangofoxtrot
Felonius Monk
Isn’t this just simply two assholes farting at each other? It is kind of funny, but then who cares?
Citizen_X
Nice to see the local paper making space for some authentic frontier gibberish.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@efgoldman: @Trollhattan:
Heh
Cervantes
Either way, it’s like the Iran-Iraq war — you wish both sides could lose badly.
Why?
Iraq (namely, Saddam Hussein) was the aggressor, supported by the US & Europe, both of whom provided all manner of weaponry to the Iraqis including chemical-weapon precursors. The Iraqis used weapons of mass destruction against Iranian & Kurdish civilians; the Iranians did no such thing.
In such a war, why would one have been neutral?
(By coincidence, Dick Cheney was in Congress for almost the precise duration of the Iran-Iraq war.)
ottercliff
The only thing more entertaining than watching once powerful elders crapping all over each other is watching once powerful conservative elders crapping all over each other. What say you Dick? Liz, cat got your tongue??
The Fat Kate Middleton
@Violet:
And they could call it The Simpsons.
karen marie
I hope someone kept a cache version because the link now dead ends. I suppose it’s too much to hope that we ever learn who pulled it?
Turgidson
I’d be happy to add my name to the apparently-way-too-short list of people who have called Alan Simpson a liar. Nearly everything that assholes says about Social Security and the deficit is at best a misleading partial truth meant to con people into destroying Social Security in order to “deal with” a debt problem that, to the extent it exists at all, is due to inadequate tax revenues (thanks, Bush) and GOP resistance to anything that might bring down aggregate health care costs (ie Obamacare). Oh and the MIC and its endless thirst for war (origin of that problem is bipartisan, but the only GOPer who wants to trim defense spending is Rand Paul. And he’s an idiot).
YellowJournalism
@Trollhattan: Chutes and Ladders. It’s obvious Cruz has never played it, though, because the game teaches children not to be assholes.
wenchacha
Ol’ Grampy Simpson wasn’t so much a fan of the truth that he hesitated to share his anecdote about all the letters coming in “over the transom” that made mention of Anita Hill’s “proclivities.”
He’s managed to say one or two things over the years that I could respect, but aside from that, he’s an old crank. It is a sweet thing to see these two old dragons breathing fire at each other.
MattR
@Turgidson: I have been trying to figure out why everyone is assuming that the Cheneys are the ones lying when both sides have a history of doing so.
opiejeanne
@YellowJournalism: Or Snakes and Ladders, which I understand was the original version of that game.
mch
Check out TPM (Josh Marshall) on this whole story. Good stuff. (Helps you to understand what has previously completely baffled me, incidentally, why anyone would give the slightest notice to Alan Simpson — he has his strong points as a human being, it seems. Also, observe his subtle notice that Lynn Cheney had a drink in her hand as she accosted him — he’s signaling something important here. Plus, Ann Simpson comes out a real mensch in all of this. Hell, Simpson/Bowles is a blow-out, but this whole story gets at something that might give us hope that human decency might yet hold some sway.)
mch
And btw, of course Simpson is an idiot. But idiots don’t lie very well. Lying is different from being wrong. And being decent is different from wrong or correct. Just saying. (Let’s not shut down the government, please, or god forbid, renege on or debts — “our” here in the unique position of being able to print our own money, and all that.
Montarvillois
The Cheneys have always had a mighty high opinion of themselves.
c u n d gulag
@efgoldman:
LOL!
Yeah, it’ll probably have to come to that, or else he’ll be out there in either a walker or a wheelchair!
Long Tooth
First of all, Simpson agreed to sign the football. If it meant so much to him, he should have refused when his question (“what’s it for?”) went unanswered. Too, I assume he signed in ink. Ink that would have have been difficult to remove from the ball, maybe impossible, without ruining its raffle value. Finally, just how many votes does Simpson think his name on a football is worth?
But he is a gentleman. I guarantee you Mama Bear’s outburst wasn’t as properly enunciated as Simpson would have you think. She didn’t screech “shut up, shut up, shut up” at him. You can bet your life it sounded more like, “shurr-up, shurr-up, shur-rup!”. Simpson may be a gentleman, but he also pointedly noted she was holding a drink in her hand.
So, an ancient, mean spirited hag who was half in the bag ran her mean ugly mouth at him– and he couldn’t take it. The big, bad, Wyoming cowboy went into a petulant snit, apparently one from which he may never emerge.
Wyoming must be so proud of them both.