But I think we should be taking the possibility of a Dick Cheney bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 more seriously, for a run would be good for the Republicans and good for the country. (The sound you just heard in the background was liberal readers spitting out their lattes.)
Why? Because Cheney is a man of conviction, has a record on which he can be judged, and whatever the result, there could be no ambiguity about the will of the people. The best way to settle arguments is by having what we used to call full and frank exchanges about the issues, and then voting. A contest between Dick Cheney and Barack Obama would offer us a bracing referendum on competing visions. One of the problems with governance since the election of Bill Clinton has been the resolute refusal of the opposition party (the GOP from 1993 to 2001, the Democrats from 2001 to 2009, and now the GOP again in the Obama years) to concede that the president, by virtue of his victory, has a mandate to take the country in a given direction. A Cheney victory would mean that America preferred a vigorous unilateralism to President Obama’s unapologetic multilateralism, and vice versa.
Didn’t we already have a referendum on the Bush years in 2008?
More to the point, the reason that Dick Cheney won’t be the Republican nominee in 2012 is that people don’t like him and he’d be guaranteed to lose in a general election. But why should we leave these political decisions up to primary voters? Wouldn’t it be better if Republicans just did what Jon Meacham told them to do?
The arrogance of articles like amazes me.
Ash Can
I FUCKING WISH.
bago
2008 called. It got its country back.
Garrigus Carraig
Did you know that there were no terrorist attacks under the previous Cheney administration? He does have a record on which he can be judged, after all. Did you know, also, that he was a POW?
forked tongue
Yeah. Boy, those Democrats sure resisted Bush’s efforts to take the country in a given direction. Obstinate fuckers, they were.
aimai
This is just another example of the right wing/villager propensity to demand a “best–total number of games until I win” strategy. Remember how they actually reset the blue/red war games at the start of the Iraq war when the US general representing the Iraq side did some cunning stuff and “won” the war game? I think its fascinating that they have the nerve to discount Obama’s massive win as somehow not legitimate because it only happened once. Bush was considered legitimate after one botched election in which he didn’t even win the popular vote–how is Obama’s win not legit until he wins twice?
But I think its also interesting that at least they’ve stopped saying Obama isn’t president because John Roberts muffed the oath, or wasn’t holding the bible right side up, or whatever.
aimai
dmsilev
And he left office with an approval rating somewhat less than that of venereal disease, for a plethora of good and convincing reasons.
Please, Republicans, let your 2012 primary be a Cheny vs. Palin slugfest.
-dms
Kryptik
As if this little note at the beginning wasn’t proof enough alone that the article would be filled with standard conservative bullshit.
ellaesther
Not to mention that I neither drink lattes, nor do spit takes.
Jim
Is Parson Meacham conceding that Senator Straight-Talk was a flip-flopping weasel desperately chasing an ever-sinking lowest-common denominator in his futile quest to be president so he could govern by the radiating power of his heroic awesomeness? I think he is. Too bad no one, including the good Parson, will notice.
mistersnrub
This should read, “Cheney has a criminal record on which he should be judged. He is a man that should be convicted.”
Keith G
Why not? I would love to to see a Cheny/Pence ticket in ’12.
Their slogan could be Doom and Dumber.
Ash Can
@dmsilev:
Hear, hear. That would be fantastic. (It also might be enough to make me feel geniunely sorry for the poor snowbilly bimbo.)
Incertus
What Kryptik said, and ellaesther. I hope Cheney does run. He’d be the only person (except, perhaps for Giuliani, should he give it another shot) to finish behind Sarah Palin.
dmsilev
@Kryptik: No kidding. The early 1990s called and asked for their trite cliche back.
-dms
arguingwithsignposts
Just have to say that I met Meacham at a function at a school I used to work at, and he was an insufferable prick then too. We discussed blogging, and he was typically dismissive of it.
It doesn’t surprise me that he buys into Cheney’s bullshit.
Cheney had his chance during the election of 2008 to remark about Obama’s campaign platform and he didn’t say a word. After he got out, then he starts flinging poo.
Word to the wise for those who think Cheney is worth a look for 2012. Scooter Libby was the least of the skeletons in Dick’s man-sized safe. This will not be pretty.
catclub
aimai @ 5
That was a US – IraN war game, not Iraq.
Iran actually has a navy and some antiship missiles.
Iraq, no way.
The winner forgot to say “No take backs”, so its all good.
Violet
Oh, man that would be awesome! Maybe a Cheney/Palin ticket? Just imagine the fun that could be had with that.
John Meacham is seriously high if he thinks Cheney could get elected. The American people want their presidents to have some modicum of likability. Cheney has none. People don’t like him. They would not want him as their president.
Jeez, the villagers are stupid sometimes.
arguingwithsignposts
@dmsilev:
Just out of curiousity, who approves of venereal diseases in these polls? :P
gnomedad
Hopefully, Cheney will be running due to an arrest warrant.
Violet
I wonder if it’s a trial balloon to get the Cheney name out there again in associated with running for something. But it’s really Mary who’s going to run.
Jim
@Kryptik: @dmsilev:
I don’t know what jumps out more: The smug stupidity of the caricature, or the triteness of the cliché. I bet even BoBo left latte jokes out of the silly book on cultural stereotypes he typed a good decade ago. And Meacham’s an “editor”, though I doubt he spends a lot of time with a blue pencil in his hand.
Balconesfault
First off, when you’re claiming a “mandate”, it helps to actually have gotten more votes than the other guy.
Second off, it helps when you actually campaign on the things you’re claiming a “mandate” to carry out after the election (eg – Obama has a mandate for a public option, which he promised many times during the campaign … Bush had no mandate for privatizing Social Security, which he’d never brought up publicly until after the 2004 votes were counted).
Third, it’s a good thing if the powers you’re claiming you have a mandate to wield are actually Constitutional.
catclub
arguingwithsignposts @ 18
Lepers who want to say ‘Ha-Ha’ like Nelson.
SATSQ
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@aimai:
Obama could win by LBJ-esque margins in 2012 and 3 days after the election the Villagers will be calling him a lame duck President. Either that, or saying it doesn’t really count until he wins a third term.
In the hands of these jokers the Overton Window is like one of those trick hoops the carney barkers use in the games section at the state fair, which is jiggered so you can never get the basketball to go through. And even if you do, what you win is a giant fluffy stuffed Sponge Bob doll that looks gouge-my-eyes-out ugly as soon as you get it home and the daiquiris wear off.
Incertus
@arguingwithsignposts: I approve of my worst enemies getting them, if that counts.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Cheney won’t be nominated or elected. He has approximately the same heart conditions that I do. I wouldn’t even vote for me for that job, even if I wanted the job, on health concerns alone. There is no fucking way that anyone with these health issues should hold that job. Period. A party that nominated him for the job should be disbanded.
And I haven’t even addressed the matter of his being muy loco en la cabeza batshit crazy.
And no, I don’t share that latter malady with him. Sure, I can and will sing That’s Life in the voice of Porky Pig, in public, but that is not proof.
Balconesfault
Oh – and fourth – you do NOT have a mandate to do things you campaigned against. eg – when you state you’re against nation building, you have no mandate to launch nation building wars. When you campaign on the basis of limited government, you have no mandate to pass a Patriot Act.
Thlayli
Well, if I had been drinking some manner of coffee-based beverage when I read:
I might have spit it out in order to laugh.
jrg
I’d love for Cheney to run. Then we could have an honest discussion about torture without a GOP candidate who hides behind religion.
It would force “conservatives” to think about what “values” actually are. I’m guessing Cheney would not do very well since he cannot use Jeebus as a shiny object to distract the rubes.
jeffreyw
@arguingwithsignposts: Republicans who can’t get laid?
Notorious P.A.T.
I’ve been putting it off, but it’s time to cancel my Newsweek subscription.
Chris
arguingwithsignposts @ 18
The twenty percenters…(i think our esteemed host called them once…shithouse lawyers.batshit crazies..asshats???)
MattF
Chaney is veeerrry veeerrry unpopular. I bought the dead-wood version of the WaPo this morning and there was a little item in the front-page story about how Republicans-are-conservatives that somehow, accidentally didn’t make it into the online version: they asked Republicans who they wanted to run for President– Palin got 18 percent, everyone else got under 10 percent,… and Cheney got 1. Not 1 percent, but one poll respondent who was for Cheney.
Even if the Village decides that Cheney is the real and truly manly man to run against Obama, it ain’t gonna happen.
kommrade reproductive vigor
It was either that or choke to death while we ROFL.
Shorter Meacham: Hey, let’s ram Dick down everyone’s throats because it will annoy the liberals!
So would watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Land Before Time.
If I ever find out how much dickheads get paid to write this crap I will probably do something anti-social.
@Ash Can: A winna on the first try.
Kryptik
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
That’s really what sticks in my craw about the whole article and what Meacham advocates. It’s essentially all about thumbing his nose at liberals, because hey, who the fuck cares what the DFHs think?
Well, that and the attempt to actually legitimize and sanitize Cheney.
Balconesfault
@Notorious P.A.T.:
The ironic thing is that if you frequent right wing boards, you’ll find they consider Newsweek to be a liberal rag, completely in the tank for Obama.
arguingwithsignposts
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
In the early days of blogging, I believe this type of trollery was called “link baiting” or “link whoring.”
It’s the Politicozation of NewsWeek. Sad, really.
For Meacham’s next column: Why Jack Kevorkian would make a great Surgeon General.
Other suggestions?
Kryptik
@Balconesfault:
Just like WaPo…well, just about any news outlet not named Drudge, Fox, or Rush.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Violet:
I hear that Cheney is polling at nearly 40% in Squatbone, Arkansas.
Scuffletuffle
@kommrade reproductive vigor: Mine was just plain blackity black black coffee…will my keyboard ever recover??
Keith
This is a ridiculous assertion, because the that “resolute refusal of the opposition…to concede that the president, by virtue of his victory, has a mandate to take the country in a given direction” is going to exist whether Dick Cheney loses or Sarah Palin or Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee or whomever. This opposition party’s direction is dictated by shock jocks who can get away with refusing to recognize any loss as legitimate.
Punchy
I would love to see Republicans choke on Dick during the 2012 Election, sucking down gobs and gobs of hard-right red meat substance spewing forth from Dick’s hole. They’d then be wiping their face in disbelief at the snow-job they recieved at the ballot box, left with a pearl necklace when they were promised diamonds.
ppcli
Not yet. First he has to be a man of indictment.
JenJen
Has it ever occurred to any of these asshats that maybe Dick Cheney never ran for high office because he knew he could never get elected; because he knew his past (and all the way back to Congress) would be dragged into the light; because he knew he’s so completely unlikeable that the people would rather have their eyes out than pull a lever for him?
Why the hell does the guy need to run? He ran a country without sticking his neck out. Why start now?
TaosJohn
Pick a part of the country likely to secede (for the CORRECT reasons) and move there. Hell, I’d be in the Northwest or the Socialist Republic of Vermont if I wasn’t stuck in the Land of Entrapment. Iowa and Nebraska ain’t bad, either. People take care of each other, unlike in ***AMERICA!***
The Big O is in bed with the bankers. My 88-year-old mother is going wacko in AZ. Global warming won’t ever be stopped. There will never be real health care reform. Does everyone know that Citi loaned TARP billions to DUBAI?!? The whole shitteroo is sliding toward oblivion, and there will not be news at 10:00.
(If this were Twitter, I could tell you what I’m about to eat now, but it isn’t. Tough! And BTW, Twitter was invented in ***AMERICA!***)
Kryptik
@JenJen:
Hell, he already has major media figures and outlets parroting his every word and insinuation. Just look at…well…Meacham.
shortstop
I don’t know what a latt-y is. I just know that some spotted owl-loving people with unshaven legs are going to lose their Grateful Dead concert “high” after reading this news.
noncarborundum
Fixt.
BruceFromOhio
@Notorious P.A.T.:
I let mine lapse after one of Meachams’ previous departures from this world. He did speak about wanting Newseek to have a smaller subscription base, so I was happy to help him out:
Heh. Not any more!
Maude
Did Meecham mean to say that the 2008 election was not legit?
So, if I’ve got this right, why not just erase the slate, forget all about those pesky war crimes and never mind the deaths of Iraqis.
Get out the flowers and chocolates.
noncarborundum
@BruceFromOhio:
For me it was a combination of a couple of Howard Fineman columns and the mere sight of Karl Rove’s byline. They want money for this?
FlipYrWhig
I think that’s a Scooter Libby reference.
arguingwithsignposts
Another potential Meacham column: Bernie Madoff: America’s next great Treasury secretary?
and another: Why John Boehner should be House Speaker, even though the GOP is the minority party
or: Bernie Kerik for Attorney General, because we need more crooks in charge of the DOJ
Chad N Freude
@noncarborundum and everyone else who has watched Newsweek sail off into the darkness: I am particularly unhappy with Meacham’s mind meld with the Dark Side because he has written several very good books on US history. I suppose there’s an analogy here to the Polanski case — perverse creator creates excellent creations.
timb
@forked tongue: What he said. Since when did the Democrats of tax cuts, the AUMF, and military commissions act refuse to “concede governance.” Meacham’s a tool.
Then again, I’d like the see Cheney run. It would give a real focus for hate and he would make Goldwater’s ’64 run look successful
Sly
Those questions should be, and to some extent have been, answered by actual journalists who moved outside the Ivory Tower of mainstream political journalism or were never there in the first place. Those questions should be answered by people who are doing rigorous analysis of established facts, the result of which is hopefully taken into consideration by an informed citizenry when they indirectly decide the resultant policy.
The sad thing is that this guy is considered a good historian.
Somebody fucking shoot me.
David Hunt
I think it was Al Capone who, when it suggested he should run for President, responded, “What, and give up all my influence in Washington?”
I could easily be wrong about the original source of that quote but I’m keeping the Capone reference because I think it’s a great parallel with the idea of Cheney running for President. He’s got loads of influence now and no accountability…just the way he likes it.
John Ball
Does Jon Meacham get to be the King of Newsweek because he’s such an incredible douche, or is there some mysterious Beltway juju going on here that we lesser mortals aren’t aware of? Because every time I read one of his
brainfartseditorials, I want to find the man and hit him with a 2-by-4.In the kindest, gentlest sense, of course.
Joel
(The sound you just heard in the background was liberal readers
spitting out their lattes.laughing their asses off)also
(The sound you just heard in the background was liberal readers
spitting out their lattes.canceling their subscription to Newsweek)grendelkhan
Yeah, well, psychopaths tend to have strong moral convictions. It’s like saying that someone is a good pick because they’re “decisive”. If they’re also chronically wrong, “decisiveness” ceases to be a good quality.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Yes, but in his rush to annoy the liberals he completely ignores the fact that Cheney is slightly less popular than having one’s genitals gnawed off by rabid ferrets.
Idiots like Meacham (and there are a lot of Serious People out there cast in the same mold) have got it into their heads that ReaLAMErica is a neo-con nation so naturally, Pissed off Liberals = Happy Majority. It is a useful delusion because it is likely to result in the hilarity of a Palin bid for the Presidency. Hell, geniuses like Meacham probably advised McCain to court the billions and billions of angry Clinton supporters by picking a woman for the Veep spot.
Hmmm. I need to leave an angry liberal comment over there. I’d hate for anyone to think we weren’t upset. (Mwahaha.)
@arguingwithsignposts:
Pat Buchanan – The next head of the U.S. DOJ’s Civil Rights Division
If Obama must have “Homosexual Liason” in the White House, it should be William Donohue.
Joel
@aimai: I thought the blue/red war games were simulating a war between the US and Israel, with the stated explanation that Israel was the only armed forces that could defeat the US in combat. And defeat they did, at least in the war game scenario.
catclub
Joel @ 62
I am pretty sure it was IraN.
Bottling up the US navy in the Persian Gulf was a key
part of the win.
The win was ruled a not win because the winner did not play fair.
The Iranians have promised that they will.
chrome agnomen
@arguingwithsignposts:
i’ve got a good one nobody will believe.
john bolton – us ambassador to the UN!
aimai
As I (apprently incorrectly) recall that war game the win came about because a) they used minarets and the muezzin to signal to their own side and b) they used small boats very cleverly to attack and blockade larger US naval boats.
aimai
Svensker
@Punchy:
First time I’ve ever been injured in a metaphor avalanche. :)
chuck
Let’s be honest.
What are the odds that Dick lives to see 2016. Or even 2012?
Look at his medical records.
There’s strong reason to believe he has heart failure.
He can’t run; if he tries I don’t know how he’ll be able to campaign.
R. Porrofatto
Meacham thinks that the 2008 election didn’t adjudicate the Bush years. He’s got to be kidding. The American people elected a black man with the name “Barack Hussein Obama” to be their president, about a hundred years before such a thing would even be conceivable, if ever. What more of an adjudication of the previous administration could there be?
chrome agnomen
@chuck:
he could run on the mel carnahan platform
tenkindsagrumpy
What’s a Latte?
tenkindsagrumpy
@ 67 What makes you think Cheney has to be alive to run for president. he could campaign from his secret underground bunker.
Shell
Exacta-mundo. Cause conservative’s, of course, drink their joe hot and black and strong enough to put hair on yer chest! No self-respecting winger would darken a place like Starbucks, like Joe Scarborough does and….oh, wait a minute.
Cheney a man of conviction? Why is this supposed to be an unqualified good thing? You can be as full of certitude and still be dead wrong.
licensed to kill time
@dmsilev:
Cheney-Palin 2012 – “The Hissing of Dumber Dawns”.
(with apologies to Joni)
betamu
I really like this bit “The best way to settle arguments is by having what we used to call full and frank exchanges about the issues, and then voting. A contest between Dick Cheney and Barack Obama would offer us a bracing referendum on competing visions.”
Does anyone really think that is what the republicans (or most politicians and pundits of all stripes) want to do? Have a discussion and honest exchange of ideas? No “did not have hand over heart during national anthem does not wear a lapel pin was not born in the USA is a muslim….” crap being flung into the air?
And as fare as I can tell, living in conservative Texas, most folks here think the best way to settle an argument is to bomb them back to the stone age and let God sort them out. Really big on discussion, give a take and the exchange of ldeals!
Jay in Oregon
If that line was not chosen specifically for its magical link-trolling properties, I’ll eat my hat. Or spit my latte out on my keyboard. Or something.
(I must be a terrible liberal, because I don’t even drink coffee, let alone fancy-pants lattes. Meanwhile, several conservatives I know just loooove their $3 coffees…)
arguingwithsignposts
@Jay in Oregon:
You know who else didn’t drink coffee? Hitler!11!!! Just sayin’
(hope you’re doing alright up there in the pacific northwest, Jay)
Jay in Oregon
@arguingwithsignposts:
Doing good, actually. The holiday weekend was actually very nice — stayed at home, caught up on some TV, and did stuff around the house.
tammanycall
Cheney’s a 100,000 years old. Meacham’s a toolbox.
asiangrrlMN
First of all, I drink lattes (decaf with skim) when I go to a coffee shop (which isn’t often) because I hate having all those choices. That said, bring it, Cheney. Yes, run, and we can go through your whoooooole history and record and alllllll the shit you pulled while you ran the country the first time ’round. Yes, indeedy, do. Would love to see this.
Mike G
Another example of Villager “Oh, I’m so daring and contrarian for the sake of it! Look at me piss off the libruls to earn credibility with the kool kids! I’m not Politically Correct, I’m practically Marlon Brando from The Wild Bunch” junior-high mentality, pseudo-macho posturing.
Grow the fuck up.
Kyle
Yeah, well, psychopaths tend to have strong moral convictions. It’s like saying that someone is a good pick because they’re “decisive”. If they’re also chronically wrong, “decisiveness” ceases to be a good quality.
This is just one of the 31 Flavors of Stupid that pissed me off about the Chimp worshippers. They admired him for showing ‘resolve’ and making ‘bold decisions’. The fact that most of his decisions were bone-stupid and wrong didn’t seem to bother them at all, as long as he projected a ‘decisive’ image. Shallowest people on earth.
Jay in Oregon
@Mike G:
That’s Villager mentality in a nutshell: if you’re not pissing off the DFHs, you’re doing it wrong.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Translation:
1. Cheney tells Obama to GFH.
2. ????
3. Profit!
And then Meacham and his fellow spit buckets can drool out 500,000 words comparing Cheney’s refreshingly terse response to Obama’s chillingly polite demeanor.
SiubhanDuinne
This is just so perfect.
SiubhanDuinne
Blockquotes . . . um, you know.
SiubhanDuinne
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
Okay, I’m going to try this whole thing again.
This is just so perfect.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Hmmmmmm.
Will
Jon Meacham strangely resembles Bill Pullman.
Jay B.
I think we should be taking the possibility that Jon Meacham will be unemployed and homeless by 2012 more seriously, for such an event would be good for the country in general. (The sound you just heard in the background was Jon Meacham gagging on Dick Cheney’s shriveled manhood and not wondering where he went wrong).
shep
If you give an idiot a soap box, pretty soon he’ll think he deserves it.
Wile E. Quixote
@Jon Meacham
OK, I know that I’m going to get bitchslapped with Godwin’s law here but this column would make just as much sense if Meacham had written:
Wile E. Quixote
Sorry about the fubared formatting on the last post. I think it’s browser stupidity on my end. Here’s another great line from the column.
Jesus, every goddamn thing is a football game to these morons. You know what else would offer us a bracing referendum on competing visions? A contest between Jon Meacham and a pool filled with hungry alligators, the competing visions being Jon Meacham’s vision of getting out alive and the alligators’ vision of rending Meacham limb from limb and feasting upon his carcass.*
*In case you were wondering I’m rooting for the alligators.
Martin
@betamu:
Republicans would want to do it if it returned any benefits. There are two problems here, however:
1) The media will pay them greater benefits if they simply shut down Congress because the fault will be placed on Obama for being insufficiently bipartisan. The media always operates (even when they know it isn’t true) that there is some magical compromise solution to every political problem that the guy in power hasn’t been willing to bring to the table. The media does what the opposition cannot credibly do.
2) Even if the GOP did engage in honest debate, the media would largely ignore it. Honest debate doesn’t fit the horserace meme and it certainly doesn’t fit in a 60 second news segment.
henqiguai
@Kyle (#81):
And yet, this is exactly what the Village is demanding President Obama do, now.
Oh, and Cheney stated a couple or few weeks back that he would not run for the Presidency. Made the statement after his daughter claimed he would be the perfect man for the job.
mandarama
@Keith G:
This won the internets for me today.
Broadway Carl
@ arguingwithsignposts
If I had a choice on dealing with Dick Cheney or venereal disease, I’d sign up for that gonorrhea in a heartbeat!
Enceladus
The first time I saw Jon Meacham on TV, he was playing that character on “Seinfeld” who Elaine’s boyfriend Putty referred to as “Vegetable Lasagna.”
But in reality, he’s even more boring.