'Trumpwashing' Dick Cheney into a Liberal Hero

I am thrilled! You should be too, because the time has come for Dick Cheney to be embraced by #Resistance as one of their own.

A large group of conservative donors and scholars were shocked last weekend after a friendly exchange between Vice President Mike Pence and Dick Cheney, the former vice president, turned tense.
...Cheney not only voiced frustration that Trump's foreign policy closely resembled that of Barack Obama, but also that it was a significant break from GOP presidents of the past.
"I worry that the bottom line of that kind of an approach is we have an administration that looks a lot more like Barack Obama than Ronald Reagan," Cheney said to Pence, according to the Post, which obtained a transcript of the discussion that was off-the-record.
...According to the Post, Cheney also raised concerns over reports that Trump doesn't spend time with his intelligence staff and frequently disagrees with them.

With that Cheney checks off two of the most important #Resistance checkboxes:

#1) Cheney opposed Trump, and, well, let's face it. That's all that's required.

Opposing something Trump wants is all it took for liberals to cheer for Jeff Sessions (plus Sen. Jeff Flake, James B. Comey, Sen. Ted Cruz, the Kochs.)

However, Cheney criticized Trump for breaking with Bush's foreign policy tradition.
If there is one thing #Resistance really likes is major players in the Bush Administration foreign policy, like John McCain and Dubya, of course.

#2) Cheney criticized Trump's treatment of the FBI and CIA.
If there is one thing #Resistance absolutely loves, loves, loves is the intelligence agencies.

According to Dan Kovalik, a human rights and labour lawyer and adjunct law professor at the University of Pittsburgh, the liberal left was already in ideological confusion when Trump turbo-charged the process.
...“And so, bizarrely, liberals have decided that the CIA and FBI – despite their well-known history of suppressing civil liberties and civil rights in this country and abroad – are now noble institutions which should be believed and respected. This is because the CIA and FBI have largely taken an oppositional stance towards Trump.”

So you can see that Cheney is more than qualified to be a member of #Resistance.
It's only a matter of time before it becomes official.

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Centaurea's picture

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"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi

"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone

Pluto's Republic's picture

...or his ideology, to his credit. Thus, there is never any doubt about what kind of person you are if you suck up to Dick Cheney. Actually, it's the same sort of unfinished, directionless person who sucks up to a man like Donald Trump.

"The Plan is for the United States to rule the world. The overt theme is unilateralism, but it is ultimately a story of domination. It calls for the United States to maintain its overwhelming superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge it on the world stage. It calls for dominion over friends and enemies alike. It says not that the United States must be more powerful, or most powerful, but that it must be absolutely powerful."

Vice-President Dick Cheney - West Point lecture, June 2002

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Bisbonian's picture

@Pluto's Republic

Got a link for that?

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

travelerxxx's picture

@Bisbonian

I've run into this "quote" before. Best I can tell, they're not Cheney's words at all. Rather, it's taken from an article in the October, 2002, issue of Harper's. Here's the link. Hope it opens for you. (I'm a subscriber, so I may have special web privileges - not sure.)

In any event, it's the third paragraph of the article, written by David Armstrong.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@Bisbonian

It came from a William Blum essay, here:

https://williamblum.org/aer/read/146

I did not see the full quote just now, however, when I read the text of the 2002 Cheney address.

On a Google search for the passage itself, Google actually returned this link first at the top of the page. I skipped it because it led to a PDF from a Harper's Magazine piece, Dick Cheney's Song for America. The Harper's piece ran in 2002, the same year as Cheney's West Point address.

Out of curiosity, I went back and scanned the Harper's PDF — then I started reading backwards, sampling it from the end to the beginning. Then, I began reading from the beginning, slowly. I am grateful to you for inspiring this search. In one 2002 document, all of the political mysteries that have popped up over the past 30 years — and even current mysteries — have been solved. All the loose ends have been tied together. I now understand why I can feel and see propaganda threats instantly when others notice nothing. I wasn't present for most of those 30 years, but it seems to me that anyone who reads Dick Cheney's Song for America in 2019, will understand exactly what happened on 9/11.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
travelerxxx's picture

@Pluto's Republic

...In one 2002 document, all of the political mysteries that have popped up over the past 30 years — and even current mysteries — have been solved.

I read it also, even though I believe I read it when released. Too long ago to remember for certain now, though.

Amazing to read, isn't it? From "preemptive military force" as a "brand new security doctrine" to "prevent[ing] the re-emergence of a new rival," it's all there.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

... @travelerxxx . Glad to know I'm not the only one affected by it.

Yes, it is hard to believe it was so blatant. Americans couldn't parse what they were hearing. Could not know their fate was decided and they were on their way to another Pearl Harbor.

After that, they would be like putty in Deep State hands. And as we have just seen in 2017 and 2018, they still are.

The author the Harper's piece knew the connection to 9/11. He put the clues in the right places. I suppose a lot of people knew. The military... their strange behavior. The Saudis in the US.... Oh, the Israeli's. The real estate transactions. There are no more coincidences.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Cassiodorus's picture

It's that Trump guy we don't like. Can't our populations just be docile for once?

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

"Strong on defense" Read strong on helping military contractors rob the government blind. Well, not blind. The government knows it's being robbed and seems to enjoy it.

[video:https://youtu.be/lB6Gk5EtunI?t=73]

"Strong on defense" Read also, perpetual war against brown and brown(ish) Muslims and even some collateral damage brown and brown(ish) Christians and Jews

"Strong on defense" Read also, too broke to help stinkin' useless eaters (hattip Henry Kissinger, criminal against humanity, whom Hillary acknowledged as one of her mentors. Inasmuch as she met with Pete Peterson about Social Security during her WTF campaign, I'd call her an apt student)

Calling people like Hillary "centrist" is so wrong, IMO. She's a rightist. So are most Democrats holding federal office today.

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Wally's picture

@HenryAWallace If you came up with that one, kudos to you.

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Wally's picture

So it doesn't really matter if the warmonger hates or loves Trump, although hating him is a big plus. All that matters to the mcresistance(tm) is that warmongers get to rule and wage wars for oil, other booty, and the absorption of more and more foreign states into the grand Global Security State apparatus.

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Raggedy Ann's picture

normalizing these criminals. Will the American people fall for it? If they are still sleeping...
Pleasantry

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

So why not some Dick too?

At what point do these people look around and realize this is all pretty screwed up?

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

@Dr. John Carpenter

but really hard to take.

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Why not. The definition of a liberal Democrat can take its last final step to the right.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Also, I love the phrase Trumpwashing. It's quite appropriate. It seems "better than Trump" is going to be the new standard.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

AND someone whom she called on for advice. It seems like the inevitable evolution from Unconscionable Evil to Cool Guy applies to Cheney too.

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Centaurea's picture

@Raggedy Ann @Le Frog the sanctification ceremony when Henry Kissinger dies.

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"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi

"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone

@Centaurea

A Kissinger/Cheney plant in the earth they defiled. Then plant poison ivy to scratch their head stones. Karma is a bitch.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Apparently there have been tweets for a few months now along the lines of "George Bush and Dick Cheney, welcome to the Resistance."

This has been my problem with the focus on Trump's evil from the beginning: it was obviously designed to repair the reputations of all those who came before him, as well as the reputations of the CIA, NSA and the rest of the security state--and the reputation of our political system itself. Otherwise, we'd be talking about the evil of those who hold power in our society. It would be obvious that what we were looking at was not an individual evil character but a set of goals that, long ago, many people decided to embark on. Those goals have catastrophic results for most of the people living in the world, as well as everything else living in the world. Those who willingly embrace such goals are, of course, evil, because you can't embrace the destruction of the world for profit and not be evil. But Trump is one in a long line of people furthering that project. As many have said, he's not an exception to our political system, he's its logical outcome.

Charles Pierce's article of a few months ago showed this plainly. I'll see if I can find a link.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Pluto's Republic's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

This has been my problem with the focus on Trump's evil from the beginning: it was obviously designed to repair the reputations of all those who came before him,

I reported on his campaign and parsed every rally speech. Trump is exactly what he always was. A privileged oaf. But when the government started in on that Russia Hoax, while protecting and buffering themselves with that phony-baloney CrowdStrike contractor — Oh, hell no!

We were in for the armed bamboozlement of America. Right to our faces. What the hell had they done? What were they trying to hide? Well, now we know.

And now, Washington and the media are standing in slime up to their waists, partially dissolved.

Burn it down.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Pluto's Republic

I'm always grateful for your presence here, even when we disagree.

Thanks for your clear sight.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver