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Title: Like Father, Like Daughter: Liz Cheney and the Neocons
Source:
Politics Daily
URL Source: http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/1 ... er-liz-cheney-and-the-neocons/
Published: Oct 14, 2009
Author: Politics Daily
Post Date: 2009-10-14 15:46:34 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 104
As I left the set of "Hardball" on Tuesday night, I thought of a famous Winston Churchill speech. In 1941, with England at war, the English PM was visiting a school, and he offered a rousing exhortation: tweetmeme_source = 'politicsdaily'; Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never -- in nothing, great or small, large or petty -- never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
That seems to be the credo of the neoconservatives, for as we had discussed on "Hardball," this band of die-hard hawks has launched yet another outfit to advance their cause -- and make the case for war and military confrontation around the world. What's new, though, is that now they have Liz Cheney, the daughter of the ex-veep, leading their charge.
Earlier in the day, the news had hit that the eldest of Cheney's two daughters has created a group called Keep America Safe to whip up opposition to the foreign policy of President Obama. And for this new venture, she's partnering with Bill Kristol, the kingpin of the neocon crew.
Or is she fronting for him? Kristol already has multiple platforms for his never-ending efforts to depict Obama as weak on national security. He's the editor of the conservative Weekly Standard and a director of the Foreign Policy Initiative, a neocon think tank that urges continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and challenging Russia and China. (His Project for a New American Century, which sounded the call for war in Iraq for years before the invasion, is inactive, though its Web site still exists.)
With his pre-existing shops, why does Kristol need Keep America Safe? Well, neocons do like setting up committees. It's like a hobby for them: The Committee to Defend This, The Committee to Protect That. But it seems that one goal of this new project is to enshrine Liz Cheney as the face of the hawkish opposition. And she appears eager to carry on in her father's tradition and blast away at the president. She told Politico that "the policies being proposed by the Obama administration are so radical across the board." Like father, like daughter, right? (You might ask, what's so "radical" about increasing the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, attacking al-Qaida and Taliban leaders with Predator drones in Pakistan, and agreeing with John McCain that waterboarding is torture and wrong?)
Yet Liz Cheney hooking up with Kristol is good news for the Obama White House. Any opposition to the administration bearing the Cheney brand is going to be a hard sell to the public. And any endeavor that reminds voters of the Bush-Cheney years is a boost for President Obama. So the strategic intent here is tough to discern. But Kristol has often been wrong. Such as when he said in 2002 (during a television debate with me) that Saddam Hussein had "passed the finish line" in developing nuclear weapons. Or when he said the month before the Iraq invasion, "Most of Europe is with us. And I think we will be respected around the world for helping the people of Iraq to be liberated." Or when he said of the Iraq war, "Very few wars in American history were prepared better or more thoroughly than this one by this president." Or when he said, "I think we'll be vindicated when we discover the weapons of mass destruction."
Placing Liz Cheney in charge of the latest neocon assault on Obama might not be the dumbest move Kristol has made. But it's far from the sharpest. He and his Churchill-loving, armchair comrades-in-arms certainly are not giving in. They never do. But by tying their opposition to the Cheney name, they are practically giving aid and comfort to the Obama White House.
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Here's the "Hardball" clip:
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