God save us from the Cheneys

Confession: I have disliked Dick Cheney ever since he tried his best in 1975 to scuttle the investigation of assassination plots, CIA illegal covert actions and NSA spying when he was chief of staff to President Ford and I was a 27-year-old, snot-nosed kid working on the Church Committee.

{mosads}His career, in my view, only went downhill from there: increasingly arrogant, increasingly anti-Congress, increasingly interventionist, increasingly my-way-or-the-highway. Whether it was Iraq and failing to take responsibility for misleading Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, or his defense of Scooter Libby, or his attempt to overrule the Justice Department on spying on Americans, Cheney has been at the forefront of policies that I find abhorrent. His rise in power corresponded with increasingly bad policy decisions.

Yet, on the issue of gay marriage and the love clearly evident in his own family between his daughter and her wife, he has been tolerant and understanding. They have two children; they share Thanksgiving and Christmas. As the song goes, “We are family!”

Now, he confronts the ultimate disaster within his own family. And he is trying to split the difference. Solomon he ain’t.

He even appears to have sided with his eldest daughter’s political ambition as she runs one of the least effective, most disingenuous campaigns in modern memory. Really, Dick, zip it.

Mary Cheney feels betrayed by her sister Liz’s continued efforts to prove her conservatism at Mary’s expense, suddenly condemning same sex marriage. Mary knows this is not genuine but a political game Liz is playing. Dick wants Liz to win and supports her candidacy, and he is pulling out all the stops to make sure she raises all the money she needs. But he is a father and grandfather to Mary and her kids.

This is very complicated for the Cheneys, but not for most of us.

Liz Cheney is a phony. She is willing to say or do whatever she needs to do to prove that she deserves the two endorsements on her website: from Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Go right, young woman (er, go west, young man.)

This is over. Liz Cheney, as most of us who have been involved in politics for a while and who watched her wretched TV ad called “Generations” realize, this campaign was shaky to begin with but has sunk so low as to be embarrassing.

Excuse me, she lied on her application for a fishing license, misrepresenting her time in the state. Really, in Wyoming? She paid a fine. This is worse than thinking the NRA stands for the National Rehabilitation Association.

And the Cheneys have managed to engage in an ugly shouting match with former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), an icon in the state.

Bottom line: Liz, get out now. Sit back, enjoy Jackson Hole, and try again in four or six or eight years. Or never.

For Liz Cheney, it is game over for 2014.