Liz Cheney: Lauding the Courage of a Politician I'd Never Vote For
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY)
Back in November, 2009, when this blog was still called “Beating the Bushes,” I posted a piece entitled In the Words of Joseph Nye Welch. In this op-ed, I castigated right-wing radio Luddite Rush Limbaugh for continuing to claim that then-President Barack Obama (who had been elected the previous November) was continuing to proclaim that our 44th POTUS was not only foreign-born (thus invalidating his presidency) but a Muslim plant to boot. In that essay, I called upon the ghost of the late Harvard- trained attorney Joseph Nye Welch (1890-1960) who, in 1954, became the epitome of a political hero when, during the nationally-televised “Army-McCarthy Hearings” unmasked the Wisconsin senator for the ogre he truly was:
Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness . . . . If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty, I would do so. I like to think that I am a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me . . . . , Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency? As history records, Welch’s heroism turned out to be what would become the first - and ultimately deepest - shovelings in what would shortly thereafter become Joseph McCarthy’s grave.
Now mind you, Welch was not an elected official; he had no seat to lose, nor would he carry a target upon his back. He was just (just!) a mild-tempered man with a love of justice and the courage to put his convictions before the court of public opinion. In her own way, Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney is a Welch clone; a courageous person willing to put her convictions foursquarely before the court of public opinion. What obviously separates Rep. Cheney from attorney Welch is that the former has much to lose . . . like her political life. In voting for the conviction of former President Trump and then becoming one of the most visible and forthcoming members of the Select Committee on the January 6 Attack (of which she serves as Vice Chair) Liz Cheney has already been thrown out of her position as Chair of the House Republican Conference, has earned the undying enmity of the former president and nearly 100% of her caucus. Moreover, she stands a good chance of losing her seat in Congress.
Without question, Liz Cheney is Republican Royalty: her father, Dick Cheney, at various times served as Chair of the House Republican Conference (1987-89); Secretary of Defense (1989-1993) and 46th Vice President of the United States (2001-2009); her mother Lynne served for seven years as Chair of the National Council of the Humanities under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush (1986-1993). Yet despite her political bloodlines, Republicans treat her as if she were the spawn of Bella Abzug and Barney Frank. With every pronouncement or revelation regarding the January 6 coup she makes, the lower her stock goes with her former political allies. The Wyoming Republican Party has disowned her; along with the former president, the party has endorsed Harriett Hageman to be Ms. Cheney’s opponent in the 2022 Republican primary. (It should be noted that in 2016, Ms. Hagemen tried to overturn Donald Trump’s victory in the Wyoming presidential primary, noting that Trump was both “racist and xenophobic.” Once he endorsed her for Ms. Cheney’s seat, she began referring to him as “the greatest president of my lifetime.”)
These days, the only people saying positive or congratulatory things about Liz Cheney are Democrats and a tiny handful of what the Jim Jordans, Madison Cawthorns and Rand Pauls of the world call “RINOS” - “Republicans in name only," like Illinois Republican Adam Kinzinger and Senators Mitt Romney, Richard Burr, Ben Sasse and Lisa Murkowski. I’ve even chatted with a few people who wonder if Democrats could convince her to move to the other side of the political aisle and join the party of FDR, JFK, Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Sorry, one Joe Manchin is enough . . .
Whoa there!
As much as I admire her courage and stiff spine, I will remind you that Liz Cheney is a dyed-in-the-wool ultra-conservative. Jake Bernstein, co-author of the book Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency, recently noted: “I think part of the reason for why Liz Cheney is doing what she’s doing is directly the result of her father in the sense that her father was the very embodiment of the Republican establishment for decades. . . . She’s still very conservative. She would never see eye to eye with Democrats on anything else but a belief in the institution of Congress and the democratic process. To believe that she is in any way a moderate politically says more about what Donald Trump has done to the Republican party than it does about her.”
Need proof of Cheney’s ultraconservatism? According to an article in the May 26, 2021 issue of Forbes, from 2017 to 2021, Cheney voted in line with Trump's position 92.9% of the time, supporting him more consistently in House votes than even his former chief of staff Mark Meadows. Believe it or not it wasn’t all that long ago that Cheney publicly feuded with Rand Paul over who was "Trumpier.”
Make no mistake about it: outside of the valiant stand she has taken vis-à-vis the impeachment of Donald Trump and informing the public about his involvement in the January 6 insurrection, few of those reading this piece could find any political commonality with Liz Cheney. And that’s OK. Political courage need not be packaged in a set of positions which find favor with voters on both sides of the aisle. One can, however, hope and dream that such courage is ultimately contagious.
Three cheers for Liz Cheney!
Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone