Liz Cheney

Just as an apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, a turd doesn’t fall far from the asshole. Liz Cheney, the oldest daughter of former VP Dick Cheney, is living proof of this maxim. Rather than slink off into the sunset with her disgraced (and hopefully soon-to-be-indicted) father, she insists on defending at least some of his crimes. First, she’s ignored Dick Cheney’s push for the war with Iraq after falsely claiming it had been involved in the 9/11 attacks. She ignores that her father gave his former employer—a company in which he still held stock—no-bid contracts so it could charge our troops stationed in Iraq $7 for a bottle of soda while killing some of them as they showered. (Twelve soldiers were electrocuted as the result of shoddy wiring provided by a Halliburton subsidiary.)

Liz has ignored the way Dad cozied up to his business pals when “fixing” California’s 2001 energy crisis. The government’s revamped energy policy drove California into bankruptcy, helped wreck the country’s economy and still threatens the survival of the planet. But let’s overlook those crimes (the press has) and concentrate on the ones Liz has been defending. In a major media blitz, the dark seed has been staunchly denying charges her daddy authorized the torturing of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. Here’s her reasoning: “The notion that this [Obama] administration is…going to prosecute brave men and women who carried out this program…is un-American…somebody taking office and then starting to prosecute people who carried out policies they disagreed with.” Here’s the problem, Liz: These policies violated our own laws as well as international treaties signed by us. They also cost us the respect of the world while putting our own military personnel at risk. After all, if we can torture suspected al Qaeda operatives, al Qaeda (and others) might feel justified in torturing our captured soldiers.

Liz claims the tactics used at Abu Ghraib were not torture, even though our government imprisoned and executed Japanese war criminals convicted of waterboarding captured American soldiers during World War II. “Everything that was done…are tactics that our own people go through in SERE [Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape] training,” she told MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell. “We did not torture our own people.”

Even the Bush Justice Department didn’t buy that “if A then B rationale.” SERE training, it said, was a “very different” experience from what an Abu Ghraib or Gitmo detainee would experience. Our guys, for example, knew they wouldn’t be seriously harmed during the training.

Most importantly, there is absolutely no proof that the torture produced any actionable information, no matter how many times Dick Cheney claims otherwise. But we do know that such information was obtained by competent interrogators who treated their prisoners decently. But let’s be fair. There’s something admirable about a feisty daughter defending her dad even if he is responsible for massive death and human suffering. We’d probably dismiss all of Liz’s ravings if she weren’t poised to run for political office. Mark our words, Liz Cheney is a comer—quite possibly a future GOP star and (gulp) Presidential candidate.

Although low-key during the Bush Administration, she wasn’t inactive. On the contrary, Liz, who received a law degree from the University of Chicago—a hotbed of right-wing economic theories—worked in the State Department. Specializing in Near Eastern affairs, she oversaw, among other things, the drafting of Iraq’s constitution. Despite the controversy surrounding it, she has cred.

So what can we expect from Liz the politician? Based on her most recent statements, it would be more of what we got from her father. Want proof? She refused to denounce the birthers, the weird group that insists Barack Obama is not an American citizen— even though his birth certificate has been made available, and a birth announcement appeared in two local papers! Worse yet, she challenges Obama’s loyalty. “People are…uncomfortable with an American President who seems to be afraid to defend America,” Liz told Larry King. Meanwhile, she opposes the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, assails rapprochement with Russia, thinks global warming is a leftwing conspiracy to rein in capitalism and fully supports the Bush Administration’s fiscal policies, which brought our economy to its knees. Make no mistake. Like her father, Liz is a member of the superrich ruling class—what FDR referred to as “economic royalists.” This powerful group’s agenda is to extend its control over the people of America.

If you want to hand over our government to those who do not have your interests at heart, Liz just might be your gal. But if you want to preserve our democracy, believing that the Founding Fathers wisely gave power to the people rather than the bankers and corporations, then you should pray to God that this turd gets flushed down the political toilet.