Dick Cheney for president in 2012?
What the former vice president's return to the national stage says about his political future
Dick Cheney: A return in 2012?
(Jason Reed/Reuters/Corbis)
"Don't start building that reinforced-concrete bomb shelter just yet," said Max Fisher in The Atlantic. The chatter you hear about former vice president Dick Cheney running for president in 2012 is "probably not serious." As columnist Jonah Goldberg says, Cheney remains a "beacon for conservatives," and he's enjoying a "resurgence on the national stage" as a critic of President Obama, but Cheney's unfavorable ratings suggest he'd have little hope at the polls.
Public opinion can change quickly, said James Taranto in The Wall Street Journal. Dick Cheney's main beef with Obama is that he's dismantling national security policies that kept the country safe for more than seven years after 9/11. If, heaven forbid, there's another terrorist attack on U.S. soil, Obama will be seen as a failure and Bush will be vindicated. In that scenario, "it's hard to think of a better candidate" than Cheney.
Granted, Dick Cheney's approval ratings are up "since he started going toe to toe with Obama on national security," said Allahpundit in Hot Air. But do Republicans really want to place their bets on Cheney over, say, Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee? Nominating the former vice president would make the 2012 election a referendum on the Bush years, "which is just about the only way to fire up the liberal base enough to turn out in droves in 2012."
James Taranto is clearly living in an "alternate reality," said Steve Benen in Washington Monthly. It's "crazy" to suggest that the Obama administration isn't taking the terrorist threat seriously, and it's just plain wrong to claim that Bush and Cheney were "effective in fighting terrorism." But this shows that there are conservatives out there who "will want to tear this country apart" if there's another attack on American soil.
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11 Comments
Posted by Nancy P, Wednesday, September 2, 2009, 5:20 pm Didn't Cheney arleady get his two terms?
Posted by Parah Salin, Wednesday, September 2, 2009, 5:50 pm So now the WSJ editorial page is hoping for terrorist attacks on American soil! awesome.
Posted by JB, Wednesday, September 2, 2009, 6:02 pm James Taranto of the WSJ isn't just in an alternate reality he's tripping on acid. The days of the failure caucus are numbered. If the media would just stop giving it coverage, it would fall into obscurity that much more quickly...doing us all a favor.
Posted by Kathy, Thursday, September 3, 2009, 9:56 am Are you kidding me. Hasn't he and his party done enough to screw up this country? Open a hole, drop him and his party in and shovel dirt back over them.
Posted by BH, Thursday, September 3, 2009, 2:02 pm Oh, no...don't tell me that Cheney would be stupid enough to think that he would win an election as president! He screwed up the country more than enough as vice president, along with his cohort, Bush. He should just silently disappear into the background and live out the years he has left with his mouth shut. He is arrogrant, stupid and extremely annoying.
Posted by Nem0.N00ne, Thursday, September 3, 2009, 6:54 pm Cheney Palin in 2012. The entire editorial staff of the NY Times would explode in apoplexy.
Posted by Michael J. Gorman, Thursday, September 3, 2009, 7:07 pm Cheney has a good chance to wind up in federal prison for orchestrating the torture practices. President? Is that supposed to be a joke? If he is thinking about it, he needs psychiatric help more that we thought he did.
Posted by Brett, Friday, September 4, 2009, 2:59 pm Cheney/Palin in 2012! With that ticket, all the neocons would get what they want, Obama would have an easy reelection and be able to keep fixing this country, and all of the mentally and emotionallystable people who formerly called themselves republicans could start a new, nondogmatic party that would eclipse the dying republican party in just one or two election cycles. It's winwin for the whole nation!
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