Cheney: The GOP’s darkest horse

He’s not tanned, and he’s barely rested, said Mark Silva in the Chicago Tribune. But his fiercest supporters say he’s more than ready. Last week a group called “Draft Dick Cheney 2012” was formally launched, complete with a website and T-shirts, to convince the former vice president that he’s the best man to defeat President Obama. Cheney, says organizer Christopher Barron, is the only GOP leader “with the experience, political courage, and unwavering commitment to the values that made our party strong.” Liberals may “spit out their lattes,’’ said Jon Meacham in Newsweek, but a Cheney presidential run makes sense. His long record as “an implacable foe of terrorism and a hard-liner on the projection of American power” could unite Republicans in a way that Palin, Huckabee, Romney, et al., just can’t. And a Cheney-Obama smackdown would offer “a bracing referendum on competing visions” of America. When the dust settled, this nation would know whether we stood for the “vigorous unilateralism” of the Right or the “unapologetic multilateralism” of the Left.

What a truly silly idea, said John Judis in The New Republic Online. Forget, if you will, Cheney’s worrisome history of heart trouble, and that in 2012, he’ll be 71. The notion that this country somehow benefits from “stark choices between Left and Right” is absurd. Extremist nominees of either stripe don’t promote consensus; they only divide the country and sow bitterness in their wake. They don’t win, either, as Barry Goldwater proved disastrously for the GOP in 1964. Anyway, didn’t last year’s election already answer the question of what kind of America we want? After eight years of Cheney’s disregard for our constitutional separation of powers, his contempt for civil liberties, and his love of “pre-emptive” military force, voters said: Enough. Please, let’s just let him enjoy his retirement.

Cheney apparently plans to do just that, said Jason Linkins in HuffingtonPost.com. Earlier this month, when supporters at a Republican rally in Texas yelled, “We need you, Dick!” he responded, “Not a chance.” You can understand why: Cheney clearly relishes his new, self-appointed role as critic in chief, mocking Obama from the sidelines for his “dithering” on Afghanistan, his failure to threaten foreign nations, and his refusal to torture accused terrorists. If he were to run, he’d be forced to face tough questions about waterboarding, Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent WMD, and other embarrassing subjects. Cheney in 2012? It’s “a stupid idea dressed up as something clever.”

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