As a candidate, Cheney would have doubtless been as disciplined and ideologically consistent as McCain was feckless. In debates with Barack Obama, he would have been as cuttingly effective as he was in his encounters with Joe Lieberman and John Edwards in 2000 and 2004 respectively. And when he went down to a landslide loss, the conservative movement might – might! – have been jolted into the kind of rethinking that’s necessary if it hopes to regain power....And — the Douthat theory goes — we wouldn't be stuck listening to Dick Cheney now.
April 27, 2009
What if Dick Cheney had been the GOP nominee for President in '08?
He'd have lost, but wouldn't the loss have been better for the GOP? It's Ross Douthat's first NYT column:
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Douthat's main point seems to be that the torture debate would have been over by now if Cheney had run.
Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, Cheney would have never been given a fair break in the media.
Proof? From the Washington Post:
The networks have given President Obama more coverage than George W. Bush and Bill Clinton combined in their first months -- and more positive assessments to boot.
In a study to be released today, the Center for Media and Public Affairs and Chapman University found the nightly newscasts devoting nearly 28 hours to Obama's presidency in the first 50 days. (Bush, by contrast, got nearly eight hours.)
Fifty-eight percent of the evaluations of Obama were positive on the ABC, CBS and NBC broadcasts, compared with 33 percent positive in the comparable period of Bush's tenure and 44 percent positive for Clinton. (Evaluations by officials from the administration or either political party were not counted.)
On Fox News, by contrast, only 13 percent of the assessments of Obama were positive on the first half of Bret Baier's "Special Report," which most resembles a newscast. The president got far better treatment in the New York Times, where 73 percent of the assessments in front-page pieces were positive. Yeah. THAT "Middle of the Road" New York Times.
Oh yeah, it wasn't the media who aided the election at all.
"And — the Douthat theory goes — we wouldn't be stuck listening to Dick Cheney now."
lmao!
The espewed hatred would have been intolerable.
It would've been a lot of fun, that campaign.
Ah, what might have been!
I see what Douthat was getting at, but I much prefer to see the democrats posture and bluster their way into a corner where they are on the hook if we are ever hit again. Hence their sudden interest in all of a sudden "moving on".
And when he went down to a landslide loss, the conservative movement might – might! – have been jolted into the kind of rethinking that’s necessary if it hopes to regain power....This is just crazy talk -- Cheney ended the administration with, what, 15% favorability ratings? 10%? I don't think conservatives would be forced to think that his philosophical commitments were the problem. They'd probably just conclude that Cheney himself is wildly unpopular. And totally uninterested in doing the usual politician things, like kissing babies and so on -- the things that let politicians offer up a simulacrum of human warmth and feeling.
Yeah, Dick Cheney as the nominee of the GOP.
He'd have chaired his own Vice Presidential search committee, and then nominated himself for both spots on the ticket.
We're spending $1 Billion per hour.
Shortly we're going to nationalize health care without so much as a moment's debate.
Cheney Schmeney.
The GOP were tryng to be center left and failed. It's like CNN: who needs two Democrat news channels?
As for the war in Iraq, whatever happened to bringing the troops home?
And come to think of it, the other problem Cheney would have is that he seems totally uninterested in the social issues that many voters care deeply about. His indifference to most of the wedge issues Democrats and Republicans campaign on would win him 0 votes from the Democrats, and cost him a lot in enthusiasm from Republicans.
Honestly though, why would Dick Cheney want to run for another term as President? Eight years is enough.
"As for the war in Iraq, whatever happened to bringing the troops home?Brotha Puleeeeeeeeeze,
The poor man has only been in office three months. What can you expect? There have been all of these unnecessary distractions; making history and building a legacy, covering up the crimes of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, alleged torture issues, piracy on the high seas, the European apology tour, the Latin American bash the USA tour, pissing off Britain and Russia, bailing out wall street, firing CEOs of corporations, forcing other corporations to merge with foreign companies, the stupid comments from the moron from Arizona, a lying, stand up comic vice president, bombing runs over NYC, a phony flu pandemic, wearing shorts, White House training a dog, and other things that take up too much of his time.
Or we can do like the opposition does:
Obama lied. Kids died.
Take your pick.
But they’re [interrogation techniques] part of an argument about the means and ends of our interrogation policy that should have happened during the general election and didn’t.
Wrong! This is a problem and it's becoming worst all the time.
To this guy national security is nothing more than a check box on some transient poll.
This is so wrong.
Its like Scalia mocking "undo burden".. you got your doctors, the high cost, traveling.. what do you say.. undo burden? and he raises his hand.
Are we really going to start polling national defense?
This hypothetical can pretty much be rephrased as "what if anyone other than McCain had been the GOP nominee for President in '08".
McCain is an idiosyncratic Republican. It is hard to infer anything from his defeat, other than "people liked Obama better". Since Republicans didn't much like McCain to begin with, that doesn't tell them much.
The idea that Cheney could somehow have won ignores Mitt Romney. Remember him? He was pushing the same things Cheney would have, had plenty of funding, and lost.
Cheney is too much of a coward to run on his own. He spent 8 years hiding from any accountability on his decisions and now he's for open government. A thuggish coward.
"A thuggish coward."
Which is better than the douchebag we're currently stuck with, who's a sissyish coward.
I think this hypothetical might have been more plausible:
Suppose Bush had dumped Cheney before the 2004 election? By bringing in someone (younger) who could have gotten several years exposure, executive experience, and rapport with the public, there might have been a good viable 2008 candidate.
In 2004, I wouldn't know who that could have been. But it was obvious by then that Bush didn't give a rat's ass about the Republican Party, and because he values loyalty above anything else, Bush wasn't going to dump Cheney. Why Cheney didn't resign then (he had good reason to) is also good speculative material.
The party's chances for 2008 were badly damaged in 2004, and completely screwed in the 2006 midterms, when conservatives largely rose up to vote out the incumbent Republican.
Palladian said...
"Which is better than the douchebag we're currently stuck with, who's a sissyish coward."
The crap that comes out of your mouth Palladian. You know better than that or you should.
I thought you were a brighter bulb. Guess not.
Cheney...mr. 5 deferments, mr. secret locations, mr. rogue death squads, mr. secret everything..
get a grip. this guy lost his marbles somewhere along the way and it was just him shooting his buddy as they hunted quail with broken wings....this guy, who is playing either the village idiot or my dog spot howling at the moon has the popularity of a turd in the punchbowl and the thought of him running for president with single digit approval ratings is a howl unto itself....
And you call Obama a sissy? You fool.
Peter V. Bella said...
The espewed hatred would have been intolerable."
Applauding Peter for attempting a new word...a word so new in fact that I can't find it at Miriam Webster or Dictionary ... hmmm let me try a couple other places...American Heritage...hmmm nope....encarta...hmmm nope...
Gosh Peter, the crap you write is difficult enough to understand without you inventing words...can you give us a definition please and a source other than the dictionary of pullitoutofyourass?
I'm not convinced Cheney would lose. He pretty much mopped the floor with Edwards in the 2004 VP debates; I see no reason he couldn't have done the same with 2008's empty suit.
McCain was a terrible candidate - reason #1 to get rid of open primaries, without which he wouldn't have been the nominee.
Stop, you're kidding.
They dumped Kristol for this?
Bwah hah hah.
Which is better than the douchebag we're currently stuck with, who's a sissyish coward.Hey, if Cheney felt so strongly about his righteousness he should have stepped up to the plate and ran. Then he'd have to be accountable for the shit he says. Instead, he'd rather skulk in his bunker leaking CIA info, bullying Condi and taking pot shots at the current occupants of the White House. That's a coward. At least Obama, had the nuts to stand up and be judged based on his beliefs.
Cheney's a shitty second-fiddle who even Bush ignored like a leper in his last years in office. It takes Bush awhile to make a well reasoned character assessment but at least he got there with thugs like Putin and Cheney in the end.
When Cheney was selected as the Vice Presidential candidate in 2000, pretty much the universal reaction was praise. Former White House Chief of Staff, former Congressman well liked on the Hill, former Secretary of Defense, successful CEO of a major corporation - extremely intelligent, competent, even-tempered.
I never changed my opinion. I watched in disgust as the Left, which never had a real, genuine reason to criticize Cheney, assassinated his character with unremitting demonization for eight years. As near as I can tell, his great crime was being extremely competent. He handled their VP candidates easily in debates. He had complete command of the facts in interviews on news shows. He didn't leak the Valerie Plame stuff; that was a Democrat, Richard Armitage. He didn't lie or deceive about WMD; he genuinely believed Saddam had them, just like the Clintons and everyone else.
But I think that after so many years in public office he no longer had any stomach for playing P.R. games on television and began to come off as gruff and irrascible, for instance when he told a Dem senator "Fuck you, Pat." I really don't blame him. If I left a lucrative private sector job to go back into public service out of a sense of duty, and my reward was for the major media outlets to spend four years broadcasting assassinations of my character based on nothing, I would probably come off the same way.
I think history will look back and judge that Dick Cheney was treated very unfairly. He is a good and very intelligent man who did his job conscienciously and was rewarded with contempt. Such is the price of being a comptent conservative in an era where the media and educational institutions are primarily liberal.
"A thuggish coward."
Which is better than the douchebag we're currently stuck with, who's a sissyish coward.
Probably one of the most psychotic things ever said on Althouse, and this is a place where Maxine Weiss leaves comments.
Let the record show, Palladian just wished for Dick Cheney to be president.
Clinical.
Invisible Man, describing Cheney: "...skulk[ing]...bunker... leaking...bullying...taking pot shots...coward...shitty second-fiddle...leper...thug."
This is exactly what I mean. This is what the liberals did for eight years. Unremitting name-calling backed up by nothing.
It proves the worst about the power of propaganda. You just keep repeating slanders and lies over and over and over and over for years, and people start to assume they're true. "Jews are pigs, jews are evil, jews are inferior...." "Cheney's a liar, Cheney's a bully, Cheney's a sneak, Cheney's a thug..." Same thing.
I think history will look back and judge that Dick Cheney was treated very unfairly. He is a good and very intelligent man who did his job conscienciously...
Whoops! Sorry, I take my last comment back. You're off the hook for now, Palladian. The above blows you out of the water by a mile.
List for me the grand evil crimes of Dick Cheney, please. The ones that make it so obvious that the man is an evil coward and thug.
Be sure not to grant him a single bit of leeway, not a smidgeon of benefit of doubt of the kind you'd like us to give to a President who bows to a Saudi King or attends a racist church for 20 years.
hdhouse, "espewed" is a reference to something in another Althouse post & it will become part of the vernacular because it already is.
"And come to think of it, the other problem Cheney would have is that he seems totally uninterested in the social issues that many voters care deeply about."
There is something to that and the reason relates to a strain of Western libertarianism not to be confused with academic libertarianism or either West or East Coast liberalism.
I like Dick Cheney and never understood the left's hatred for him. Perhaps, Zach, you should question your own psychiatric health, given your propensity to demonize people because you disagree with their policy choices.
But you are a shrill, vacuous idiot, so I'm not too worried that you will make any attempt to know yourself.
Miriam Webster is probably an exciting girl to some unquestioning people due to her mystery. Merriam Webster has always been her boring old self except for the fact that she's proved herself to be quite changeable.
Ha ha ha ha ha. The village idiot calls someone twice as smart as himself a village idiot -- a phrase he picked up himself today when applied to himself. Ha ha ha ha ha, how amusing. But the moron he doesn't even recognize the portmanteau from an earlier post and derides the poster for having used it. Ha ha ha ha ha, what a maroooon. Go on, Idiot, look up maroooon too, you won't find that either.
And of course what would we do without the baited catalog of grievances presented, ticked off as drunks do when ruminating, as if copied and pasted from any of a hundred previous posts and passed off as unique and brilliant new material? It's like the plastic doll with a sting that produces recorded phrases when pulled. You're a drag. You've yet to contribute anything of possible interest.
Seriously though, Folks, these "what if" essays are pure vanity -- a writer's impotent masturbation. What if NYT had not been bolstered by an influx of capital from a Mexican investor? Now there's a fantasy for you. Cheney said repeatedly he was not interested in the position, an indication of sanity if ever there was one. Just as ridiculously, what if Bee Arthur had been the Republican candidate? She'd have lost and still be dead. What if Hillary had won the Democratic nomination? She very well may have won and we most likely wouldn't be several trillion in debt a decade down the line.
But all that's OK, Assholes, you keep your Bush and Cheney dementia going. It's the larger part of you and we wouldn't want you diminished.
If wishes were hoarser, we all would be cranks.
This is the best discussion of Cheney I have seen anywhere (hat tip, Ace of Spades)
http://tinyurl.com/Cheney-da-man
from a bunch of Hillary supporters, no less.
In any case, I think that they are more eloquent on the subject than I ever could be.
Oh, and Zachary Paul Sire, let the record show that I also would like to have seen Cheney as President. I really liked Romney and then Palin, but I would have had NO problem with a few more years of Dick Cheney.
David
"This is exactly what I mean. This is what the liberals did for eight years. Unremitting name-calling backed up by nothing."
Oh, cry me a river. Do you see the vitriol Obama attracts on this site alone? Why would you delude yourself into thinking only liberals engage in empty abusive name-calling?
hdhouse said...
Peter V. Bella said...
The espewed hatred would have been intolerable."
Applauding Peter for attempting a new word..
Gosh Peter, the crap you write is difficult enough to understand without you inventing words...can you give us a definition please and a source other than the dictionary of pullitoutofyourass?"
hdhouse should applaud Peter V. Bella for using the new word "espew". It was first used by Perez Hilton on Kurtz' Reliable Sources when he categorized Miss California's personal feelings against gay marriage as "espewing hatred". This new word was hilariously noted by Althouse on this blog. hdhouse missed the inside joke.
MnMark said...
When Cheney was selected as the Vice Presidential candidate in 2000, pretty much the universal reaction was praise"
Only on the right MnM only on the right. Then we found GWB to be, drum roll please, at the bottom of the sorry heap of goober presidents and found Cheney only making him worse..then our opinion of tricky Dick 2 solidified.
Gosh Martha...me bad...I just thought Peter was being, well, Peter..you know..."..... as a stone Peter"...that one.
Cheney would have been a great candidate.
I think he would have gotten a lot of support from the fed-up-with-the-media demographic, and the election would have been our current special olympics child versus an actual adult.
I think he would have gotten a lot of support from the fed-up-with-the-media demographic, and the election would have been our current special olympics child versus an actual adult.
He'd still have got creamed. Let's not pretend that policy knowledge or debating ability had anything to do with why Obama got elected -- his performance in the debates was not especially good, and he had a limited command of the facts, indeed, of "his" own policies. True, McCain was roughly as bad on anything but foreign policy, but I find it difficult to believe that Cheney being better would have helped him at all. In reality, Lex Luthor is not the kind of man who gets elected as president. He's too bald. And sinister.
He'd still have got creamed. Let's not pretend that policy knowledge or debating ability had anything to do with why Obama got elected -- his performance in the debates was not especially good, and he had a limited command of the facts, indeed, of "his" own policies. True, McCain was roughly as bad on anything but foreign policy, but I find it difficult to believe that Cheney being better would have helped him at all. In reality, Lex Luthor is not the kind of man who gets elected as president. He's too bald. And sinister.I see that your obviously still in that "Communism has never been truly applied" stage. The fact is that Obama campaigned on economic policies that would include a tax increase on the rich, withdrawing from Iraq, completely overhauling the healthcare system, ending "torture" and any number of policies that enrage Republicans.
Yet he won. You can hide behind your delusion if you'd like, but he won despite being calld a "socialist" for a couple of month, despite being called "arrogant" for about a year and despite being called a "wimp" by your brethren. Face it, people preferred his policies over yours and they still do. And if Romney had been up there with him, he would have lost by a much larger margin by almost every bit of polling done on that topic
hdhouse: the introduction of the word ESPEW to this blog by the inimitable Althouse:
And I love that new word "espew," which I take to be a portmanteau of "spew" and "eschew." I'm not going to espew it. I mean, I'm going to espew it everywhere. Use it in a sentence today.
a tax increase on the rich, withdrawing from Iraq, completely overhauling the healthcare system, ending "torture"Batting .250 won't keep you in the big leagues very long, even if you read nice from a teleprompter.
Gosh Martha...me bad...I just thought Peter was being, well, Peter..you know..."..... as a stone Peter"...that one..
This is funny coming from one of the most incoherent commenters on this blog.
hdhouse, the turrets syndrome of blog commenting.
Rogue death squads?
What in the world are you talking about?
You watch what you say about Dick Cheney, Mister.
We're watching.
We're always watching.
I'm reporting you.
a tax increase on the rich, withdrawing from Iraq, completely overhauling the healthcare system, ending "torture"Batting .250 won't keep you in the big leagues very long, even if you read nice from a teleprompter.Oh yes, Seven Machos after 100 days Obama hasn't remade America. What a failure! It's hilarious to watch the flailing about.
"And totally uninterested in doing the usual politician things, like kissing babies and so on"
-But everyone knows, Dick Cheney EATS babies.
Seriously, to the left/MSM all conservatives are either idiots or evil. Bush is an idiot. Cheney is evil. Reagan was an idiot. Quayle is an idiot. Nixon is evil. The only ones who escape this are RINOs and squishes, like Bush the elder and McCain, who can be stampded into supporing at least half of the Democrat agenda.
Dick Cheney's left nut is smarter and more knowledgable than Obama and his three favourity teleprompters any day, and the media, who have seen both men unedited, know it.
So now Douthat, Megan McCain, David Frum and Andrew Sullivan can lead the new Republican party to glory - it's like the Democrats, only gayer and better read!
"espew," which I take to be a portmanteau of "spew" and "eschew."
Surely "espouse," not "eschew."
Cheney's health is the only reason not to have drafted him, willing or no. Dick Cheney's left nut is not only smarter and more knowledgeable than Obama and his three favourite teleprompters, but bigger. Obama is History's Greatest Loser and it will only get worse.
Hopefully he will soon choke on a pretzel or a chitlin or a $100 slice of ham. Oh wait, that's the kind of vitriol that Minzo equates with criticism of his policies.
See, Minzo, that's what we don;t do. We don;t wish him dead, we don;t call him a coprophile or incestuous or ObaMao, etc. There's vitriol, and then there's just slime.
Oh yes, Seven Machos after 100 days Obama hasn't remade America. .
Sure he has. He's added more to the national debt in 3 months than Bush did in 8 years.
Guess that's the change he was talking about.
Actually...ObaMao actually is kinda funny, let's vote on that one. But even so, the fury, the unjustified fury at his very existence, is absent. It's not personal. His existence does not negate mine.
(If you don't pick up on that vibe, Minzo, it's probably because you are a foreigner and not clued into the subtleties of our discourse here. But for all his faults, the animus for Bush by some far exceeded any possible cause.)
The fact is that Obama campaigned on economic policies that would include a tax increase on the rich, withdrawing from Iraq, completely overhauling the healthcare system, ending "torture" and any number of policies that enrage Republicans.
Yet he won. On the expansion of government, even the polls that approve of the expansion of government indicate that the vast majority of the population want it cut back after the current economic situation has been resolved.And only 25% of the population think torture should never be used. Apparently the question actually used the word "torture," not even "coercive interrogation" or "force" or anything like that.
Obama's personal approval ratings are higher than the approval ratings on his actual policies for a reason.
Which is better than the douchebag we're currently stuck with, who's a sissyish coward.OK, you don't like Obama. But cowards don't run for and become president. It's one of the most dangerous jobs around. The chances of a sitting president being assassinated are over 9% (4 out 44) and of being shot at or killed over 20%.
When you add to that the dangers of campaigning for president and being the first Black President, it's clear that Obama has in fact substantially risked his life for the job. Much more than Cheney ever has.
well, no matter...what if cheney is about as likely or consequential as pigs flying...although if any animal takes to the air with hair-trigger Dick around.......
well, no matter...what if cheney is about as likely or consequential as pigs flying...although if any animal takes to the air with hair-trigger Dick around.......
Shouldn't you be dead by now hd?
You are really embarrassing yourself. You can't follow a joke from a prior post. It is impossible for you to complete a sentence because you regard verbs as a conservative plot. You don't understand what anyone is talking about. You mutter incoherently and repeat yourself like the senile shut in with dementia that you so obviously have become in these threads. It's time for you to go. Just go to the beach behind you mansion in the Hampton’s and look out at the horizon. Start walking into the water. Don’t worry. It will be painless. Do the world a favor. Do yourself a favor. It’s time.
Cheney would have got creamed for the same reasons McCain did. Namely a Bad Economy and supporting:
-Hundreds of Billions for Wall Street;
-An Unpopular War;
-Massive trade and budget deficits;
-Massive government spending
-Amnesty for 20 million illegal aliens.
McCain was roughly as bad on anything but foreign policy, but I find it difficult to believe that Cheney being better would have helped him at all.
Obama had so many skeletons he needed a walk-in closet. That was his weakness, and McCain chose to make the campaign a contest of charisma. You can't win in politics by matching your weakness against your opponent's strength. It's hard to imagine Cheney scolding supporters for bringing up Reverend Wright.
Ohhh Trooper you are such a nudge!
My pleasure hd. Hey Jayson Williams just called. He has a few extra bottles of pills and a few notes left over. Why don't you give him a buzz?
"Shortly we're going to nationalize health care without so much as a moment's debate".
There's plenty of reasons to criticize Obama, but if this is what you think he's going to do, you really haven't been paying attention. In fact, that the desperately needed nationalization of healthcare will never happen under his watch is one of the more significant reasons to criticize him, along with his preference that we not prosecute Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al. for war crimes.
"Cheney Schmeney.
The GOP were tryng to be center left and failed".
Heh. It that is their idea of "center left" (sic), it's no wonder they can't recognize torture when it's stinking up the joint.
This misses the point; the media adored Obama and McCain. Their coverage of them in the primaries was extremely one-sided. The MSM turned hard against McCain when he suddenly stopped talking to them before the convention--a horrendously stupid mistake by McCain's handlers.
Romney and Clinton were both fighting uphill battles. Given the one-sided coverage, I'm amazed both did as well as they did.
Unfortunately, this past election wasn't about liberalism vs. conservatism. Even more unfortunate, it still isn't. This was and remains to be very cynical and arrogant members of the media manipulating public opinion.
Ross Douthat's very literate and talented (and he's still just 29) but this is not a good start.
Not...good...at...all.
The only way we were going to have a debate on this interrogation/detainee matter is if the Bush White House declassified a lot of the information.
And they weren't going to do that. For both legitimate and illegitimate reasons.
The chances of a sitting president being assassinated are over 9% (4 out 44) and of being shot at or killed over 20%.
I want you to realize that these statistics are obviously nonsensical.
Which is better than the douchebag we're currently stuck with, who's a sissyish coward.
Wow, as much as I disliked Bush (and was called a traitor on this very blog for my perceived disrespect of the office of the POTUS because of my personal disdain for the man), I never called him a "douchebag" and a "sissyish coward".
Way to lower the discourse to the level of a sixth grade playground! The second slur you must find especially stinging because, I bet as a gay man, it hurt very much when it was used against you way back when in junior high.
Hey Freder et al, let me clarify the sissyish coward meme that you and your moronic ilk so ineloquently dismiss. Your Little Black Jesus, your new shining idol to your bankrupt ideology, is a pussy. A limp-wristed, equivocating, squeamish, teleprompter direction taking pussy. The man has no spine, he has no core, he has no principals, he has no conviction(s) outside of pleasing his lunatic nutter leftists like you. An unfettered, weak-willed pussy. A non-man.
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