Cheney To GOP Senators: It's 'Herbert Hoover Time'

Politico reports on Dick Cheney's private meeting with Republican Senators, at which he tried and failed to win their support for an auto bailout:

Senate Republicans' dramatic revolt against a White House-backed auto industry rescue plan is fraught with political risk.

While the high-stakes gambit places them squarely within the mainstream of anti-bailout public sentiment, at the same time it exposes the party to potentially devastating criticism that its failure to compromise doomed the Big Three automakers and deepened the economic recession.

...

That was the message Vice President Dick Cheney brought to a closed-door Senate GOP lunch Wednesday, reportedly warning that it'll be "Herbert Hoover" time if aid to the industry was rejected, according to a senator familiar with the remarks. A Cheney spokeswoman would neither confirm nor deny the vice president's remarks.

In their piece on the meeting, McClatchy reported that Cheney received a "barrage of criticism" from his fellow Republicans rather than the agreement he desired.

Read more about the auto bailout on the HuffPost Big News Page.

Comments

[ltyr2002]

Remember the CAFE standards fight that the Big Three and Bush won? It was all about getting better GAS MILEAGE! So people overloaded Toyota with orders for the Prius. (Did American car companies make a hybrid car?????????? HELL NO! THEY MADE EXPEDITIONS!)

Now the economy sucks and oil is costing anywhere from a buck fifty to five bucks.

Regardless of what the Democrats do, this old Bush team receives HUGE blame for the automakers' demise.

But why blame our voted in leaders? Voting Americans, and buying Americans are the reason we are where we are!

[JTyroler]

They probably focused too much on the theme to "All in The Family"

[Luca]

Currently it seems that it is Hoover vacuum time, with the Republican leadership sucking up all the money in the Treasury and distributing it all to their white collar buddies before the Bush-Cheney crew leaves office. Yes, Republicans are great for business....monkey business. Comments anyone?

[EricLightborn]

If were a Republican Senator I would hear Cheney out. Of course if I were a Republican at all the pigs would fly and me listening to Cheney is like O'Reilly listening to me. For all my disagrements with Cheney this is something he and I are in sync with on. Truth is truth no matter the mouth that spoke it.

[AxelDC]

If I were a Republican Senator, I'd be angry with Cheney as well. I'm sure Gordon Smith, Ted Stevens, John Sununu, Norm Coleman, and Liddy Dole are not big fans of Dick Cheney these days.

[Rosey]

Cheney will go down in history as the controller over Dubya and both will be remembered for the disasterous 8 years of a Presidency which caused a massive economic blowout and so many other disasterous "things" like trying to kill the environment, using water-boarding and other torture tactics and denying even doing them, brown-nosing corporations, having to admit to a fog of a freemarket economy which they so loudly backed, not caring a whit about returning vets and their myriad of problems, tush-kissing appointments to important jobs with people so incompetent it's ridiculous, leaving the people of New Orleans to rot, taking more vacations than ANY President ever so they were not aware of a real need for leadership....I have to stop as I get so angry over their stupidity and deceit and secrecy......

[Layman23]

Rosey, i feel your pain. Well said.

[4peace]

Please, lets not forget the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, millions of lives were destroyed due to this debacle, the destruction is unbelievable.

[toypiano]

Wow. You know it's bad when even the overlord puppetmaster Cheney couldn't convince his own kind to approve the aid package to the car companies.

So ok, after this deliberate maneuver by the Confederate States and their warbuck sidekicks to willfully plunge the U.S. deeper into the recession by crushing the UAW and the domestic auto industry, I don't want to hear anything more about how the Dems need to play nice and "post-partisan" with Congressional Repubs. They have shown us what we can expect in return.

[Punkynsnow]

'Overlord puppetmaster' that describes him to a T.

[donbrown]

I have never in my life agreed with Dick Cheney, but in this case, he is on the mark. Southern Republicans are so set on destroying the unions, aligned with the Democratic Party, that they fail to see the Big Picture that could result in the massive failure of the economy.

They deserve to go down with the economy.

[ObjectiveRealist]

You know a situation is dire when Dick Cheney tells the truth.

[Watersisland]

Believe me, he didn't know it was the truth when he said it. He wouldn't know the truth if it bit him on the A**. The truth just happened to coincide with what he thought were distortions of reality to further his agenda.

[kycol]

Do you think we could convince the southern red states and their sister red states in the heartland to secede from the Union. We could establish international zones back and forth across them containing great hotels and restaurants so that travelers from one blue state to another would not have to go into a red state. That would make getting the nation back on course much easier. The red states could then just sit and fester to their heart’s content.

[che1111]

we'd have to build some walls to keep residents of red states from illegally entering blue state new USA.

[essbird]

Here's what it would be like if the red states seceeded. I LOVE THIS!

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sfo/80714812.html

[drund]

Well they're not going to gain any support back if Cheney's their advisor.

[NTexasHillbilly]

I feel that it's more apt to say "It's Howdy Doody Time."

[thewellknownAhole]

hahahahahaaaaa!!!

[Jazzcomedian]

This story is totally false. What Cheney actually said is "It's Hammer time", then he held up a copy of his bank statement and started singing "Can't touch this". I'm tired of the media lying to create faux controversy and sensationalism.

[DarkWitch]

Does he own stock in the Big Three maybe? Can't think of another reason at this point he'd care much. He made his money already. Record oil company profits for the last how many quarters...

[FanaticRealist]

Your thinking just isn't as densely layered as it needs to be.

Cheney is linked to Halliburton, Halliburton is linked to Big Oil and Big Oil would prefer the status quo of the American car industry (years of unimaginative management, money that should go into research and development diverted into massive executive remuneration and UAW welfare packages, inefficient gas-guzzling large engines) to remain in place.

One of the primary conditions of the bailout should be the aggressive pursuit of technologies that consistently deliver massive improvements in power/litre as well as torque: the American fixation with cubic inches as a measurement of engineering prowess needs to be broken. It may be big, but it certainly isn't clever.

[1murillo]

GOP greed and political 'success' has shown it that treating the majority of residents negatively is the way to stay in power.

The GOP is good at winning elections (although that is being challenged), it's not good at governing.

Look at Chambliss, 2002 he trashes Cleland by suggesting he's (Cleland) anti-American; then he wins in 2008 by saying Martin is soft on crime. Cleland is a Vietnam war veteran (silver and bronze stars), Martin has experienced personal tragedy that has strengthened his resolve to make crime laws stricter.

But because Chambliss won, using Rove's methods, he's being used as a model by the GOP.

Republican strength is eroding not only because their numbers are dropping, but also because they continue to use old scare tactics to win.

[TheOside]

The sad thing about all this government bailout money is our children will pay dearly for it. Should we take the pain now, so our children won't have to?

[1murillo]

$700,000,000,000 (bank bailout)
+ $2,000,000,000,000 of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers (to undisclosed recipients)
+ $450,000,000,000 (budget deficit)
= $3,150,000,000,000.

Our debt ceiling is now somewhere around $11,000,000,000,000.

$14,000,000,000 is a lot of money, but compared to the $11,000,000,000,000 it's ~0.13%. This isn't a high amount to loan to keep our auto manufacturers afloat.

Argument: 'It's throwing good money after bad.' This weak argument shows that we should cancel the US dollar, after all, trying to fix our problems is throwing good money (however defined) after bad.

[jdlund]

Seriously? Aren't there already way too many things that are justified by 'think of the children?' Do we really need to debate how to approach an economic crisis upon how much pain our children may or may not face. The future is impossible to know, what we do know is what we are going through now. We do our best to face the problems of today with consideration placed upon short term and long term consequences. All this talk of the children is nonsense. No matter what we do we won't spare them the pain of their own crisis that will inevitably be visited upon them. We do what we have to now, and be mindful of the future, but we do not forget the problems we face now solely to address the future. If you ignore problems now you may very well not have a future anyway, so where will your precious children be then? And frankly if their parents are laid off, can't find a job and are unable to make ends meet I fail to see how children will be better off by simply knowing that we decided not spend any more money.

[LaurenMarie984]

Here, here!

I'm sorry, but half my paycheck is taken for Social Security; a federal program that I will never be a part of. It will be up to me and my generation to take care of ourselves via 401 K and other savings. I don't think other generations cared about us paying for their debt. My kids/grandkids/others will have a completely different system in place because our generation was screwed over by the previous one and we will have to innovate new systems that will not have a chance to have a positive impact on us until the next generation is born.

[ebanks84]

Know that rapscallion, he probably threatened all their lives if they voted FOR the bailout. There's no way you can convince me he was for it.

[john stevens 26]

Talk about radical, your hatred for Cheney has blinded you from thinking rationally...

[LaurenMarie984]

I actually might have to agree here. There is such a thing as Leftist extremism, just as there is on the right. Don't feed that fire, please.