Liz Cheney Recycles

Liz Cheney is related by blood -- or whatever the Cheneys drink -- to a real live-ish former vice president of the United States. And they're close, too. Just ask her, or today's New York Times.

By all accounts, the Cheneys are a tight-knit and at times insular unit steeped in the family business. The extended brood all live within about 15 minutes of one another in northern Virginia. They gather for Sunday night dinners, usually at Liz's house, and travel to family homes in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Ms. Cheney began her Nashville speech by saying that she had asked her father for advice on what she should say. "That's a really important room full of people," she said he told her. "So don't screw it up." Laughter ensued.

Liz Cheney was speaking to a meeting of the prestigious Smart Girl Politics™ (Established July, 2008) Smart Girls Summit. So you could see why it would have dominated Sunday dinner conversation, six days before. And why Dick Cheney would send his little girl out there with his asshole clenched like an imploding star, hoping they'd be impressed.

"This is the Smart Girl Nation, kid. The Big Time. Make me proud. And if you get nervous, just imagine them naked, and being tortured."

Don't screw it up.

The Times weren't the only people struck by this rare insight into table talk in the Cheney keep. The Smart Girls were deeply touched.

From their website:

After the morning's speakers and panels... Liz Cheney spoke to us about the importance of national security. Before she got into the topic at hand, she told us that she had asked her dad (former Vice President Dick Cheney) for some advice on speaking to us grass root activists. He told her, "They are the future of our country. Don't screw it up." What a difference in thinking from some other politicians! This man actually understands the significance of the conservative brush fire sweeping through our country.

They probably meant to say "prairie fire." A prairie fire is something good, in political clichés. A brush fire? Not so good. At least they didn't say "trash fire."

Still, awfully nice for the Smart Girls, to know they're on Dick's mind. And what a revealing, off-the-cuff nugget for the Times, too.

Here's the thing, though. The "don't screw up" story? Liz Cheney says it every time she gives a speech. She just changes the name of the audience.

Here she is, for instance, at the Redstate Gathering, in Atlanta, last August:

I want to bring greetings to you from the whole Cheney family. When I told my dad I was coming today I asked him for some advice, and he said to me, in a nice, kind fatherly way, "Liz, this is a really important group. So don't screw it up."

And that's okay, too. Politicians have been known to say the same thing more than once. There's a cliché about faking sincerity and it's brushing the country like a conservative on fire.

But a reporter should know the difference between a line from a stump speech and spontaneous sharing. Not being able to tell one from the other is kind of bush.

And the Smart Girls might want to find a new adjective.

 

Comments

[morris1954]

Maybe could send Dick Cheney to Gitmo and water board him and find the truth out about his involvement in 9/11 as well as water board him for his involvement in starting a War in Iraq based on lies that he fabricated. If he was involved then lets get a trial date going for charging him with War Crimes and if found guilty, sentence him to Life Imprisonment to Gitmo with no chance for ever getting parole.

[seawolf77]

Now we get his idiot daughter. I hope her head elongates from power like her old man.

[CaptainStormfield]

http://www.alternet.org/media/21192
The Right-Wing Express
Worth reading in light of current events.

[SewaneeLeftist]

Living 45 miles from Nashville, I knew that Cheney was not getting exactly a tough audience -- I just didn't know how very far from tough they were. What's worse is the NYT rave piece about Cheney coulda been the lead article for ConservaTeen Mag. All that was missing was a description of her ducky outfit.

I tried to get these next points across in a post about the NYT article rather than this accurate article, but it didn't get through, so I apologize if it gets through later, and I repeat myself. I love Wilkerson, who can give balance to anything about Liz Cheney. But two lines about him in the whole NYT article is hardly presenting balanced journalism. What is much more relevant about LC is not only the tired lines she repeats (as the writer catches here), but her getting away with the same lies and tactics as her father. It's not at all surprising that right wing crazies are encouraging her to go into politics. Not exactly a man bites dog story, you know?

[msgirlintn]

I live in Nashville and the NYT piece made me sick. Not everyone in the South is a Republican! I didn't even know she was going to be here and that's surprising since the local NBC affilliate should be a FOX affilliate. They announced Joe The Plumber, but not her.

She is as obnoxous (sp) as Ann Coulter and loves to filibuster any conversation!

[ginamarie101]

And the Smart Girls might want to find a new adjective.


AHAHAA! Exactly.

[Jaywalkker]

I'm lost as to how "don't screw up" is good advice. Sure its an icebreaker joke, but is there a follow-up with some relevant knowledge that he proceeded to give that might actually help? As is sounds like she's been abandoned by him and is rather insulting. Doesn't even get an anecdote like, "well kiddo once I had to address the board at Halliburton and..."

[MC71]

A reporter -- and an editor -- should also know when someone maytters to the national discourse, and when someone is just looking for their 15 minutes and to promote a cause to grab headlines. Liz Cheney has nothing to offer. The fact that she sprang from the seed of the former VP does not make her blatherings newsworthy any more than if she were Al Gore's daughter, or Joe Biden's son, of George Bush's daughter. The fact she held a government job attests more to her dad's ability to get her work than it does anything else. Lazy inside-the-beltway reporting gives people like her a soapbox. It really needs to stop. There are smart people out there speaking in a vacuum.

[mommadona]

I don't know......­you gotta mom who writes lesbian oriented fiction...­..you gotta old man who looks like right outta "Dr Strangelov­e".....and shoots friends in their faces and then has the guy apologize to HIM for 'being in the way'

"Big Daddy"....­.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tGlsqhcdXk

[newTheory]

"with his assh*le clenched like an imploding star"

I look forward to gems like these when reading your posts. Another zinger to the collection for me to throw around at the office water cooler as if I had spontaneously thought of it then and there.

As usual, thanks for a good read.

[TheHandyman]

Every time I read something about how the Cheney Family interacts it reminds me of sociology and psychology courses in college of how to tell when a family is dysfunctional. There seems to be an under lying current of sexual molestation or deviancy. They seem to mirror the Borgias of old Italy.

And it sure sounds to me as if the Smart Girls have become an oxymoron!

[tehixe]

Here's a new line for them: "I am so smart, S-M-R-T-- I mean S-M-A-R-T.­" -Homer Simpson

[Cybesq]

I'm smart! Not like everybody says... like dumb... I'm smart and I want respect! - Fredo Corleone

[EngineerBill]

So let's see if I get this straight. Liz Cheney at the Smart Girls Summit made the NY Times stupid?Maybe there affected by those conservatives on fire.

[bioluminescence]

It is rumored that the Smart Girl distribute a motivational CD to its membership. It's called "How to talk Good."

[lungfish]

oooh Smack!!!!

"Liz Cheney is related by blood -- or whatever the Cheneys drink -- to a real live-ish former vice president of the United States."

That was good.....