The GOP Needs Its Own "Secret Speech" Repudiating the Cheney Era

This is a big week for the GOP. Two events suggest that it isn't detached from reality. It's oblivious to it.

The first event takes place on Wednesday, when the Republican National Committee, as today's Washington Times reports, will hold a special meeting at National Harbor in Maryland to decide whether or not to endorse a resolution demanding that the Democratic Party call itself the "Democrat Socialist Party." RNC chairman Michael S. Steele is resisting the resolution even as he uses the term socialist to describe the Obama administration's fiscal policies.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall when the Solons of the GOP debate the fine points of economic theory to decide whether or not President Obama really qualifies as a socialist intent on imposing communist-style collectivism upon America. Will they feverishly be consulting their Hegel, Lasalle, and Kautsky as they lash each other into a frenzy of indignation over the nature of true socialist doctrine? No doubt Obama will be quaking in fear over the fate of this resolution.

The second event is former Vice President Dick Cheney's speech on national security at the American Enterprise Institute on Thursday. Cheney and his daughter have become something of a traveling road show, trying to freak out the country but revealing only their own freakishness as they assail Obama. Like good Marxists, Cheney and his daughter Liz have been insisting that Obama is, at a minimum, an "objective," to use an old Leninist term, supporter of terrorists because he is repudiating many of the policies, if that's the appropriate term, instituted by the Bush administration to combat terrorism.

As Dimitri Simes, who actually lived under communism in Russia before emigrating to America, acidly points out in the National Interest (which he publishes and where I'm a senior editor), "Former Soviet leader and KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov would be proud of Liz Cheney's charge that President Obama's initial willingness to release pictures of U.S. military prisoner abuses amounted to 'siding with terrorists.' After all, Andropov and his prosecutors always argued that Soviet dissidents who exposed human rights violations were guilty of treason. But Ms. Cheney goes even further than Andropov and his associates, who at least pretended that the dissidents were distorting the facts. Liz Cheney makes no such claim, nor any allegation that the pictures were fabricated. Yet despite this she asserts that exposing actual wrongdoing is sufficient to accuse someone of not simply providing comfort to America's enemies or aiding their propaganda efforts but siding with the mass murderers."

It will be interesting to see how Dick Cheney attempts to top this at AEI on Thursday -- and how the GOP responds to his hallucinatory statements. I believe a vital index of the GOP's return to rationality will be when it begins not only to emancipate itself from this madman, but also to denounce him. What the party needs instead of a meeting denouncing Obama as a socialist is the Republican version of Nikita Khrushchev's courageous secret speech before a stunned communist elite in 1956 that decried Stalinism. Who is the Republican that will have the courage to break with the deadly past of Cheneyism?

Comments

[blueken]

American Enterprise Institute takes the "think" out of think tank.

[Aramingo]

If the RNC wants the Democratic Party to chagne it's name, perhaps the RNC should follow suit, changing their name to "Guys that didn't get Laid in High School"

[wingnutslayer]

Speaking of freakishness, you had to bring up the American Enterprise Institute. This place needs to be identified as Neo-Con central every time it's abhorrent name is brought up. This is the "Think tank" that produced, among other noxious things, the Project for a New American Century, which with the help of Bush/Cheney, inflicted their far-seeing vision of America ruling the entire world forever on an unsuspecting nation. How'd that work out for us, AEI'ers? I would think that to have your defining philosophy fail so miserably would be to discover a newfound humility, maybe a back to the drawing board for say, fifty to a hundred years, however long it takes to forget that you ever existed as a player in our national policy. But, oh I forgot, we live in 21st Century America.

[Horus45]

"I would think that to have your defining philosophy fail so miserably would be to discover a newfound humility, maybe a back to the drawing board for say, fifty to a hundred years, however long it takes to forget that you ever existed as a player in our national policy."

Denial is not just a river in Africa!
When you deny your past how can you change the future?

[marecek]

Best idea I have heard in a long, long time. The Charlie Crist or Arnold Schwarzenneger types are the ones that would seem like prime candidates, but we must recall that Khrushchev was an insider who took part in the Stalin regime, so that he bore part of the blame (with perhaps the partial justification that to oppose Stalin was tantamount to suicide). Also, the Secret Speech was not delivered until three years after Stalin's death (and required that Nikita and his merry band first liquidate those still loyal to Stalinists - such as Beria). So, it might take them a while. But, just as Khrushchev's actions were motivated in part by the desire to avoid further purges and bloodshed of the Stalinist terror, perhaps another bloodbath in 2010 will convince a GOP insider that they have to denounce Bush/Cheney (in our rush to denounce Cheney, we should not let Dubya off the hook) and their wicked ways.

[coloradodreaming]

Can't imagine why people are more comfortable living with fear and boogie man beliefs. Never did understand how educated people could be sucked into this mind set. After the last few months of the GOP ravings we are beginning to see the educated side of the GOP dropping away from this insanity, leaving only a minority. This minority will never change and they will keep on with the ranting and raving about straw dogs and commies. Watched again "Good Night and Good Luck" last night and it only goes to show you that the far right has been with us forever. Grow up and enter the real world, it is flawed but it can become a new hope for the future. Try just once GOP to see the world's cup as half full.

[stevedavis]

The answer is that educated people aren't sucked into this mindset. Intensely stupid people are, or cunning people who've figured out that there may be a useful con at play.

[larry278]

Pres Obama is to the left of Calvin Cooledge but far to the left of FDR & TR. BHO: a socialist? Give me a break; that dude, BHO, is capitalist to the bone. When the USA's power elite asked, he sold himself to them in April, 2008. The establishment owns Pres Obama. Check it out Obama opposes prosecution for W & Co, hired Gates & Bernanke straight & fresh from W, has Tim & Larry at Treasury. A socialist wouldn't do that.

[Horus45]

He has NEVER said he opposes the prosecution of Bush admin. people.
He has said that he would prefer to "Look forward", but he has not said he would stop any investigations or prosecutions.

[Leatherhelmet]

Nothing like leftists telling the right how to run its campaign.

The left won with a far left presidential candidate.
The right needs to find a conservative candidate.

[jonjon358]

I don't think he was so much "telling the right how to run its campaign" as pointing out how the GOP is willfully closing in on itself.

What even IS a "conservative candidate," in the minds of people who think they're "conservative"? Who do ya like - Steele, Cantor, Jindal, Palin, Boehner...­Gingrich..­..Limbaugh­?

[Articulator]

The republicans are always about labels. They think in stereotypes and they attach derogatory meanings to labels that they then try to tag people with thinking they can avoid having a rational argument or discussing an issue based on its merits.

[nk007]

I wonder if you think Obama was a far left candidate how would you classify Rep. Dennis Kucinichi and Sen. Mike Gravel? Also, how come you Republicans chose John McCain (the person Rush wants to kick out of the party) over Mike Huckbee? You certainly do have a number of far right candidates to pick from: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney, Stephen King, Mark Sanford, Rick Perry and, of course, the sensitive, easy to cry, Glenn Beck. I suppose you believe that the majority of Americans are really far right wing conservatism. All I can say is good luck, but be careful what you wish for. It may come back to bite you big.

[Heartsmart]

Yes the author makes a good point. But more importantly we are all oblivious that is why the world is the way it is. So we can spend all of our time pointing the finger at each other and completely miss the many ways in which we ourselves are unconscious, fear driven, ego based and disconnected from reality. I haven't seen the "democrats, liberals, or the left" any less oblivious than the "republicans, conservative or the right" (sorry for these meaningless labels).

[andycan]

CONGRATULATIONS MR. HEILBRUNN

I congratulate Mr. Heilbrunn for a statement of genius.

In political commentary, and not only in science, there is the aha! discovery moment.

Mr. Heilbrunn found it.

The Republicans utterly, completely compromised have embarked on so erroneous a course, that they need an American Khruschev to denounce the anti-const­itutional, disastrous tenor of the Bush years.

[escobar]

Jeb Bush is still a major player.
He is also a signer of the PNAC paper outlining perpetual war .
Nothing about the GOP will change just because Chaney and company are out of the picture.
They remain dedicated to the PNAC agenda.
Their dream world domination by international corporations with the US population as impoverished, desperate cannon fodder will only be repackaged and sold.

[Michael Shanley]

Jeb BUSh has NO Political life...he will never get elected to a national office, period because of his brother and that family.

[blaqntelligence]

"Who is the Republican that will have the courage to break with the deadly past of Cheneyism?"
Not a one.

These people have shown time and again they are the party of cowards and pee-pants.
They behave as they do to hide their abject fear.....And will blindly, wildly, indicriminately lash out at all threats, real and imagined. Even resorting to cannibalism if they believe their own will betray them.

[quixoto]

Pee-pants!
Hah!

[peterg76]

"Who is the Republican that will have the courage"

Contradiction in terms.

[keysbreezin]

There might be a few who dare speak up, but alas, it would only mean a trip to the woodshed with Rushbo.