President Obama has been hit with a firestorm of vitriolic criticism from Republican opportunists hoping to score political points by blaming him for the latest upheaval in Iraq. So I was pleased when, finally, one Republican spoke out loudly to deflect those partisan attacks.
Thank you, Dick Cheney. Yes, he’s back! The snarling, self-righteous, shameless old hypocrite wrote a nasty op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that was meant to skewer Obama on the Iraq issue, but it backfired! One, Cheney’s attack was so vitriolic and personal – even accusing Obama of betrayal and being “a fool” – that it revealed just how mean and malignantly-partisan Cheney is. More significantly, though, his venomous rant reminded everyone that – wait a minute – it wasn’t Obama who made a ghastly mess of Iraq – it was Cheney and his imperious regime of neo-con chicken-hawks!
Enjoying Hightower's work? Join us over at our new home on Substack:
The punch line in his op-ed was a haymaker intended to floor Obama: “Rarely has a US president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many.” But – whammo! – it was such a wild swing that instead of socking Obama, Cheney’s roundhouse punch went full-circle and smashed into his own glass jaw. Even Fox News, which had been a wildly enthusiastic backer of Cheney’s war, roasted him over that line. Fox interviewer Megyn Kelly put it to him like this: “Time and time again, history has proven that you got it wrong as well in Iraq, sir. You said there was no doubt Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. You said we would be greeted as liberators. You said the Iraq insurgency was in the last throes back in 2005… What do you say to those who say you were so wrong about so much at the expense of so many?”
Precisely, right. So thank you again, Dick Cheney, for taking the heat off of Obama and putting right were it belongs.
“The Collapsing Obama Doctrine,” www.wsj.com, June 17, 2014.
“Megyn Kelly grills Dick Cheney: ‘History has proven that you got it wrong in Iraq,'” www.yahoo.com, June 19, 2014.
Special rate for original Lowdown readers