In Case You Forgot Him

Willard is bring back into the daylight one of the most beloved Republican politicians ever. No, he didn't dig up Ronald Reagan.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney will host a high-priced fundraiser for Mitt Romney at his Wyoming home Thursday night.

Think you might like to go?

The $30,000-a-couple dinner at Cheney's home outside of Jackson Hole will follow a reception at the fancy Teton Pines country club nearby.

Eh, maybe not.

Together, the two events are expected to raise more than $2 million for the Romney campaign.

Is it worth the 2 million to put the Penguin back in the minds of voters?

The Associated Press says Romney rarely appears in public with Cheney or with former President George W. Bush, and even goes out of his way at times to avoid saying Bush's name out loud, simply calling him President Obama's "predecessor."

Apparently worth it with Cheney but not Bush President Obama's "predecessor."

Back in September 2011, Romney said that when it comes time to choose a vice president, he'd pick someone like Cheney.

Well just don't let him lead the search for one anyway.

"That's the kind of person I'd like to have--a person of wisdom and judgment," Romney told a crowd in Arizona.

What more can you say after that?

Career Opportunities

Apparently, Jonah Goldberg has been doing some thinking about his career:

Now, I must go change my name and become an assistant manager at a Footlocker in the Midwest, to escape the wrath of the suits who are undoubtedly cross with me for revealing even a glimpse of our proprietary stats.

Well, maybe if Lucianne pulled some strings again. Otherwise, I don’t think Jonah would be starting right in at assistant manager. I mean, what the fuck does he have for experience?

Congratulations CNN

I’d like to post this little clip in order to honor CNN for their heroic decision to hire Erick Erickson. May his star burn as brightly and as long as Savage’s did at MSNBC:

Looking at and listening to the Weiner, I can’t help but think he might be Erickson’s dad.

For a more thoughtful take than my BS please see Steve Benen:

This is the same Erickson who recently called retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter a "goat f--king child molester," referred to two sitting U.S. senators as "healthcare suicide bombers," praised protesters for "tell[ing] Nancy Pelosi and the Congress to send Obama to a death panel" (he later backpedaled on that one), and described President Obama's Nobel Prize as "an affirmative action quota."

Another quote from Erickson:

"At what point do the people tell the politicians to go to hell? At what point do they get off the couch, march down to their state legislator's house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp for being an idiot?”

And here we have the village idiot neocon from Long Beach weighing in:

Check Benen's post for a long hissy fit on how awful is Erick Erickson. Gee, he said bad things. Can you say extremist? Wake up, Steve Dunderhead.

He abhors irrationalism in debate. Can you tell? He and Erickson both seem to be cut from the Savage cloth.

Wingnuts Looking for a Leader

These are the people who are comparing Obama to Hitler and Stalin. But now, Liz Cheney feels he is not a strong enough “Commander in Chief.”

BTW, he is only a CinC to those who are actually serving in the military. That does not include Liz “deferment #?” Cheney or her chickenhawk father and their followers.

"Now as a veteran of the State Department, I can tell you that effective diplomacy is not about appeasing your enemy. It’s not about unilateral pre-emptive disarmament. America has to negotiate from a position of strength. To survive as a nation, our president can’t function as a disinterested international arbitrator. He can’t attempt to stand above America and our enemies. In other words, America needs a commander in chief, not a global community organizer." 

No, none of it makes any sense, but she was talking to the Red Staters. So, it only matters that she was dissing Obama.

They Like Us, They Really Like Us

Well, more than they did anyway. Sorry if it pisses off the neocons, but most of the sane people in the US actually care if we’re respected and looked up to by the rest of the world.

Improved attitudes toward the United States were most marked in Western Europe, but also evident in Asia, Africa and Latin America, as well as some predominantly Muslim countries.

In Indonesia, where Mr. Obama spent part of his youth, no fewer than 73 percent of those polled said that his election had directly improved their opinion of the United States.

But the survey, taken among more than 26,000 people in 24 countries, plus the Palestinian territories, found that anti-American animosity remained high in places like Pakistan, Turkey and among Palestinians.

Europeans, in particular, seemed to be responding positively to Mr. Obama. The number of Britons saying that they trusted the American president to do the “right thing” in world affairs soared to 86 percent this year, under Mr. Obama, compared with just 16 percent last year, under President George W. Bush. The increase was slightly larger in both Germany and France. 

The right thing numbers also jumped in all Middle Eastern countries surveyed — except Israel, which saw no statistical change.

If Obama can follow through on Iraq and solve the Afghan quagmire, he’ll be up 100% internationally. Obviously, we have a solid 15% in this country that are not happy if we are not involved in a clash of civilizations somewhere.

Leave Daddy Alone!

Liz “Spawn of Satan” Cheney defends the Dark Lord:

Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter Liz said Tuesday she doesn't believe her father did anything wrong in connection with a secret CIA operation that officials have said was designed to capture and kill al-Qaida figures. 

I think that I, along with my America hating leftist buddies, were assuming that we were trying to capture al-Qaida operatives. Capture and kill sounds like summary executions, though.

Asked directly on MSNBC whether her father directed the CIA not to keep Congress fully informed about the secret program, Cheney said, "This is a classified program and he doesn't talk about classified programs."

He especially doesn’t talk about them to Congress. Keeping Congress informed is so pre-9/11. 

Liz Cheney, a former principal deputy secretary of state for Mideast affairs during George W. Bush's presidency, is helping her father write his memoirs. She aggressively defended him in Tuesday's nationally broadcast interview while declining to say point-blank whether he had violated any law or rule.

The closest she came was in declaring, "There's no evidence of that."  

And here I expected her to say, “Damn straight he did, he was vice-president of the United States which we all know is the highest elected office anywhere.” And I’m sure it’s always a surprise to these news programs that invite her on. Who could anticipate that she would defend her father so vehemently?

Cheney said she didn't think Democrats were "up to handling national security" and that she thought they were trying to cover themselves on classified they agreed to support "when it was politically expedient." 

Blah blah blah, because her daddy is such a man’s man despite the 5 deferments during the Vietnam War, one of which is her. 

"People had different perspectives about when Congress needed to be briefed," she said. " ... I think we've got to go back to, how have we been so successful in protecting against attacks to the homeland?" 

Yes, because it’s always a good idea to put unlimited power in the hands of a few incompetent schmucks and not have any oversight on them. Worked out well for the Romans.

Going Nut Picking

Perusing the offerings at American Power, it’s so hard to make a choice. Think I’ll go with “Obama Gets Thrill With Gaddafi Handshake!” with obligatory exclamation point. Yes Libya, under Gaddafi, has funded terrorists. But then, technically so has the United States under a variety of presidents from both parties. This includes anyone called a freedom fighter and a number of state terrorists. Yes Gaddafi is probably insane. But, if he is no longer funding terrorism and a handshake will help insure that he continues in that manner, what’s the harm?

Then there’s the fact that under George the Lion-Hearted, we made nice with Libyans.

Gaddafi and Bush do apparently see eye to eye. On Monday, Gaddafi accomplished one of history's great diplomatic turnarounds when Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice announced that the U.S. was restoring full diplomatic relations with Libya and held up the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya as "a model" for others to follow. Rice attributed the ending of the U.S.'s long break in diplomatic relations to Gaddafi's historic decision in 2003 to dismantle weapons of mass destruction and renounce terrorism as well as Libya's "excellent cooperation in response to common global threats faced by the civilized world since September 11, 2001." 

It’s convenient for the “professor” to climb into the time machine and go back to the 80’s and resurrect Gaddafi as public enemy number one in order to hit Obama over the head with him. Of course, the 80’s was when Saint Ronald was not only shaking hands with terrorists, he was selling military spares to the same Iranians that held Americans hostage for 444 days. And then, he took the profits to arm the terrorist Contras in Nicaragua. But, at least he didn’t shake hands with terrorists. He sent Rumsfeld to do that. 

From Herr “Professor”: By now there's no doubt that President Obama gets a thrill up his leg when he's pressing the flesh of the world's most brutal dictators.

I suspect, though, that it doesn’t compare to the thrill that Douglas gets when Obama shakes the hand of Gaddafi or Chavez. If it was Castro there’d be something running down his leg. 

And this from an AmPow commenter:

We, as Americans, Lefties included, need to examine our complaisant (sic) fantasies and realities in this country. We have enemies. Obama is dragging his entourage of adoring press, that influences the public zeitgeist, with him in confusing surface friendships with opportunists -deeply soulless dictators. They will take all of your American comforts, and turn them into ashes. And they will not care if you are sympathetic to their causes. You, my leftist friends, are their enemy, too. 

See, the problem is that we just don’t have enough enemies. Despite the fact that we (during the Bush II administration) re-established diplomatic relations with Libya that is no reason to act diplomatically toward them.

Neocons and Flag Desecration

I see that Jules Crittenden and Donald Douglas think it's cool to desecrate the United States flag as long as it's used as a bikini on a hot babe. I suppose it's another instance of neocons making their own rules. The US Flag Code has different rules. According to paragraph 8, section D: "The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery." I don't believe any exception is made for super-nationalist chickenhawks.

Once again, they show their true colors. These people have no regard for true patriotism. They use the flag, the men and women in the military and anything else they get their blood stained hands on, only to suit their own purposes, including the young woman tragically killed in Iran.