Cheney Berates Democrats on War, Policies Attacked as 'Far-Left Platform' of McGovern Era

[maddezmom]

Source: Washington Post

Cheney Berates Democrats on War
Policies Attacked as 'Far-Left Platform' of McGovern Era

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 14, 2007; Page A07

CHICAGO, April 13 -- Vice President Cheney accused congressional Democrats today of reviving the "far-left platform" of George McGovern from the 1970s, an agenda that he said would raise taxes, declare surrender in an overseas war and leave the United States exposed to new dangers.

In a sharp-edged speech, Cheney escalated the Bush administration attack on Congress for passing war spending legislation that would mandate withdrawing at least some U.S. troops from Iraq. He raised the specter of the end of the Vietnam era, when McGovern, then a Democratic senator from South Dakota, ran for president on a peace platform and lost the 1972 election in a landslide to President Richard M. Nixon.

"That was the last time the national Democratic Party took a hard left turn," Cheney told a conference hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation. "But in 2007, it looks like history is repeating itself. Today, on some of the most critical issues facing the country, the new Democratic majority resembles nothing so much as that old party of the early 1970s."

~snip~

But with the public behind their plan to pull out of Iraq by next year, according to opinion polls, congressional Democrats tried to turn the rhetoric of the past back at Cheney. "It's interesting that the vice president would make a reference to the 1970s because, just like Nixon, President Bush is isolated and hunkered down in the White House while his administration is under investigation and top officials are withholding key evidence," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.).




Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041301980.html

[ixion]

1. and people still listen to this guy because...

:shrug:

[maddezmom]

3. well only his conservative pals...the last approval ratings I remember for Cheney were 18%

not a big slice of the population.

[SpiralHawk]

8. ...because he produly sports FIVE Military Deferments

And republicons love their chickenhawks, since most of them never served America for even five minutes.

Cheney, with his nonexistent service and MASSVIVE WAR PROFITS, is the
republicon ideal.

[C_U_L8R]

2. Cheney wouldn't know the center

if it shot him in the face.

Dude... the dems represent what the people are asking for...
An end to all YOUR stupid ideas, twisted schemes and historic fuckups.

[jimshoes]

4. Dick is like an evil

Jack in The Box. At first he was able to scare people, but now he's just a predictable old spewer of chickenhawk, war mongering scary talk. Boo!

[Aviation Pro]

5. Does Cheney mean the George S. McGovern....

...who flew combat missions for the Army Air Corps during WWII instead of getting five deferments to avoid service (the last one given because he knocked up his "beard")?

I thought that's who the yellow-bellied coward was refering to.

[BulletproofLandshark]

6. George McGovern was a war hero

Something a coward like Cheney could never understand. And with that also comes an understanding of the horrors of war. Even though McGovern lost in '72, that doesn't change the fact he was right to want to end the war. Of course, if it were up to assholes like Cheney, we would STILL be bogged down in Vietnam.

[tabasco]

27. Just posted the same thing down below before I read your post.

Cheney doesn't give a damn about this country, only his stock options and his greedy billionaire corporate mafia bosses.

[Ress1]

7. Sorry Dick,

but your hideous performance over the past 5 or 6 years has rendered you and your opinions irrelevant to anyone of sound mind.

[splat]

9. The parallel makes Cheney ... Nixon & Agnew

Agnew had to resign over corruption, Nixon faced impeachment, does he really want that deja vu?

[TheCowsCameHome]

10. I am so tired of this bald-headed stooge.

It will be nice when he's finally in the trash heap of history.

[tanyev]

11. Hey, Dickie! BYU doesn't even want to hear from you anymore.

Stick that in your shotgun.

[deutsey]

12. just like Nixon, President Bush is isolated and hunkered down in the White

I was hoping the Dems would fire back.

:thumbsup:

[bemildred]

13. Dick is stuck in the past. You can tell he never got over the 60s. nt

[Maeve]

14. Is Cheney totally around the bend? Seriously...he and reality don't meet at all

He off standing in the shadows of the Rose Garden in a metaphorical sense as well as in a physical one.:crazy:

[laststeamtrain]

15. 'Left' of Cheney is a big, big place n/t

[SlowDownFast]

16. "It's interesting..."

"It's interesting that the vice president would make a reference to the 1970s because, just like Nixon, President Bush is isolated and hunkered down in the White House while his administration is under investigation and top officials are withholding key evidence," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.).

:rofl:

Touche!

[Hersheygirl]

17. What an evil bastard.

Hasn't he made enough money off of our dead children?

[thecrow]

18. "But in 2007, it looks like history is repeating itself...."

Yeah, Dick, but just not the way you "think".

[rodeodance]

31. Page A07----(should be in the trash)

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 14, 2007; Page A07

[Lil Missy]

19. Oh, STFU gasbag

[Mad_Dem_X]

20. F you, Cheney

Pompous asshole.

[Wiley50]

21. Go Cheney Yourself! n/t

[Rageneau]

22. I'd vote for McGovern AGAIN if I could.

I'm old enough to have driven around with a "Don't Blame Me, I Voted For McGovern" bumper sticker all during Watergate.

Had the US voted for McGovern in 1972, the positive difference it would have made exceeds even the difference made when Gore (rashly) conceded the 2000 election to Smirk.

[Old and In the Way]

24. Me, too!

I had my bumper sticker on the '65 VW bus I was driving at the time.

Dick Cheney is a world-class war-monger/war-profiteer, as well as a world-class coward. He exemplifies all of the very worst aspects of this country.

[boot@9]

47. My wife and I...

proudly voted for McGovern in 72. Out here in Bush country we were among thr lonely. He, Mc, came to the Commemorative(used to be Confederate) Air Museum in Midland a few years ago. I proudly had my picture taken with him and also got a autograph. Cheney is the repug party incarnated.

[Doctor_J]

23. When is that old queen going to come out of his cave

and face some real Americans instead of his right-wing zealots? He was a coward during Nam, and he's a coward now. Our leadership should start calling him and Smirk cowards whenever a microphone is on view.

[truthisfreedom]

36. I think you're on to something... old queen? I never thought of cheney as a closet queen, but...

the husky voice, the deep-seated anger and paranoia, and the family history... I wonder if there's a little repression going on there, queen cheney?

[MidwestTransplant]

25. I hope he keeps running his mouth. He is only insulting about 65% of Americans

[tabasco]

26. McGovern was a war hero.

Cheney is a goddamn chicken shit coward.

[rodeodance]

28. VP, the Basher----that is all he's got!!--this and his usual pack of lies!

[rodeodance]

29. "earned a place in the big-spending hall of fame." (Cheney of the DEMS)

my my, he does have things mixed up a bit doesn't he!

.....Cheney asserted that Democrats want to impose "the largest tax increase in American history" and have already "earned a place in the big-spending hall of fame." Their support for pulling out of Iraq, he said, suggests they do not "fully appreciate the nature of the danger this country faces in the war on terror" and have given in to "the far left wing" with actions that "have moved from the merely inconsistent to the irresponsible."

The red-meat attack represented part of a broader effort to bring back into the fold a Republican base that in recent years has grown increasingly disenchanted with President Bush over his leadership of the war and his administration's spending policies. Cheney sought to redirect attention against a common enemy for conservatives by drawing parallels to McGovern, a figure who tends to unite the right against the left.

But with the public behind their plan to pull

[rodeodance]

30. and he really dumped on Reid also (here)

......"When Nancy Pelosi flies nearly 6,000 miles to meet with the president of Syria but Harry Reid hesitates to drive a mile and a half to meet with the president of the United States, there's a serious problem in the leadership of the Democratic Party," Cheney said. Reid and Pelosi eventually agreed this week to meet with Bush at the White House next week. Pelosi has defended her trip to Syria, and Democrats have accused the White House of hypocrisy for not denouncing prominent Republicans who have also visited Damascus.

Cheney noted that Reid has changed his position on Iraq in recent months -- from forswearing any move to cut off war funding after the November election to embracing legislation mandating withdrawal to supporting another bill to flatly end spending on the war. "Three positions in five months on the most important foreign policy question facing our country and our troops," Cheney said. He added: "Americans are entitled to question whether the endlessly shifting positions he and others are taking are reflections of principle or partisanship and blind opposition to the president."

Still, for all the tough lines in the speech, Cheney evidently decided to pass on some of the toughest. In his prepared remarks, he was to denounce Democrats as "the McGovernite Party" but when he spoke he dropped that term and referred to it instead as "that old party."

Likewise, the prepared text had him mocking Reid for claiming the American people support the Democrats' war spending bill. Noting various pork items inserted into the bill, Cheney's text had him saying: "Harry Reid may be the only man in America who thinks we need to spend millions of dollars fighting crickets in Nevada in order to win a war in Iraq." But when he delivered the speech, Cheney skipped over that paragraph.

[Eurobabe]

32. Hasn't this windbag expired yet??

Hey Cheeneeey, STFU.

[rocktivity]

33. ..

:boring:
rockation

[President Kerry]

34. ***yawwwwn**

he's such a predictable bore. Just keeps defending his reputation of a warmonger and an anti-american, out of touch, irrelevant moron. How's that heat from Capitol Hill feel, dick? It's only going to get hotter.

[SOS]

35. Cheney's off by four years

It's not 1972, it's 1976.
That was the year the public got sick of the Republicans and elected Jimmy Carter.
Nice try, DICK.

[Joanne98]

37. zzzzzzz

:boring:

[gauguin57]

38. Hey big Dick!

Why don't you stick to shooting your friends in the face, lying about your health, being a hypocrite about homosexuality, counteracting the sulferous fumes emanating from your pores and tending to your dark-angel minions in hell?

No one cares what you think, you Prince of Darkness PNAC CREEP!

[gulliver]

39. People who agree with Cheney are Cheney Republicans...

...pass it on.

[Vogon_Glory]

59. Cheney Republicans Are

And Cheney Republicans are guys who believe in boasting of their patriotism, cutting taxes for the wealthy, cutting services for the needy, then taking their capital to foreign tax havens like Halliburton is getting ready to do with its corporate headquarters.

[AnneD]

40. I voted for Nixon that time....

Of all the many times I have voted, that is the one I regret the most. McGovern was a war hero, an intelligent compassionate candidate, and chicken hawk Cheney isn't fit to lick McGovern's boots. Instead, I voted for political pond scum, a crook. Cheney should have been tared and feathered with the lot of them. The fact that he is protesting so much tells me we are on the right track.

First time I voted and first and last time I had the wool pulled over my eyes.

[Joe Chi Minh]

41. Just read a classic concluding passage to a chapter of Gore

Vidal's latest book, Point To Point Navigation; as topical as it is, alas, timeless:

"By then my new knee was growing unsteady and I hobbled back to the car while the Prettymans went to look at Jimmie Trimble's nearby grave. It wasn't until later we learned that this day had been the sixtieth anniversary of the battle for Iwo Jima where, at eighteen, he had been killed."

"I've just read in the newspaper how all those marines had been slaughtered to gain possession of an island that proved, in the end, to be of no strategic use to our military. Worse, it was practically impregnable because, unknown (as usual) to our "best" intelligence, the Japanese had dug a series of underground tunnels where twenty thousand troops lay in deadly wait for the invaders. Jimmie's last letters home show how aware he was that they were all being thrown away for no purpose other than the enrichment of war contractors. He also added, bitterly, that "no-one will remember what we've done, only how much they made out of it!" Since his mother had been secretary to a powerful congressman this sunny apolitical athlete had always had a good idea of just how things actually worked in a country such as ours, nor was he alone: during the three years I spent in the army I never heard a single patriotic remark from a fellow soldier, only grief for friends lost and, almost as often, a fierce grievance for those back home who were decimating our adolescent generation."

Plus ca change...

[donkeyotay]

42. When is the lying POS going to be held accountable?

His special office of lies defrauded the nation, deceived us into a war that he and his buddies profit from. We're still fighting to obtain oil contracts in Iraq. Even by the official count, this war in onto HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS of IOU's. This crime enterprise has bankrupted the nation financially and morally, and all they can do is blame the liberals. Who's been running this country, DICK? Who had a rubber stamp congress to do whatever you wanted post 9-11? You own this baby. The next president, whether GOP or Dem, is going to be left cleaning up the mess you made.

[dogfacedboy]

43. It's hilarious that Cheney made that speech in IL

where the Republican party is now a rotting corpse. Cheney ought to be as well.

[Zorra]

44. Cheney prefers the far-right platform where there's a crook in the WH,

we're engaged in a senseless overseas conflict, our resources get completely used up, and as many American troops get killed or maimed as he can get away with. Just like Nixon and Vietnam.

History repeats itself; how did we come to this again?

Shooter Dick is a tool of transational corporations and a national disgrace.

[GomezLives]

45. We're dirty fuckin' hippies!!!!

[DemoTex]

46. Cheney is like a gasoline engine running over redline and low on oil.

Somethings gonna blow.

[MisterP]

48. what's wrong with McGovern, you mass of rancid organ meats?

[VegasWolf]

49. Cheney!?! Is anyone still listening to that talking asshole? nt

[rodeodance]

51. lots of dangerous Dittoheads still listen

[Grandrose]

50. Cheney who??????????

Irrelevant and worthless!! :grr:

[LetsThink]

52. Cheney Doesn't Want Halliburton Income Limited.....

Or limits to any of his other similar business interests, all of which are sitting fat and pretty in the gush and slush of war spending that has only recently come under any sort of oversight.

[ryanmuegge]

53. Unfortuantely, today's Democrats are nothing like McGovern.

He had guts. He's a hero; an extreme pacifist and a man of character. He opposed the military-industrial complex as a whole and the ridiculous spending. The Democrats since then have been all for military imperialism, just not to the extent to the Republicans.

There isn't a man as decent as McGovern in Washington today, in either party. He broke with his own party to oppose the war in Vietnam from the very beginning; unlike almost all of the Democrats today with the Iraq war. If today's Democrats really were like McGovern, maybe the war wouldn't have happened.

By saying the far-right Democrats are really far-left, the Republicans have been able to dominate policy, even when they aren't in power. This is all part of a strategy by the Republicans, as I'm sure everyone already knows. It's old news, but hopefully the Democrats won't bite and stick to their core principles this time around.

[UrbScotty]

54. I guess America is a far-left country then

...what with a vast majority of Americans calling for change in Iraq. If you call that leftist, then I'm more than proud to call the USa a left-wing country.

[ribrepin]

55. Whatever Big Dick

I see the Big Dick is on the same page as McCain. Same shit, different week.

[EFerrari]

56. Warning: language.

Fuck you, you miserable felon. We're going to win big in 2008 and you can't do a thing about it.

[Zhade]

57. Funny, he sounds like some DLCers.

(Not that I'll call out anyone by name, of course. I don't want their obsessive-compulsive insanity aimed in my direction.)

[fshrink]

58. What is at the far-left of a neo-fascist? nt