Liz Cheney, the conservative activist and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, has become a lightning rod among both liberals and conservatives.
Many conservatives, including Ken Starr, Michael Mukasey, Larry Thompson, and Ted Olson have denounced Liz Cheney for her attack on Justice Department attorneys who have defended terrorist suspects held in the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, people she termed the “Al Qaeda Seven”.
These conservatives, who all worked under George W. Bush, except for Starr, who was the special prosecutor investigating Bill Clinton in what led to his impeachment trial, declared that every person, no matter how despicable, is entitled to a legal defense under our Constitution, and that defense lawyers do not necessarily agree with their clients, but are doing what is required under the law, an effort to defend anyone from government conviction without a fair trial.
As liberals would term it, Liz Cheney is utilizing loose charges without justification against the reputations of people who deserve to avoid the image of being terrorism sympathizers. In this sense, Liz Cheney is acting like a new Joseph McCarthy, who denounced people as Communists without any evidence or justification.
It is very inspiring to see strong conservative opposition to what Dick Cheney’s daughter is doing, but the question is WHY she is doing it, and a NEW YORK MAGAZINE article clarifies this issue.
That is, it is apparent that Liz Cheney wishes in the near future to pursue a political career like her father did, and might be planning to run for the Senate in either Wyoming or Virginia. She is seen as overly ambitious, determined to preserve her father’s legacy and carry it on into the future.
She has appeared more than 40 times in the past year on talk shows on the major news networks, and has always been very combative and feisty, even against fellow conservatives. No admonition by George Will on ABC or other spokesmen on other channels has deterred her from her aggressive and vicious attacks on the Obama Administration, and now leading to the present controversy over “terrorist” lawyers raging among conservatives.
For sure, we will not see Liz Cheney back away, but she is becoming a very divisive figure in the conservative movement and the Republican party.
More than ever, it seems as if it is conservative women in the Republican party, whether Sarah Palin, Marsha Blackburn, Virginia Foxx, Michele Bachmann, Liz Cheney or others, that are becoming the true lightning rods of the GOP, and bound to play a growing role in American politics with their “in your face”, confrontational politics!