Good Call, Human Events
Sarah Palin gets a lot of coverage here at CosmoCon, but another controversial politician that I admire is Dick Cheney.
My liberal readers are probably choking right now, but I was pleased to see Human Events name him Conservative of the Year. He hasn’t gotten the recognition that he deserves. He was calling out Obama earlier this year while most Republicans were trying to be polite during the honeymoon phase.
Cheney has a quality that I admire–he doesn’t give a damn what other people think. To a certain degree, Palin also has this quality. Both of them aren’t afraid to share their opinions and often say unpopular things that need to be said. Both of them also give common sense, grown-up alternatives to the empty, amateur rhetoric of the Obama administration. As John Bolton notes at Human Events:
How is it, therefore, that someone who has no political ambitions can cause so much angst at the White House and in the mainstream news media? The irrefutable answer is that what Cheney is saying, primarily on foreign policy, defense and anti-terrorism, makes sense to more and more American citizens growing increasingly worried by the Obama Administration’s insouciance when U.S. national interests are threatened, both at home and abroad. Since the only real, long-term way to deal with persuasive positions on substantive policy matters is to refute them with sounder policy arguments, it is not hard to understand why the Obama White House is near panic. Where are they going to go to find a better policy inside his administration?
Maybe I’m alone in wanting to hear the blunt truth rather than platitudes about how expanding our government can make us feel all warm and snuggily inside. Seeing the current administration’s the approval ratings slide, perhaps not. I’d rather know that our military has every tool available to defend this country rather than support policies that make Europeans and Middle East countries like us more. National defense is not a popularity contest. Sadly, I don’t believe our President and his administration understand that fact.
Bolton nails it with the appeal of Cheney:
Perhaps most importantly of all, Cheney knows that the personal attacks on him, as offensive as they are, in reality constitute stark evidence that Obama and his supporters are simply unable to match him in the substantive policy debate. An old lawyers’ cliché says: “If the law is against you, pound on the facts; if the facts are against you, pound on the law; if the law and the facts are against you, pound on the table.” Obama and his supporters are doing the political equivalent of continuous table-pounding, because that’s basically all they have to offer. Cheney’s unwillingness to be deterred by the media assaults on his character, his judgment and his performance in office are therefore his most impressive force multiplier with the general public. Outside-the-Beltway Americans see him for exactly what he is: a very experienced, very dedicated patriot, giving his fellow citizens his best analysis on how to keep them and their country safe.
Cheney may not have been popular with some Americans, but they knew what they were going to get. You don’t see that in many politicians in either party. I disagreed with many of the actions that the Bush and Cheney, but I never doubted the character of either of them. Now, I live in fear of what the power hungry triumvirate of Obama, Pelosi and Reid will do to our country next. When you have no character and rely on mob-like tactics and slick marketing, how can you be trusted?
Human Events also has a fascinating interview with the Vice President.
Tags: Conservative of the Year, Dick Cheney, Human Events, Obama, Sarah Palin
