Cheney backs Limbaugh over Powell on GOP future

Discussion in 'Politics' started by JDL, May 10, 2009.

  1. JDL

    JDL

    WASHINGTON – Dick Cheney made clear Sunday he'd rather follow firebrand broadcaster Rush Limbaugh than former Joint Chiefs chairman Colin Powell into political battle over the future of the Republican Party.

    Even as Cheney embraced efforts to expand the party by ex-Govs. Jeb Bush of Florida and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and the House's No. 2 Republican, Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, the former vice president appeared to write his one-time colleague Powell out of the GOP.

    Asked about recent verbal broadsides between Limbaugh and Powell, Cheney said, "If I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I'd go with Rush Limbaugh. My take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn't know he was still a Republican."

    Powell, who was secretary of state under President George W. Bush and held the nation's top military post under President George H.W. Bush, endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president last year. Nonetheless, since the election he has described himself as a Republican and a right-of-center conservative, though "not as right as others would like."

    Cheney, citing Powell's backing of Obama over Republican nominee John McCain, said, "I assumed that that is some indication of his loyalty and his interests."

    Cheney's remarks on CBS' "Face the Nation" were the latest step in his slow-motion estrangement from Powell since the two worked closely together to manage the Persian Gulf war in 1991 — Powell as the Army general who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Cheney as defense secretary for the elder Bush.

    Under the younger Bush, Powell initially backed action against Iraq's Saddam Hussein and delivered a famous U.N. speech laying out the U.S. case. But Powell and Cheney increasingly parted ways over the Bush administration's policies on the war and terrorism, with Cheney usually prevailing. Powell left the administration after Bush's first term.

    Wading into the debate over the GOP's future, Cheney called efforts by George W. Bush's brother Jeb, along with Cantor and Romney, as "a good thing to do," but set a limit on how far the party should go.

    "The suggestion our Democratic friends always make is somehow if you Republicans were just more like Democrats, you'd win elections," Cheney said. "Well, I don't buy that. We win elections when we have good solid conservative principles to run upon."

    Powell has argued the Republican Party needs to move toward the center and reach out to growing black, Hispanic and Asian communities, but instead has been shrinking because it hasn't changed as the country changed in the face of economic distress. "Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less," Powell said last week.

    For months, Powell has urged the party to turn away from the acid-tongued Limbaugh. "I think what Rush does as an entertainer diminishes the party and intrudes or inserts into our public life a kind of nastiness that we would be better to do without," Powell said.

    "Colin Powell is just another liberal," Limbaugh retorted. "What Colin Powell needs to do is close the loop and become a Democrat." Limbaugh said Powell is "just mad at me because I'm the one person in the country that had the guts to explain his endorsement of Obama. It was purely and solely based on race." Both Powell and Obama are black.

    On other topics on the CBS interview, Cheney:

    _said transferring suspected terrorists from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the United States would be a bad idea that would enlarge their legal rights. Obama's national security adviser, retired Marine Gen. James Jones, told ABC's "This Week" the White House isn't going to do that if it would make Americans less safe.

    _reiterated his belief the U.S. has become more vulnerable to a potential terrorist attack since the Obama administration renounced harsh interrogation tactics such as waterboarding, which simulates drowning, that Cheney said provided good intelligence. Jones said he didn't believe the nation was at greater risk and that even some in the Bush administration disagreed with Cheney on that score.

    _renewed his call for the administration to release two CIA memos he said list successes derived from those interrogations, including "attack planning that was under way and how it was stopped." The Obama administration is reviewing Cheney's request. Obama has said the memos are not so clear-cut and do not address whether the information could have been obtained without such methods.

    _said he has been speaking out about the Obama administration although George W. Bush remains silent, because if he didn't, "then the critics have free run, and there isn't anybody there on the other side to tell the truth."
     
  2. I see Jeb Bush's name up there. I think it is time time to move on from the Bush's.

    How could Powell be right of center and support Obama?

    Americans are looking for more government?

    Huh? can you say out of touch.
     
  3. dsq

    dsq

    Funny,wall st and corporate america are.The 2 biggest anti govt groups there are,are the first ones on their knees begging for the govt to give them trillion dollar bailouts for their well engineered scams/fuck ups.

    Im pretty sick of this anti govt nonsense from the right.The right is one of the biggest solicitors of govt aid and intervention.Whether its wall st or some lunatic gov in alaska who runs the biggest per capita welfare state this right wing anti govt diatribe is pathetic.

    The only thing the right can say is that everything is socialism.Well then wall st alaska and majority of red states are socialist.
     
  4. I am not Wall St. or Corporate America. Just John Q. Public and mighty tired of being tread upon.
     
  5. Very true...Powell endorsed his fellow black, nothing more nothing less.

    This is racism and nobody talks abt it.
     
  6. More liberal compassion for you. Very openminded, and non-violent. Way to go. You have enlightened us all.
     
  7. We all know Cheney's loyalties lie not with a decorated veteran like Powell, but with a convicted criminal like Limbaugh. Speaks volumes about Cheney's character.

    [​IMG]
     
  8. JDL

    JDL

    LOL
     
  9. Finally the Republicans pick an outright racists to lead them, keeping in the tradition of Nixon and his southern strategy and Reagan's "states rights speech at Neshoba":

    Here are Rush's favorite comments on race:

    1. I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.


    2. You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray [the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King]. We miss you, James. Godspeed.


    3. Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?

    4. Right. So you go into Darfur and you go into South Africa, you get rid of the white government there. You put sanctions on them. You stand behind Nelson Mandela — who was bankrolled by communists for a time, had the support of certain communist leaders. You go to Ethiopia. You do the same thing.


    5. Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.

    6. The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.



    7. They’re 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?


    8. Take that bone out of your nose and call me back(to an African American female caller).


    9. I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. They’re interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. I think there’s a little hope invested in McNabb and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he really didn’t deserve.




    10. Limbaugh attacks on Obama. Limbaugh has called Obama a ‘halfrican American’ has said that Obama was not black but Arab because Kenya is an Arab region, even though Arabs are less than one percent of Kenya. Since mainstream America has become more accepting of African-Americans, Limbaugh has decided to play against its new racial fears, Arabs and Muslims. Despite the fact Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law school, Limbaugh has called him an ‘affirmative action candidate.’ Limbaugh even has repeatedly played a song on his radio show ‘Barack the Magic Negro’ using an antiquated Jim Crow era term for black a man who many Americans are supporting for president. Way to go Rush.

    Lead on Cheney and Rush to the cellar and gutter.

    Seneca
     
  10. anyone who declares that the GOP should capitulate and go with the "people want more government" liberal mantra has no future in the GOP.

    the majority of people who want more government pay suprisingly little in taxes, and/or receive much of the taxes being paid.


    DEATH TO TYRANTS!

    EDIT: and the liberal claim that waterboarding terrorists who have declared war on this country is the tool of the tyrannical are ... (i've turned a leaf, and can't complete this sentence)
     
    #10     May 11, 2009