In his interview with ABC News over the weekend, former Vice President Dick Cheney was not only wrong to take a public shot at Governor Sarah Palin in the sense that lending any kind of affirmation to a media narrative about one of our own is immoral — he’s wrong factually.
With real-time polling, time and again, it’s been conclusively documented that the “mistake” — as Cheney describes Palin — was the only chance John McCain ever had of becoming president. Polling also makes clear that McCain blew the election all on his own after abruptly suspending his campaign to, uhm, save the economy. In other words, in front of the entire free world, McCain jumped on a white horse and charged off with no idea where to go.
Last night, Cheney’s daughter, Liz, set the record straight:
The elder Cheney is also wrong in the sense that Palin’s years in government, especially two years as the chief executive of a state, make her qualified to be president. It’s just a fact that she was and is more qualified than any sitting senator with zero executive experience, and this would include Obama, Biden, and McCain himself.
Moreover, during the 2008 campaign, it was Palin who almost always had the guts and the correct instincts. Unlike McCain, she was the one who bristled at the idea of constantly caving to media narratives and the one who wanted to vet Barack Obama’s shady and corrupt past. It was always McCain and the rest of the GOP who thought he could win by appeasing the corrupt media — it was always McCain who strapped on his “honor” and blindly leapt on to every grenade thrown at him, instead of throwing it back.
We all know who lost that election and we all know what the consequences have been.
By the way, no one should be in the least surprised it would be Liz Cheney who would come out publicly to “disagree” with her own father. Because in the GOP today, it’s the women who have the most grit and courage — and this most certainly includes Governor Palin.
For four years now we’ve all watched as the collective left in the media and Hollywood have done everything in their power to destroy Sarah Palin and her family. And all the while, too many of the so-called men in our Republican party have done nothing to defend her or have selfishly aggrandized themselves by joining in.
Andrew Breitbart famously described those in the Republican Party guilty of this unforgivable lack of chivalry as “eunuchs,” which is exactly right. There’s no question that Sarah Palin is more than capable of defending herself, but a man who doesn’t instinctively attempt to defend a woman and her family under a blisteringly unfair attack is lacking in honor.
A man who unnecessarily piles on is simply embarrassing himself.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC