Liz Cheney: the self-appointed moral center of the GOP

The soon-to-be-ex-congresswoman doesn’t care for DeSantis, Cruz or Hawley either

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Representative Liz Cheney gives a concession speech to supporters (Getty)
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I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to write about Liz Cheney again. After she was crushed by the Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman last week in the Wyoming GOP primary, I figured the self-obsessed crusader would retreat to her boudoir to dress up in top hats once worn by Abraham Lincoln while guzzling a brand of whiskey favored by Ulysses S. Grant, both of whom she invoked in her petulent non-concession concession speech.

But Cheney is not quite done making a spectacle of herself. A couple of weeks ago, the Trump-deranged congresswoman sniffed that she would find it “very…

I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to write about Liz Cheney again. After she was crushed by the Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman last week in the Wyoming GOP primary, I figured the self-obsessed crusader would retreat to her boudoir to dress up in top hats once worn by Abraham Lincoln while guzzling a brand of whiskey favored by Ulysses S. Grant, both of whom she invoked in her petulent non-concession concession speech.

But Cheney is not quite done making a spectacle of herself. A couple of weeks ago, the Trump-deranged congresswoman sniffed that she would find it “very difficult” to support Ron DeSantis because he had aligned himself with Donald Trump. That remark garnered some portion of the contempt it deserved, but it was nothing to her latest foray on to the public stage.

In an interview with This Week a few days ago, Cheney extended her interdiction. It turns out that it’s not only Ron DeSantis who fails to pass muster with la Cheney. Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley also fail to get the Cheney nihil obstat. All three, she said, have “made themselves unfit for future office” by supporting Trump. Why? In an emergency, break glass and haul out a tautology. “Either you fundamentally believe in and support our constitutional structure, or you don’t,” she said, casting Messrs. DeSantis, Cruz and Hawley into the “don’t” corner.

I think that judgment would come as a surprise to all three men, all of whom just happen to be considered 2024 presidential prospects. But who cares what they think? Cheney has spoken! Indeed, according to her, not only do they not believe in the our constitutional structure,” they “fundamentally threaten” the American constitutional dispensation. Breathtaking, isn’t it?

But why stop with DeSantis, Cruz and Hawley? Donald Trump garnered more that 70 million votes in the 2020 election. In almost every poll, he far outpaces all GOP rivals. If supporting Trump makes one “unfit for office,” then there are not many Republicans whose fitness Liz Cheney could endorse.

There is one candidate who would fill the bill, however. That would be [drum roll please…] Liz Cheney. According to her, she is supremely fit for the office, hence her teasing remarks about launching a presidential bid. Alas, it will likely not be as a Republican that Liz Cheney runs, if she runs. And if she is concerned about keeping the Bad Orange Man out of office, she would be well advised to rethink her plans altogether. According to a YouGov poll, were she to run as an independent, she would take more support from Biden than from Trump.

The whole spectacle of Liz Cheney’s meltdown is, to employ a favorite Trump epithet, “sad!” Like Nancy Pelosi, Cheney keeps talking about “our democracy” (translation: their prerogative) and pretends that she is the arbiter of who is and who is not a reputable upholder of the Constitution.

Exactly how have Trump and his supporters “fundamentally threatened” the Constitution? By questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election? But a majority of Republicans believe that the election was tainted in some way. I certainly believe that. Because of the January 6 protest at the Capitol? Support for the official narrative about that circus is rapidly crumbling. Cheney’s January 6 inquisition is an illegally constituted witch hunt and show trial worthy of Soviet “justice” in its prime.

For reasons known only to herself, Liz Cheney appears to believe that she has been invested with the authority to tell us who may and who may not serve as president of the United States. She keeps droning on about the Constitution and the “constitutional” structure. But here is what the Constitution says about one’s fitness to be president. One must be a “natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution.” Moreover, one must have “attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.” C’est tout. That’s it. Nothing about not being Donald Trump. Nothing about earning Liz Cheney’s approval.

That must come as a disappointment to the embryonic CNN hostess, almost as much of a disappointment as not being Abraham Lincoln or Ulysses S. Grant.