Playing For Change: Peace Through Music

Dick Cheney — Will save Republican Party

In a Newsweek article Jon Meacham states his case for “WHY DICK CHENEY SHOULD RUN IN 2012.”

He says, “A campaign would also give us an occasion that history denied us in 2008: an opportunity to adjudicate the George W. Bush years in a direct way. As John McCain pointed out in the fall of 2008, he is not Bush. Nor is Cheney, but the former vice president would make the case for the harder-line elements of the Bush world view. Far from fading away, Cheney has been the voice of the opposition since the inauguration. Wouldn’t it be more productive and even illuminating if he took his arguments out of the realm of punditry and into the arena of electoral politics? Are we more or less secure because of the conduct of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Does the former vice president still believe in a connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda? Did the counterterror measures adopted in the aftermath of the attacks go too far? Let’s have the fight and see what the country thinks.”

Other questions we might be able to settle —

• Would his war criminal record be a selling point with today’s new anti-war right?
• Since he embodies the America of old white men, could that myth be dispelled?
• Can Cheney prove he is actually alive?  It’s rumored he died of his last heart attack and some are saying they’ve seen his long-form death certificate — complete with the seal!
• Is he truly devoid of knowledge of recent U.S. history, history over which he himself presided?  He led the charge into Iraq in 2003 even after having warned in 1991 that such a strategy would lead to a quagmire.  The U.S. wars of the last six decades (including the four for which Cheney shares responsibility) have all been marred by mishap, bad intelligence, flawed geopolitical analysis—and lack of necessity.
• Is it true he supported the McCain / Palin ticket because he knew only that keystone cops duo could have made the tragic incompetence of the previous fools look good in the history books?

What would be his campaign promises and slogans, would he emphasize his lack of civility, his well-known health problems, would he continue to loudly defend torture?

fnord

Friday, 12/04/09, Public Square

Your thread, choose the topics.