Podcast with Mary Cheney
Today, we are talking with Mary Cheney about her new book, Now It's My Turn : A Daughter's Chronicle of Political Life.
Ms. Cheney worked as her father's campaign manager in the 2000 and 2004 Presidential election and tells us about the trials and tribulations of the job, starting with the fact that she was targeted by Democrats for being the "lesbian daughter of a Republican Vice President." She discusses being part of a political family, her favorite blogs and their importance in politics and the hostility of the media. She tells us what she wants readers to know about her father--that he is not the monster, killer, robot etc. that the media has touted him as. In fact, he is actually a pretty nice guy and a good father who supported her no matter what.
You can listen to the podcast by clicking here or you can subscribe on iTunes. You can hear our previous podcasts at the archive here, and there's a dialup version here.
Please leave comments or suggestions below.
Ms. Cheney worked as her father's campaign manager in the 2000 and 2004 Presidential election and tells us about the trials and tribulations of the job, starting with the fact that she was targeted by Democrats for being the "lesbian daughter of a Republican Vice President." She discusses being part of a political family, her favorite blogs and their importance in politics and the hostility of the media. She tells us what she wants readers to know about her father--that he is not the monster, killer, robot etc. that the media has touted him as. In fact, he is actually a pretty nice guy and a good father who supported her no matter what. You can listen to the podcast by clicking here or you can subscribe on iTunes. You can hear our previous podcasts at the archive here, and there's a dialup version here.
Please leave comments or suggestions below.
posted by Helen at 5:16 PM
23 Comments:
She seems like a genuinely nice person.
Helen:
Did you read the book?
Suggestion: You don't need to include the word "show" in the filename of every episode. We know it's a show. It goes without saying.
Most other podcasters include the date in the filename. That actually communicates some useful information.
I'm sure that Dick Cheney is a caring father, just like I'm sure that George McClellan was kind to animals and that William Westmoreland was great friends with his neighbors. The problem is that Cheney, just like Westmoreland and McClellan before him, is morally and strategically out of his depth. The war in Iraq is dragging him down. Yes, I know the theory that actually the war in Iraq is going swimmingly and the only problem is a treasonous media ambush, but, to borrow Glenn's great phrase, there is only so many times that you can go to that well. The truth is that the war has been strategically illogical all along. One proof of it is that it has already cost as much to liberate Iraq as it would to buy every single man, woman, and child in Iraq a new car — and the cost is still rising fast. It has been said that the war in Iraq is actually part of a much larger war, but that's not the way that Cheney et al are fighting it. They are fighting it as a much larger war than the entire rest of the war on terrorism.
Anyway, as I said, the war is will continue to drag Cheney down. It just goes to show that nice people can do terrible things when they are the wrong people for the job.
We see that with your comments every day, Greg.
Mary Cheney's father would not have got his job if not for the vehemently anti-gay social conservatives who consider her ilk lower than scum. If her father were not the VP, she would have not had the publicity she is getting for a very mediocre book. Am I the only one seeing the irony? These social conservatives see her as a Sodomite and wishes for her to burn in hell. On the other hand liberals like John Edwards and Kerry, who she excoriates in her book, are the ones who will defend her right to her lifestyle against the lynch mob who put her father into power.
She is just a greedy coward. So what is new?
check theliecommittee.com the political section has a great post on why gov supports non-straights
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You've got to wonder, after reading the comments of a guy like salubrious steve...
What's his problem?
Why does he think it will get fixed by carrying on this way in a comments post?
And, having perused the comments sections of weblogs for the past year, I've got to admit to constant amazement that humans think that cursing and spitting in this way is the solution to anything.
Thanks for this podcast, and thanks for the emphasis on media bias and on the SLOTUS! I want to read Mary Chaney's book, but I also want to read to my children A is for Abigail, and the new one on the fifty states!
Bob,
My daughter loved A is for Abigail and I bet your kids will also.
Greg,
If the war is proved strategically illogical because it costs as much as providing every Iraqi with a new car, how much less would if have to cost to be strategically logical? What is the connection between cost and the logic of a strategy?
First of all, the sheer direct cost of the war in Iraq is only one of two strong reasons that the war is very, very wrong for the United States. The other reason is that the bulk of political power is in pro-Iranian hands. The main political parties were paid and sponsored in Iran and by Iran. For example the prime minister, Maliki, is in the Dawa Party, which used to be known as a Shiite terrorist group closely aligned with Hezbollah. The other big Shiite party is "the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq"; the name by itself pretty much tells you what that party is about. The United States has mostly carried water for Iran by overthrowing Saddam Hussein and staying in Iraq. It makes no strategic sense, but the Bush Administration calls it "victory" and keeps the troops fighting for it.
Second, concerning the cost itself, of course there is no hard and fast rule for when you have spent too much on something. You can be sure that a $5 steak dinner is a bargain (if it's a good steak); and you can be sure that a $500 steak dinner is a rip-off. Just because it's easy to tell those extremes, that doesn't mean that you can (or should) draw a fixed line. As the link documents, the United States has so far spent $280 billion to liberate 26 million Iraqis. It will probably spend at least twice that before Bush or whoever declares final "victory" (or perhaps admits defeat). Liberation at this expense just doesn't scale. One rule of thumb is that it shouldn't cost more to keep people free than they make themselves. The GDP of Iraq is only $46 billion per year, and even that figure is propped up by the high price of oil, but the United States is spending more.
Helen:
Finished the Mary Cheney book yet? Started it?
Yes, there are Shiites in both Iran and Iraq. But why does it follow that Iraqi Shiites are working for Iran?
Of course, just because some Iraqi is Shiite, it doesn't automatically follow that he works for Iran. No, the evidence is a little different than that. If the Iranian government gives safe haven, money, and weapons to a particular militant political Shiite group, for example Dawa and SCIRI, then it follows that those Iraqis are tied to Iran. I don't mean exactly that they "work for" Iran, although some of them do. I mean more broadly that they are pro-Iran and agree with the Iranian government, just as we might have hoped that Iraqi leaders would turn out to be pro-America.
For example, the phrase "Islamic Revolution" in "Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq" refers to the Iranian revolution. SCIRI was formed in Tehran to help Iran defeat Saddam Hussein and, consequently, to launch the same revolution in Iraq as the Ayatollah Khomenei had achieved in Iran. The United States has now done the first half of SCIRI's work for it. SCIRI has also made progress toward the second half of its goal; it controls the largest number of seats within the Shiite bloc in the Iraqi parlaiment. The previous Iraqi interior minister, Bayan Jabr, is a member of SCIRI. Jabr is also the finance minister in the new government.
If you oppose Islamic theocracy, as I do, then the situation sucks. As I said, I think that the biggest two hits against the US here are the sheer cost and the strategic loss to Iran. But if you prefer to emphasize terrorist attacks, then here as well the war in Iraq is simply causing what it was supposed to prevent. The war in Iraq provides Arab terrorists with unprecedented target practice against Americans.
Steve: there are plenty of us who elected her father in spite of the religious conservatives in the base, and W's position on gay marriage. When will both bases realize that the VAST majority of the country thinks they're both idiotic, moronic, myopic and just plain stupid. We are not "single issue" voters. Abortion, gay marriage, human rights, national security, taxes, medical research, transportation...there are a host of reasons why we vote the way we do. Y'all on the left and right extremes think everyone sees things as black and white as you do. Yes, the liberal moonbats are just as concrete and black and white as those mean spirited conservatives.
I may have concrete and unyielding political positions, but they sure don't conform to either the Republicans or Democrats. To me, Byrd and Kennedy = Helms and Thurmond. Pelosi = Delay. Leahy = Lott. They all are of the same ilk.
It's very easy for me to vote for Bush and then vote for a Democrat in Congress. Bush and Cheney were the better candidates on the whole - Edwards and Kerry had no concept of national security and the economy. That trumped any concerns on gay marriage I may have had.
I don't know whether "Salubrious Steve" is serious or actually postering for the other side. Either way, it doesn't help anything to attack Mary Cheney in such a personal way. She is entitled to be loyal to her family. I think that her dad is doing a terrible job and should be in some other career entirely, but that isn't Mary's fault. And I will credit Dick Cheney for not endorsing the odious anti-gay propaganda that still comes from some quarters of his party. It's guilt by association to condemn Cheney, and even more so his daughter, for that.
Beyond that, I think that the war in Iraq, and the indulgent tax postponement (which is called a "cut" despite increased spending) are the twin disasters of the Bush administration. Bush has hardly been an Abraham Lincoln on gay rights, but he hasn't been all that terrible either.
Greg,
You didn't tell us why the cost of the war makes it strategically illogical. Can you do that?
And your rule of thumb is interesting. According to you, the acceptable cost of keeping people free is a function of their GDP. Therefore, the freedom of the Danes is far more valuable than the freedom of the Sudanese in Darfur?
How about the acceptable cost of the freedom of a welfare mother in Detroit versus the freedom of Bill Gates?
Your podcast this week is exceptional. Very good. I enjoyed it very much.
My patience for replying to anonymous respondents is a little limited, but I will give this particular issue one more try. In light of the fact that there are about a Muslims in the world, the idea of liberating them, or otherwise saving them from poverty and radicalism, at a cost of more than $10,000 per Muslim doesn't scale. The United States can't spare that kind of money, rich though it may be. The war in Iraq is typical of government solutions: Give one pothole an unstable gold crown, leave 30 other potholes unfilled entirely.
As for the rule of thumb, I never said that it necessarily is worth more money to bring freedom to rich people. All I said was that if you are spending a country's GDP to keep it free, that's sufficient proof to know that you're spending too much. If we spent $10,000 for every man, woman, and child in Denmark for their freedom, that might well still be too much, even though it's less than their GDP. But at least they might eventually pay us back, somehow.
Same thing for Bill Gates. If you spent, say, $50 million to rescue him from a mine shaft, then the cost of it might well be a ripoff. But at least he could pay you back.
Darfur is an interesting issue, and an example of just how lopsided the war in Iraq really is. If the United States spent even one dollar on Darfur for every hundred dollars it spends in Iraq, then it could probably accomplish a great deal. But Iraq is not just a hundred times as important to the Bush Administration as Darfur, it's a thousand times more important, maybe ten thousand. At this point it becomes clear what the war in Iraq is really about. It's no longer mainly about protecting the United States or saving Iraqis, it's above all about saving the reputation of the Bush Administration. That is always when any project costs the most: when its leaders send good money after bad.
Greg,
You told us the Iraq war was strategically illogical because of the cost equaled the cost of providing every Iraqi with a new car. Now you are speculating on the cost of freeing all Mulsims. Just tell us why the cost of the Iraq war makes it strategically illogical. That was your original claim.
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