Tulsi Gabbard Thinks She's Gonna Smear Harris With Dick Cheney Cooties
No one is playing this game.
On Friday of last week, former Vice President/war criminal Dick Cheney announced his endorsement of Kamala Harris for president. Perhaps the least sought-after endorsement beyond that of Dead Henry Kissinger, but an endorsement and a vote nonetheless. Since then, the very Republicans who —need I remind you — saddled us with his decrepit warhawk ass for eight years and got us into the Iraq War in the first place, have tried to use the endorsement against Harris, suggesting that it is somehow proof that they share similar ideas about foreign policy.
Among them is former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard and current Trump surrogate, who — need I remind you — is actually quite the warhawk herself in many ways.
“I have a very simple message for my Democrat friends, my independent friends, those who may not be sure about who they're voting for in this election. Dick Cheney has just made the choice very clear,” Gabbard told Tucker Carlson — who was one of the biggest cheerleaders for both the Iraq War and the Bush administration — in an interview at his special fan event this weekend, adding “A vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for Dick Cheney, the architect of everything that has gone wrong in the Middle East for the last few decades. Kamala Harris has told us all we need to know about what kind of commander-in-chief she would be. And I don't know about you, but I would not trust her for a moment with the lives of my brothers and sisters in uniform.”
It’s fairly disingenuous to suggest that the reason Cheney is supporting Harris is because they are somehow so very aligned on foreign policy choices, rather than for the other reasons he stated.
“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” he said in a statement. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again.”
“As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution,” he added. “That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.”
Granted, some of us may find this a tad ironic coming from someone who might not have ever been Vice President were it not for some serious voting irregularities in Florida that resulted in a whole lot of Jewish people mysteriously voting for Pat Buchanan and the Supreme Court stepping in to force the state to stop counting the votes because doing so would “threaten irreparable harm to petitioner Bush, and to the country, by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the legitimacy of his election” … but a vote is a vote.
Bernie Sanders, whose anti-war bonafides are a bit stronger than Gabbard’s, helpfully explained on on NBC News’s “Meet the Press” that it the endorsement has far less to do with any issues than it has to do with opposition to Trump as a human being who tried to overturn a free and fair election.
“What I think Dick and Liz Cheney are saying is that in this existential moment in American history, it’s not just issues. Cheney and I agree on nothing — no issues. But what we do believe in is that the United States should retain its democratic foundations,” Sanders said, adding “So, I applaud the Cheneys for their courage in defending democracy. Obviously, on all the issues we have very different points of view.”
I’m not sure where else to put this, but I would just like to note that Gabbard, actually, has far more in common with Dick Cheney, policy-wise, than Harris or any Democrat. I mean, we’re talking about someone who, at least as of 2014, still thought torture might be an effective and useful interrogation tactic. Her only real “antiwar” stance is that she doesn’t believe in regime change, and she has said as much herself. She was (and as far as we know remains) a big fan of the “War on Terror,” which has, of course, been so very successful.
But, as Sanders pointed out, it’s entirely possible to agree with people on some things, while finding everything else they believe to be absolutely abhorrent. For instance, I actually agree with Gabbard on regime change being bad, along with her stances on drug and sex-work decriminalization and probably some other things as well — while also realizing that she is otherwise a gross nightmare person. It’s not hard for people with actual principles to understand how that kind of thing works.
Now, it should not come as much of a surprise that I have not been exactly thrilled by the Biden Administration’s handling of Israel’s war on Gaza — or that I’m also pretty furious about the fact that Harris has said she plans to continue those policies, including providing Israel with more weapons. However, you know who isn’t any better on that issue? Trump. Also Tulsi Gabbard, who not only supports the war, supports sending weapons and opposes a ceasefire, but has also accused protesters of being “pro-Hamas.”
You know, sort of like how the Bush administration accused those of us who protested the Iraq War of just really loving terrorism and Al-Qaeda?
Given Gabbard’s rightward shift, there is little question that both she and Trump have a whole lot more in common, policy-wise, with Dick Cheney than Harris does. That being said, I’m not so sure she wants to get into a “terrible endorsements” slapfight, because I think it’s pretty clear that the man so beloved by our nation’s neo-Nazis and far-right extremists is not going to win that one.
OT - during last night's Lions/Rams game, there was a Harris/Walz ad in almost every commercial break. Nothing from the PABsters. Signifying something good, I hope.
If she’s so very against regime change, maybe she ought to bring that up with her old pal Vlad Putin and kindly ask him to stop bombing the shit out of Ukraine.