This could be Liz Cheney’s final full week as chair of the House Republican Conference. It couldn’t come soon enough. The woman has been given many chances to change her tune—and has failed at every turn. Her job is to raise money, support the party, and ensure her members get elected or re-elected.
Cheney can’t do all three. She can’t raise money. She’s backed challengers to her rank-and-file. And she spits in the face of the party base. We all know this. Yet, The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway dug a little deeper, pointing to the two areas that have landed Lizzy in trouble. She also noted how Cheney peddled the debunked Russian bounty story:
That anyone is talking about Cheney is proof of her failure. Her job is to raise $$ (she doesn't), stay on message (HA!), and not undermine caucus (it's all she does). If you're pretending this is only about joining with media/Pelosi for impeachment, you're not serious.
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) May 6, 2021
Yes, we know she seethes with hatred for Trump as much as she loves decades-long interventionist wars without exit strategies or metrics for success. Good for her. But that's not what her job is, and, in fact, her twin obsessions have repeatedly led her down the wrong path...
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) May 6, 2021
E.g., not only was she not a needed truth-teller in pushing back against media/Democrats' false and dangerous 2016 election conspiracy theory about Russia, and its many attendant problems, she was also the prime pusher of the discredited, anonymously sourced Russian bounty story.
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) May 6, 2021
Just to keep the obvious points coming, WashPo, et. al, aren't all-hands-on-deck helping out Liz Cheney because they like Republicans, ok? They run Dem propaganda. They're trying to keep her and her unpopular ideas prominent in the GOP because she hurts the GOP.
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) May 6, 2021
Why do media NeverTrumpers who led messaging of the right during Bush-Cheney era support her so much? Likely just true believers who want party dragged back to unquestioning support of wars w/o exit strategies, corporatism, belief that truly fighting lefty media is gauche, etc.
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) May 6, 2021
And this is exactly why she has to go. Remember she’s the distraction in the locker room. As long as she remains in her current position, the anti-Trump hysterics will overshadow anything she does in a critical 2022 midterm election year. She’s a top-notch distraction now. Her balance has long been over-drafted on this sort of stuff. The base is Trump. She might not like it, but her job is to help the party win and she cannot do it given what has transpired.
And as long as she hangs around, she’ll be the perfect fodder for the liberal media to divide the GOP and create unnecessary havoc.