Zimyatin

I was browsing right-wing Newmax and came upon this story. At least the VP's wife seems to have a mind.

<a href="http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/7/3/52922.shtml" target="_blank">here</a>

Toto

Give credit where it's due. If only she could convince her party of that.

Starspun

She is a credit to the principals we all strive to live by. If only she could convince her hubby, Dubya and Ashcroft.

I know she will not see this, but Mrs. Cheney:

<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

Mageth

Lynne Cheney for President!

Splat

Wow. My esteem for Lynne Cheney just went through the roof!

Then my Inner Cynic poked me in the balls with a sharp stick. This administration does nothing without an eye on marketing. It's an appeasement ploy of some sort.

galiel

Of course, it is always possible that the "little wife" happens to have a mind of her own and, as a respected intellectual who holds no elected position, feels free to express it. You sure it was your Inner Cynic and not your Chauvinist Pig that poked you in the balls?

Toto

galiel - you're the first person to call her the little wifey. Lynne Cheney is no mere political appendage. She has held office in Republican administrations and is a power player in her own right. One of the Cheney's daughters is gay, and is an accepted family member, but you won't hear her say anything positive about gay rights while the religious right can hear it.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Lynne Cheney might think that separation of church and state is what made this country great because it allowed people to join whatever sect of Christianity they preferred. She did, after all, put "G is for God" in her patriotic primer. And when people have start to think too far outside the box, she stands ready to slap them down - remember she is a founding member of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, which recently tried to ferret out anti-war professors.

GaryP

Haven't we all seen many politicians give lip service to separation? I suspect the pledge and voucher decisions would not meet Mrs. Cheney's criteria for the correct amount of separation.

[ July 04, 2002: Message edited by: GaryP ]</p>

galiel

You may be right. However, her behavior with regard to publicly discussing her gay daughter or tacit approval of "outing" anti-war professors, objectionable as it may be, really has no bearing on her opinion on church-state separation. One can be anywhere on the political spectrum and still support separation of church and state.

People are not monoliths, they often have complex ideas that defy simple categorization. There is no evidence I am aware of that she acts as a surrogate for official White House intrigue. I sensed a tendency to dismiss the possibility that she might have her own opinion, and a tendency to treat her simplistically, and I wonder if that does not have something to do with her sex and status as wife of the VP, that is all. We saw enough of that with Hillary Clinton; it is equally offensive when it comes from the left as from the right.

Most people who see careful conspiracies everywhere do not live in the real world, where members of the administration can't even get their leaks straight. Confusion is more often endemic than conspiracy. That is not to say that people like Bush or Cheney do not have nefarious intent; it is merely to suggest that our society does not benefit from those who see enemies under every rock, whether they are commie atheists or evangelical inquisitioners. As rational thinkers, let's deal with the evidence, not predetermined judgements.

Splat

Oh no. It was the Cynic (my mama trained the Pig, so what chauvenism I can muster is directed towards us men ).

I don't doubt Lynn Cheney's intelligence (don't know much about her). But I seriously doubt that she's free to speak to the media without some serious filters, or that she'd do anything that might undermine the administration or the party.

My deepest hope is that somebody in the administration realized that there's little to gain over the dems on this fight and that Bush's promise of a religious test for supreme nominees would be an opening for impeachment efforts. (That might be amusing, but without a blowjob somewhere, I doubt the media would carry it very far.)