Hey Vice-Precedence Blog Readers!
Well, here it is-the final blog of 2009. Its been an amazing year here on the blog, breaking the news about the Palin resignation and meeting her at her book signing, keeping track of all the events of the first year of the Biden vice-presidency, marking the VP's birthdays, alerting you to VP Cheneys surgery and the protests at the U. of Wyoming, and updating you-our readers-of every major and minor bit of news in regards to the vice-presidency that occurred throughout the year. Its all been a blast.
So, as a fitting end to the year-former VP Richard Cheney has been named "Conservative of the Year" by influential conservative internet magazine HumanEvents.com
Human Events was one of the late President Ronald Reagan's favorite newspapers when he was President, (back when newspapers and magazines still mattered) and it has now blossomed in our new Internet Age into one of the most influential online conservative magazines out there.
The unique thing about Cheney being the Conservative of the Year over other such prominent conservatives like Senator Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader John Boehner, or even (in an upset in a way) Sarah Palin, is that he did not hold any office in 2009. Unlike other possible candidates like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh, he has no radio show or TV show of his own. He doesn't have the looks or has published a book this year like Ann Coulter.
Cheney is simply a citizen of the U.S. (who happens to be a former VP of the United States)who has taken every opportunity he can at every speaking engagement or media appearance he has made, to defend his and President Bush's record over the majority of this decade and to attack the Obama Administration which he sees as making many mistakes, and being especially weak in "The War on Terror" and on national security issues. By doing so, Cheney has become the gadfly of the Obama White House and opened himself to even more attacks by Democrats and liberals who for years have cursed Cheney as "Darth Cheney" and all. As I have stated on this blog, the one thing you have to admire about Mr.Cheney is that he has no fear of being unpopular, but in this last year with all the Tea-Partiers and Birthers and conservatives gnashing their teeth-his views and statements are finding a bigger audience then when he was VP.
Along with his criticism of the current administration, he made news with another surgery, by simply cutting meat for his family, found himself embroiled in controversies as we reported here on the blog-like the protests about the International Student Center named for him at his alma mater-the University of Wyoming, and the birth of a new grandchild by his lesbian daughter and his defense of gay rights-making him unique among his conservatives, something that is not brought up in article about him being Conservative of the Year incidentally. To go along with all this-his own book should be coming out soon and is highly anticipated by many wondering what went on behind the scenes in the White House during some of the most important years in American history.
In the article where he was named Conservative of the Year written by Bush Administration Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, he cites the similarities and differences between Cheney and current VP Biden, and even former VP Spiro Agnew, Cheneys legacy as a former VP, addresses the reports of strife between Bush and Cheney in their last days in office (as reported in TIME Magazine and here on the blog) and how Cheney is now one of the major voices of conservatism in the U.S. today. Here is some of Boltons article:
To have a former Vice President willing to go on the record once he leaves office is a huge service to us and our nation, helping to illuminate and explain key factors affecting our national security.
Perhaps most galling to Democrats is how closely Joe Biden’s role as Vice President has tracked that of Cheney’s, which these same Democrats criticized so vociferously while Cheney was in office. The main difference, of course, is that Cheney is much quieter than Biden, which objective observers have to score as a plus for Cheney.
Desperate to distinguish themselves from Cheney, Biden’s media flacks say that he and his staff have worked well with Obama’s White House staff, in contrast to the rancor and in-fighting of the Bush-Cheney years. This effort to re-write history, however, simply will not fly. Especially on national-security policy, the Bush and Cheney staffs worked well and closely together. If, at the end of eight years, the staff relationships were not as close as at the beginning, that was hardly Cheney’s fault. Having worked as a White House summer intern for Vice President Spiro Agnew in 1972, I can recount from personal experience what it’s like when the President’s people are at knife’s-edge with the Veep’s. That’s not what it was like in the Bush years, certainly not in the first term. Bush’s second term was different for many reasons, marked notably in foreign affairs by the overwhelming predominance of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. But even then, Cheney’s relations with the NSC staff remained close, in large part because Rice’s successor as National Security Adviser, Steve Hadley, had worked for Cheney at the Pentagon during the Bush 41 Administration.
Perhaps most importantly of all, Cheney knows that the personal attacks on him, as offensive as they are, in reality constitute stark evidence that Obama and his supporters are simply unable to match him in the substantive policy debate. An old lawyers’ cliché says: “If the law is against you, pound on the facts; if the facts are against you, pound on the law; if the law and the facts are against you, pound on the table.” Obama and his supporters are doing the political equivalent of continuous table-pounding, because that’s basically all they have to offer. Cheney’s unwillingness to be deterred by the media assaults on his character, his judgment and his performance in office are therefore his most impressive force multiplier with the general public. Outside-the-Beltway Americans see him for exactly what he is: a very experienced, very dedicated patriot, giving his fellow citizens his best analysis on how to keep them and their country safe.
Cheney’s quiet, inner-directed motivation is simply impervious to the attacks orchestrated against him by the Chicago machine-style politicians at the White House, a fact also plainly visible to his fellow citizens. And it is yet another important reason to have confidence that Cheney’s solid policy analysis will yet prevail in the national political arena. Of course he is the conservative of the year!
So there you have it-well, congratulations to former VP Cheney! Thanks for your support over this year VP readers! In 2010 we expect to have some big developments with Vice-Precedence and we will be sure to keep you-our loyal readers informed. Please, in this upcoming new year of 2010 make sure to keep following us here on the blog, post comments both here and on Facebook (they mean so much to both Jason and myself), and let your friends and family know about Vice-Precedence-keep spreading the word and help us to build an even larger fan base and with your support we will succeed in bringing Vice-Precedence to the big screen.
Join the Race for Second Place in 2010! Here's to a Happy New Year to all of you from us at Vice-Precedence! Thanks for everything.
Matt Saxe
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