Dick Cheney, the
vice-president who picked himself, proclaims that naming Sarah Palin to succeed
him was “a mistake,” while Bill Clinton emerges for a marquee role in the
Democratic convention to nominate Barack Obama for a second term.
Such Scrooge-like emanations
may serve, not only as the inspirations they are intended to be, but as
warnings to the electorate to mend its ways in deciding the future.
In dismissing Palin, Cheney
echoes Lloyd Bentsen’s classic putdown of Dan Quayle in the 1988
vice-presidential debate: “I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of
mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.”
“I like Gov. Palin,” says Cheney.
“I’ve met her. I know her. But based on her background, she had only been
governor for, what, two years? I don’t think she passed that test of being
ready to take over. And I think that was a mistake.”
When Cheney ended his search
for George W. Bush’s running mate in 2000 by looking in the mirror, he was more
than ready to take over and did--in an imperial vice-presidency that led to
doctoring espionage reports for Colin Powell’s UN speech to justify a needless
war in Iraq and dispatching Scooter Libby to out Valerie Plame as a CIA agent
when her husband raised questions Cheney didn’t like.
As Mitt Romney ruminates about
his tax returns and picks his VP, Tim Pawlenty, Rob Portman et al may look like
safer investments.
On the other side is the
perennial Comeback Kid. Says Obama strategist David Axelrod, “There isn’t
anybody on the planet who has a greater perspective on not just the last four
years, but the last two decades, than Bill Clinton. He can really articulate
the choice that is before people.”
Just so. But the former
president may also remind voters of other events in those two decades: impeachment
that brought him thisclose to being ousted for unzipping in the Oval Office as
well as reckless attacks on Obama only four years ago during the 2008
primaries.
Yet, in the “Christmas Carol”
spirit, redemption may be what counts. By the time the Ghost of Elections Future
arrives four years from now, a gifted-wrapped Hillary Clinton may be ready and
waiting.
Update: A new Gallup poll shows 66 percent of Americans now have a favorable opinion of Bill Clinton.
How far does nostalgia go? How many would want Cheney back, too?
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