Leading the morning! at Politico when I woke up yesterday was this story about the Cheney family:
Dick and Liz Cheney have been impossible to miss in recent weeks, sparring with Democrats and Rand Paul over the latest mess in Iraq, making the rounds on Fox News and launching a group to reassert the case for their hawkish brand of foreign policy.
But the frenzy of activity reflects only the public side of the father-daughter duo's PR blitz of late. In a series of private meetings and back-channel discussions, the Cheneys have quietly been working to repair their relationship with a Republican establishment of which they'd been card-carrying members for decades -- but that was strained by Liz Cheney’s ill-fated Senate bid in Wyoming last year. And if the charm offensive helps lay the groundwork for her to run for public office again someday, all the better.
This effort is, shall we say, geographically centered -- and it's not centered on the state where Liz was trying to win a Senate seat:
Top GOP operatives and former Reagan and Bush officials were invited to a friendly, off-the-record dinner with the former vice president recently at the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington that several attendees said was billed as a "fence-mending" affair. The guest list included Republicans who backed incumbent Sen. Mike Enzi against Liz Cheney last year....
And it doesn't get more establishmentarian than this:
Earlier this spring, Cheney and his wife, Lynne, attended conservative writer George Will's annual spring baseball soiree at his home in Chevy Chase, Md., to fete the Washington Nationals' opening game. One attendee said it was the first time in years that the former vice president and his wife had gone to the exclusive party....
And Liz Cheney has returned as a regular pundit on Fox News....
None of this action is happening in Wyoming. Some of it involves supporters of Mike Enzi, the well-liked Republican incumbent Liz was trying to unseat, but none of it involves Enzi himself or other Wyoming pols.
Oh, and if all that schmoozing isn't enough, Politico reports that the Cheneys have accepted an invitation to do even more schmoozing under the aegis of ... Politico:
On July 14, Dick, Lynne and Liz Cheney will be the marquee names at a POLITICO Playbook lunch event at the Mayflower Hotel.
Hillary Clinton seeks the presidency after her husband's term in office and everyone whines about the Clinton "dynasty." The Cheneys are straining to create a Cheney dynasty, even though no one seems to want one (by contrast, plenty of people want a Hillary presidency), and yet not only does the word "dynasty" never appear in the Politico article, but Politico is working alongside the rest of the establishment to make the dynasty happen.
Well, it's not really a dynasty, in the bad sense of the word, if you have deep roots in the Village, is it? It's just your due. The Cheneys are part of permanent Washington, going back to the '70s; that's why Liz's Wyoming escapade was such a bizarre unforced error. Liz should have found herself a blood-red exurban/rural congressional district in Virginia -- or befriended some folks in the Virginia legislature until they custom-tailored one for her -- and then just sailed right in. The House isn't the Senate, but hey, there's plenty of opportunity to showboat and demagogue. And that's all Liz wants to do, isn't it?
But don't worry about her. The GOP establishment won't let her sit idle. They'll find something for her to do. They'll make sure we never get rid of her.
