May 13, 2009

Poor little old Dick Cheney just can't catch a break. It seems we've now got Maureen Dowd and former President Bill Clinton taking shots at Dick Cheney after Lawrence Wilkerson's righteous smack down. Ed Gillespie is the former Bush aide du jour that gets the honors of defending Darth Cheney on The Situation Room. Gillespie doesn't want to acknowledge that Rush Limbaugh and his ilk don't want any moderates in his response to Blitzer.

And I'm sorry but the Democratic Party has not moved to the left. We've got a moderate for a President that a lot of us on the left don't agree with on many issues and a whole bunch of corporate-crats who did as Gillespie correctly noted get elected in conservative districts. How that makes the party moving to the left in anything but Republican fantasy land is beyond me. Ed needs to work on his talking points. He sounds like he's still beating that "Obama is the most liberal Senator" dead horse that failed them the last election and hoping their tired "socialist" canard sticks.

BLITZER: All right, let's talk about the former Vice President Dick Cheney for a moment.

Maureen Dowd, "The New York Times" columnist, Ed, who wrote this in the paper today: "Cheney has replaced Sarah Palin as rogue diva. Just as Jeb Bush and other Republicans are trying to get kinder and gentler, Cheney has popped out of his dungeon, scary organ music blaring, to carry on his nasty campaign of fear and loathing."

Is this whole debate among Republicans right now, who's more beneficial to the party, Colin Powell or Rush Limbaugh, is this really helpful to the Republicans? And I ask you as a former chairman of the RNC.

GILLESPIE: No, it's a false debate, Wolf.

The fact is that, if you're going to be a majority party in a country of 300 million people, you're a party that would include people who have a view of -- like Rush Limbaugh, very pure in terms of the philosophical approach, and a view that accommodates people like Colin Powell as well, a little bit more pragmatic in terms of their approach.

I -- you know, I am someone who is, you know, a conservative in terms of my philosophy and my -- my political outlook, but I also am someone who understands that the Democrats have done a very good job of getting candidates in districts where maybe the -- the candidate doesn't agree, the Democratic candidate doesn't agree with the Democratic Party platform on gun control or on abortion.

But, at the same time, they have been able to elect enough candidates to get a majority. I would say, in the -- that process, by the way, the Democratic Party hasn't moved to the right. If anything, it's moved left.

BLITZER: All right.

GILLESPIE: And, so, I think that we should take a page from their playbook.

BLITZER: The former President Bill Clinton was out campaigning for the Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, his good friend. He was out in Herndon, Virginia.

And we caught up with him, Bill Clinton.

Donna, listen to this little reaction we got from him on the whole Dick Cheney business.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I wish him well. It's over.

I wish him well. It's over. But I do hope he gets some more target practice before he goes out again.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: "I do hope he gets some more target practice before he goes out again."

All right, what do you make of that, given the -- I guess it's the implication of the -- the shooting incident when he went out hunting a few years ago, shot a friend in the face.

BRAZILE: Well, I also think the former president was referring to the fact that the former vice president this past weekend made, I thought, an incredible mistake in saying that he would pick one over the other, pick Limbaugh over Colin Powell.

Ed knows this very well. In order for a major political party to survive in the kind of country we live in, you need to have, you know, diversity within your party, a more inclusive party.

I think Dick Cheney is a distraction for the Republican Party as they try to rebrand themselves, reinvent themselves, and to connect with the American people on the values that most Americans care about.

So, it's not always left vs. right. It's right vs. wrong. And the American people have judged the Republicans to be wrong on the issues.

BLITZER: All right, guys, we will leave it there.

Donna and Ed, thanks very much. We will continue, though. Both of you will be back.

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