During the 2016 race for the White House, Donald Trump regularly excoriated George W. Bush and his team for their entry into the Iraq War. Trump would proclaim that he had been opposed to the war and what a disaster it had been.
So you might expect that the key architect of that failed incursion–former Vice President Dick Cheney–would be reluctant to help the President-elect in any manner whatsoever.
But you would be wrong.
Cheney is back and attempting to use whatever political capital he may still have to convince Republican Senators to confirm Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson despite his complete lack of foreign policy credentials and chummy relationship with Russian President/tyrant/mass murderer Vladimir Putin.
Rick Dearborn, executive director of the Trump transition is the person who enlisted the help of Cheney as a way to give Tillerson, currently the CEO of Exxon Mobil, the largest oil company in the world, a “good housekeeping seal of approval” for GOP Senators who may be uncertain about making Tillerson the top American diplomat.
Cheney is also in close touch with Vice President-elect Mike Pence. And a senior transition aide reports that “Mike relishes the advice.” No doubt Cheney is teaching Pence how to run the country for a moronic Commander-in-Chief, much as he did with Dubya.
The former Vice President and warmongering hawk has not agreed with Trump on some of the Donald’s more controversial policies. Cheney criticized Trump’s proposed Muslim ban and also refused to attend the 2016 GOP convention in Cleveland.
Listening to some transition aides, it sounds as if they are also hopeful Cheney can better inform senators who may think they’re experts on foreign policy. One aide commented:
“Lawmakers are overall the reason we have the problems that we have, because they think that they’re the smartest people in the world and they sit in D.C. and talk to themselves, and if you don’t sit on the cocktail circuit there you don’t know anything about anything. I think they’re intimidated by a guy like this — they don’t know him and he doesn’t owe them anything.”
And because they’re afraid Cheney might shoot them in the face with a shotgun like his did his good friend and attorney Harry Whittington back in 2006.
Featured Image Via NBC News
