Cheney and Limbaugh Cut from the Same Stupid, Racist Cloth

By: Tonyaa Weathersbee

No one should be surprised that Dick Cheney would pick his chicken hawk chum, Rush Limbaugh, over Colin Powell as the best hope for leading the GOP out of the political wilderness.

They do, after all, have a lot in common.

This week, the former vice-president generated his own version of shock and awe when he told “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer that he believes the polarizing radio talker offers Republicans a better way back to relevancy than the former secretary of state.

That statement left some folks aghast.

Powell is, after all, a military hero who, in spite of the subterranean poll numbers of Cheney and his former boss, George W. Bush, is still popular and respected. Limbaugh, on the other hand, is basically an entertainer who appeals to prejudice rather than reason; a man who has run little more than his mouth.

But as I said, no one should be shocked at Cheney’s preference for Limbaugh – as they are virtually doppelgangers in the ways of hypocrisy and intolerance.

Both men, for example, believe that bluster is sound defense policy. They measure patriotism through leaders’ willingness to wage war, yet when they had a chance to prove theirs by going to Vietnam, they didn’t.

Cheney managed to get five deferments. In fact, he even once said that he had other priorities besides military service.

Obviously, he didn’t give the same consideration to thousands of other young men and women as he urged Bush to wage an unnecessary war in Iraq.

Cheney and Limbaugh Cut from the Same Stupid, Racist Cloth....

SHARPTON COMMENTS ON CHENEY'S LATEST HUNTING TRIP

Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network has released a statement calling on Vice President Dick Cheney to leave his hunting trip at a gun club in New York because of its decision to hang a flag viewed as offensive to African Americans.

Sharpton said: It has been reported to us by media on the site that Vice President Dick Cheney is duck and pheasant hunting in Dutchess County at the Clove Valley Rod & Gun Club outside of Lagrangeville in Union Vale, New York, and there is a Confederate Flag hanging at the club.

I am calling on Vice President Cheney to leave immediately and denounce the club and apologize for going to a club that represents lynching, hate, and murder to black people.

In this age of Jena and hangmen nooses all over the country, for the Vice President to relax under the flag of the hangmen nooses is an unpardonable insult to all Americans, particularly Blacks. He ought to leave immediately, call for the flag to be brought down at once, and apologize for being connected to an institution that would be insensitive enough to fly it in the first place.

What is interesting to me is that this is not even in the South that it is flying. The club owners must identify with the philosophy of the Confederacy because they can’t say that they are a historic club that 200 years ago was a part of the Confederacy since New York was never a confederate state.

If Cheney does not leave, I will bring a delegation of clergy to lead a prayer vigil in the immediate future.

HEY CUZ!!! WHEN'S THE FAMILY REUNION

There's no sign of a family reunion planned, but U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama are distant cousins.

So says the vice president's wife, Lynne Cheney, who said she discovered that her husband of 43 years is eighth cousins with the senator from Illinois.

The two men could hardly be more different. Cheney is an advocate for pursuing the war in Iraq to try to stabilize the country, while Obama wants to get U.S. troops out of Iraq.

Mrs. Cheney told MSNBC on Tuesday that it was "an amazing American story that one ancestor ... could be responsible down the family line for lives that have taken such different and varied paths."

The common ancestor was Mareen Devall, who the Chicago Sun-Times said was a 17th century immigrant from France.

Mrs. Cheney said she discovered the link through family research for her new book, "Blue Skies, No Fences," about growing up in Wyoming.