A Cheney is a Cheney

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There's an op-ed in the Post today by no less an "authority" than former State Department official Liz Cheney. Its loaded title? The very Cheneyesque: "Retreat Isn't an Option."

As Jason Zengerle puts it at TNR's The Plank, it may be the "[w]orst op-ed of the (admittedly still young) year". It's a "thing of wonder," he writes, for "it manages to touch all the wing-nutty bases" in "a mere 800 words". (Noam Scheiber and Isaac Chotiner have more here and here, respectively.)

It barely deserves my (or your) attention, but let's run through it in fast forward: In order, Lizzy C. attacks Hillary, praises Liberman, attacks Hagel, attacks Pelosi, attacks Obama, conflates the Iraq War with the war on terror (a seemingly endless war against "an existential threat" that will be fought "to the death," a war that must be fought in Iraq lest it get even worse), claims that (Democratic and some Hagel-like Republican) proponents of redeployment are helping the terrorists and handing the Middle East over to al Qaeda, misreads the results of the November midterms, praises Karzai and Musharraf, once again conflates the Iraq War with the war on terror, raises the specter of Iran (stay in Iraq or else Syria and a nuclear Iran will take over the Middle East), plays the support-our-troops card (because Democrats, it seems, don't), attacks Hillary again, spews Bush-friendly platitudes ("Victory is the only option"), and quotes Churchill.

Phew.

That's a whole lotta bullshit for one measly op-ed. But, then, she must have learned from a master.

[Creature's Note: Michael's words, my cut-and-paste sweat. Please ignore the "Creature" in byline below.]