Bill Kristol Loves Dick Cheney

Posted by Satyam Khanna, Think Progress at 11:57 AM on May 16, 2009.

While many Republicans are trying to ditch the legacy of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, one pundit is still clinging to the previous administration. In a column today titled “Don’t Wince. Fight!,” Bill Kristol offers a full-throated defense of Cheney, writing that Republicans cringing at the re-emergence of the former vice president have a “juvenile understanding of political dynamics.” Kristol then prescribes that to regain power, the GOP needs to embrace Bush’s policies and listen to Cheney:

The real question any Republican strategist should ask himself is this: What will Republican chances be in 2012 if voters don’t remember the Bush administration–however problematic in other areas–as successful in defending the country after 9/11? To give this issue away would be to accept a post-Herbert-Hoover-like-fate for today’s GOP. That’s why Republicans should listen carefully when Cheney gives a speech this week in which he’ll lay out the case for the surveillance, detention, and interrogation policies of the Bush administration in the war against terror.

Kristol concludes, “Dick Cheney probably won’t be the glamour quarterback of the Republican comeback. But he’s proving to be a heck of a middle linebacker.” Those considering taking the advice of the Kristol Ball should check out his July 2007 op-ed on “Why Bush Will Be A Winner.”

Satyam Khanna is a Research Associate for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.