San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Today, the lie fells Cheney; what will fall tomorrow?
As a person of apparent integrity, Liz Cheney is a lonely woman.
She is an outlier in Congress, one of the few Republicans whose allegiance to the truth is stronger than her devotion to the ex-president.
Since losing the presidency to Joe Biden in November, Donald Trump has maintained the lie that the election was rigged, the product of fraud and graft.
This lie has been refuted again and again — in courts, through recounts, by experts and elections officials in many states. Lies, however, are stubborn things, sometimes more durable than the truth, persisting despite courtrooms full of evidence to the contrary.
Republicans have responded to the lie of voter fraud with “voter integrity” laws, including here in Texas, that will limit access to voting. The erosion of our democracy extends far beyond Jan. 6.
Enter Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.
She dismisses the fraud allegations for what they are — the half-baked conspiracy theories of a man unable to deal with losing an election fair and square. Cheney also blamed the president — and his incendiary language — for sparking the horrific siege of the Capitol on Jan. 6.
For these unpardonable acts, Cheney has lost her leadership role in the Republican Party, a vote that took less than 20 minutes Wednesday.
“If you want leaders who will enable and spread his destructive lies, I’m not your person,” she told her colleagues before the vote.
Those colleagues booed her.
“Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye Liz Cheney,” Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., tweeted.
The push against Cheney got real during a “hot mic” moment on May 4, when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was overheard before an interview with Fox TV.
“I think she’s got real problems,” he said. “I’ve had it with … I’ve had it with her. You know, I’ve lost confidence. … Well, someone has to bring a motion, but I assume that will take place.”
For a party that condemns “cancel culture,” this was an irony the most loyal Republican could hardly fail to recognize. The party “canceled” a woman for the unpardonable offense of telling the truth. This is what it has come to in the GOP — liars get rewarded, truth tellers punished. All should be troubled.
McCarthy should delve deeper into the problem afflicting his party. It is not Cheney; it is his own mendacity. What makes the duplicity especially egregious is that McCarthy himself condemned the ex-president before surrendering to his ambition.
“The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on the Congress by mob rioters,” he said one day after the siege. “He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action of President Trump.”
Cheney has her defenders, men and women trying to uphold the truth — think of Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill — but they are part of what looks like an impotent minority.
Ironies abound; Cheney, hailed as a champion of truth, was not always so devoted to facts. She and her father, then-Vice President Dick Cheney, propagated the lie that Saddam Hussein was concealing weapons of mass destruction. The falsehood helped spark support for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Never softening her hawkishness, she and her father co-authored a book doubling down on that view in 2015 — “Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America.” If she is being hailed as a martyr, it indicates how desperate Democrats are to find allies.
In yet another irony, Trump and his minions are crying voter fraud when their very allegations represent that fraud. They are trying, through their rants, to disenfranchise millions of voters. And they are doing it again, through legislation aimed at restricting the voting process.
In Texas, Georgia and Florida, lawmakers have crafted bills to suppress voting, including limiting voting hours. These are “legal” efforts to create the very problems they condemn.
As the Cheney saga plays out, its impact transcends one person — and one issue. Our future wellbeing, the health of our democracy, depends on our fidelity to the truth. How much of the country has lost sight of this? What does it portend for our future?