Whoring After Primary Votes

The New York Times tells us that Liz Cheney has publicly opposed her sister Mary on the latter’s very non-abstract support for same-sex marriage.  By making this declaration, Liz has officially defined herself as more despicable than her father–no mean feat.

Whatever the twisted views of the elder Cheney–or “Darth Vader” as he is un-affectionately known– it is pretty clear that those views were genuinely his. He was and is a chickenhawk, ready to send other people’s children to die in wars that fattened the pocketbooks of his cronies and his old firm Halliburton; he was and is an advocate of the blatantly a-historical  “unitary” theory of Presidential Powers; he was and is a sneering, heartless, self-righteous extremist. But give him credit–repulsive as it all was, it was also authentic.

And he loved his child enough to influence his stance on marriage–enough to recognize the inhumanity of his own party’s retrograde position.

Cheney’s daughter Liz has been a longtime harridan on the talk show circuit. She clearly inherited all of her father’s warmth, which is to say that none has been visible, along with his smug self-certainty. Recently, she decided to return to Wyoming–a state she hasn’t lived in for years, a state she returned to so recently that she can’t even qualify for a hunting permit–to mount a primary challenge to that state’s popular Republican Senator. (Can we spell “sense of entitlement”?)

Of course, opposition to same-sex marriage is part  of the litmus test applied to candidates by today’s rabid Republican primary voters. And Liz Cheney, who has previously expressed no interest in nor opinion on the issue, has chosen to pander to those voters, signaling where her priorities lie. Self-interest trumps both authenticity and any loyalty to her only sister: big surprise.

Science continues to confirm that sexual orientation is heritable and inborn. So, evidently, is being utterly without humanity.