Second Only to Aaron Burr

In an extremely solid piece of writing, James Fallows at The Atlantic praises George W. Bush for his actions since leaving office. What actions are those? you ask. Essentially, fully cooperating with the Obama transition and "maintaining a dignified distance from public controversies and let[ting] the new team have its chance." As Bush said last March, Obama "deserves my silence." Not that this forgives anything Bush did while occupying the White House, but at least he has done what other former presidents have done after leaving office.

Fallows is far less kind to Dick Cheney:

The former vice president, Dick Cheney, has brought dishonor to himself, his office, and his country. I am not aware of a case of a former president or vice president behaving as despicably as Cheney has done in the ten months since leaving power, most recently but not exclusively with his comments to Politico about Obama's decisions on Afghanistan. (Aaron Burr might win the title, for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel, but Burr was a sitting vice president at the time.) Cheney has acted as if utterly unconcerned with the welfare of his country, its armed forces, or the people now trying to make difficult decisions. He has put narrow score-settling interest far, far above national interest.

Fallows goes on to point out that Cheney was an outgoing pol under three former presidents -- Gerald Ford and both Bushes -- and he was the previous two times very cooperative, open, not bitter, and aware of the "continuing national interest." Why Fallows seems surprised by this current display of divisiveness, though, is beyond me.

In today's red-state/blue-state divide, there is no such thing as gentlemanly politics. With Rovian Republicanism and Fox News's acting as the media wing of the GOP, the campaign never ends. Every 24-hour news cycle brings a new opportunity for the Republican Party (most notably from Cheney and his daughter, Liz, not to mention Sarah Palin) to showcase itself as the angry opposition, excoriating President Obama for everything, from his bowing to a foreign head of state, to his "dithering" on his Afghanistan war plan, to his economic policies, to how much leg his wife shows in public. The talking heads and wackos at Fox -- Hannity, Bill-O, Hume, Van Susteren, Beck -- and radio-based wingnuts like Rush continually invite Republican strategists, pundits and politicians to assess where the party stands now and what it needs to do to topple the Democrats and the Obama administration. Every off-year election, even down to the lowly NY-23, carries such great importance because it is all seen as a barometer for where the country is headed in years to come. As a political blogger, it gives me something extra to do when I'm not absorbed in work, but it's no wonder that more than half this country doesn't give a shit about politics.

What the Republicans utterly fail to understand, however, is that the pettiness that shows up in their commentary, their scattershot approach to their criticism of Obama, their lack of leadership, and their excessive religiosity, all point to how useless they have become as a viable alternative to the Democratic Party.

More on Cheney as an unpatriotic, "bitter and afraid" man here and here. Accusing President Obama of giving "aid and comfort" to our enemies just before he is to address the nation about Afghanistan, in front of cadets at West Point, just disgusts me, and finally eliminates the need for me to have any meaningful debate with anyone who supports the GOP. The correct term for them is a "rump party."