Kevin Madden

Bay Buchanan Defends Cheney: We Need Attack Dogs

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Bay Buchanan thinks Dick Cheney being out front and center as the Republican's attack dog is just wonderful and Kevin Madden defends his fear mongering by saying he's a "national security expert". The rest of the panel tries to bring the two back to earth by reminding them just how unpopular Dick Cheney is to no avail.

MARTIN: Now, Bay, the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, recently called the Bush presidency a millstone around our necks. Does having Dick Cheney out on the talk show circuit help Republicans in any way?

BUCHANAN: I think it does for this reason. We are the loyal opposition, Roland. We have to speak out against the president's policy when we disagree with them.

And so on two points Cheney should be out there. Number one, he believes that what Obama is doing is damaging this country's security. So he has a moral obligation to speak out. And secondly he can get through the groupies in the media, the Obama groupies. He can be heard. He can have his voice heard. So, he represents many, many of us who believe that somebody's got to take on these policies of Obama and let Americans know that's not where Republicans would go.

YELLIN: OK. Bay, let's get real. Dick Cheney is one of the least popular figures in the Republican Party, aside from Rush Limbaugh. Now he is aligning himself with Limbaugh, attacking one of the most popular figures, Colin Powell.

So, the question is, why is it good for him to speak out as such an unpopular guy, especially when the former president himself has said it is time to keep our silence and let the new president do his job?

BUCHANAN: You know, Colin Powell is not really -- he's benefited when he -- when it was to his advantage to associate with Republicans, he did so. And when it was to his advantage to abandon us, he did so.

He does not agree with our economic policies. He does not agree with our social policies. He agrees with Obama. And now he says we should embrace this idea that -- go the Obama way. Well, then we eliminate the Republican way. Why do we even need us if we're going to agree with Democrats?

And so to suggest he is some popular figure in the Republican Party is a complete mistake, is an error.

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Boss Limbaugh disses the GOP's listening tour and all but gets dissed himself by the panel on AC360. He thinks the GOP needs a "teaching tour" rather than a listening tour. That's almost as ridiculous as the idea that the GOP is going to listen to anyone to begin with during these town halls. As they note during this discussion, the religious right isn't going away any time soon, so it's obvious none of them think that strangle-hold over the party is going to change. And despite all of David Gergen's happy talk about Jack Kemp, what does he really say about him? He wasn't "grumpy". And even though most of his ideas were about tax cuts, he managed to make the poor and the down and out believe he cared about them. He doesn't actually say that he cared about them at all. Just that he managed to get them to believe he did. I thought Gergen's parsing of words here was rather odd if he does actually believe Kemp cared about the poor.

What Limbaugh fails to realize is that the public has pretty well figured out the GOP for themselves with no need for any "lessons" from Limbaugh or anyone in the GOP, and their actions as well as his are already teaching us all we need to know about them. Anyone that's buying the snake oil they're selling already listens to his radio show, or one of his buddies' radio shows, or they're watching Fox Noise, or reading Michelle Malkin and her ilk, or they are getting their political views from their church where they're fed a healthy dose of right wing propoganda each and every week.

Transcript below the fold.

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