New Cheney Taking Stage for the G.O.P.

New Cheney Taking Stage for the G.O.P.
By MARK LEIBOVICH
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: September 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/us/politics/28cheney.html?_r=1&th&emc=th


NASHVILLE — Liz Cheney looks nothing like her father, but it is clear who he is. She was introduced as “our favorite vice president’s daughter” at a recent gathering of conservative women here. She kept invoking him in her speech, conveying his best regards, and likes to share cute stories about Dad trying to master his new BlackBerry.

Like her father, Ms. Cheney speaks in understated, almost academic cadences, head veering down into her notes. She also shares his willingness to pummel President Obama in stark, disdainful tones, not so much criticizing as taunting him.

“Mr. President, in a ticking time-bomb scenario, with American lives at stake,” she said, “are you really unwilling to subject a terrorist to enhanced interrogation to get information that would prevent an attack?”

By speech’s end, the crowd was standing, and the former vice president’s daughter was being mobbed for photos and hounded to run for office.

Liz Cheney is “a red state rock star,” declared Rebecca Wales, one of the organizers of this event, the “Smart Girls Summit.”

“The future of the Cheney message,” added a conservative blogger who goes by the name of Fingers Malloy (a rare man in this crowd, and even rarer, one with a Mohawk). He also called her “one of the fresh faces of our movement.”

It is a source of debate whether “Cheney” is an asset or a liability for this 43-year-old lawyer and former State Department official who keeps turning up on TV, at lecterns and in discussions about future Republican candidates. There is also the question of whether the “Cheney message” on national security — which essentially translates to an aggressive and interventionist approach — is something the Republican Party should be trumpeting, or burying.

What is clear is that Ms. Cheney, at a minimum, has become a rallying point for conservative views on national security. In a broader sense, she is being promoted as a rising star of the Republican Party, one who is hardly shying from the Cheney brand. (She is married to the lawyer Phillip Perry, but uses her maiden name.)

Ms. Cheney’s resolute national security positions seem to differ not at all from those of her favorite vice president. “I think you’d be hard-pressed to find any daylight at all between Liz’s and my father’s views,” said her younger sister, Mary Cheney. “It’s not because she’s been indoctrinated. It’s because he’s right.” Mary Cheney was prominent in her father’s vice-presidential campaigns but has drawn fire from some conservatives for having a child as part of a same-sex couple.

Liz Cheney’s appeal in conservative settings like the one in Nashville was evident within seconds of her arrival. She strolled in without entourage to a Sheraton ballroom, unrecognized at first, past a cluster of women getting their pictures taken with Joe the Plumber.

“God bless you, I pray for your abundance,” a woman from Scottsdale, Ariz., Lori Frantzve, said upon realizing who Ms. Cheney was.

“Oh, I have five kids; I have plenty of abundance,” Ms. Cheney replied.

“Hey sister!” the conservative columnist Michelle Malkin greeted Ms. Cheney. They posed for pictures and air-kissed. Ms. Malkin proclaimed herself a “fan girl” and told Ms. Cheney she was “doing a great job out there.”

Working with only a Yahoo account, Ms. Cheney has been fielding dozens of speaking and interview requests a month, accepting many. (She declined to be interviewed for this article, saying she was uncomfortable with a story focused on her rather than her policy beliefs.) She is scheduled to appear at fund-raisers for Republican candidates through the rest of the year, and is a co-founder of a Web site, KeepAmericaSafe.com, that is scheduled to go online next month as a forum, resource and publication devoted to hawkish conservative views.

She argues her father’s positions with a cable-ready ferocity reminiscent of her mother, Lynne (a former regular on CNN’s “Crossfire”).

Mr. Obama is “an American president who seems to be afraid to defend America,” she told Larry King on his CNN program in an appearance that drew notice when Ms. Cheney appeared not to contest a suggestion that the president had not been born in the United States.

Clips of Ms. Cheney’s on-air smack-downs with liberal adversaries have become viral sensations among conservative bloggers — most recently, an interruption-fest with Sam Donaldson over the C.I.A.’s interrogation methods on ABC’s “This Week.”

When Mr. Donaldson said that everyone he knows thinks torture and waterboarding are wrong, Ms. Cheney shot back: “Waterboarding isn’t torture, and we can go down that path. The lack of seriousness here is important.”

Dan Senor, a Republican foreign policy adviser who was the Bush administrations’ chief spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, said: “There are a lot of quote-unquote Republican strategists who think Dick Cheney should be lying low. The truth is, he has given voice to a hawkish critique of the current administration that is important. And I think Liz is ably representing the next wave of voices.”

Ms. Cheney conveys a much sunnier disposition than her father ever has.

“If you’re going to a boring meeting, she’s a fun person to sit next to,” said Elliott Abrams, who worked in the Bush administration and knew Ms. Cheney, who worked on the promotion of global democracy at the State Department. “She’s someone who would not hesitate to whisper something like, ‘Can you believe how terrible this speech is?’ ”

Ms. Cheney is fiercely loyal to and protective of her father and devotes great energy to matters that relate — directly or indirectly — to the preservation (or repair) of his legacy. She persuaded him to write his memoirs, is collaborating closely with him on it, and said in Nashville that she would be occupied with the project through 2011.

When asked by a member of the audience if she would run for office, Ms. Cheney said, “We’ll see.” She said her main focus now, beside the memoir, was shuttling her children among school, play-dates and soccer practices.

Ms. Cheney is described — not in an admiring way — as a “true believer” and a “chip off the old block” by Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel who was chief of staff to Colin L. Powell, who has been an avid critic of Mr. Cheney, when Mr. Powell was secretary of state.

By all accounts, the Cheneys are a tight-knit and at times insular unit steeped in the family business. The extended brood all live within about 15 minutes of one another in northern Virginia. They gather for Sunday night dinners, usually at Liz’s house, and travel to family homes in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Ms. Cheney began her Nashville speech by saying that she had asked her father for advice on what she should say. “That’s a really important room full of people,” she said he told her. “So don’t screw it up.” Laughter ensued.

She concluded by saying conservatism was resurgent and urged activists to stay involved.

“We can’t win if we don’t fight,” Ms. Cheney said, noting that she was taught that lesson years before “by a great American, my dad, Dick Cheney.”