Mullings A Political Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Competence Is Not A Four Letter Word

Wednesday, July 26, 2000

From Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The Republican National Convention

Dick Cheney is a well-respected, deeply-grounded, widely experienced, highly successful American patriot. He will be the next Vice President of the United States.

The Gore campaign, in a paroxysm of anti-Cheney rhetoric has, again, shown it is essentially weak by desperately trying to tear Cheney down before he can gain a positive foothold on the American psyche.

It won't work. The American people are looking for grownups who can run the planet. The Three-Stooges-Finger-In-The-Eye politics Al Gore and his campaign staff practice - is forced to practice, really - is demeaning to the process.

Cheney was White House Chief of Staff under Gerald Ford while he was in his 30's, pretty heavy executive experience. While a Congressman from Wyoming, he was elected House Republican Whip, pretty heavy legislative experience. He was selected to be the Secretary of Defense, pretty heavy foreign policy experience. He is the Chairman of the multinational engineering and construction services firm, Halliburton, pretty heavy business experience.

The Democrats are focusing a laser beam on Cheney's voting record in the Congress. A conservative voting record. Democrats don't tend to be conservatives (conservative Democrats have all become Republicans) so they see any deviation from their doctrine as "extreme."

Let us remember the "extreme" voting positions of Congressman Al Gore on matters like abortion, tobacco, and gun control. Oh, that voting record doesn't count.

The Democrats are also trying to sell the story that Cheney, having been Secretary of Defense under President George Bush, is somehow flawed. Cheney was the Secretary of Defense during a shooting war that we won, with a minimum of US casualties and a maximum of effect on Iraq who were tossed out of Kuwait, which was the purpose of the exercise.

The Democrats are trying make a case that Bush and Cheney are both "Texans involved in big oil." Halliburton, of which Cheney is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer is not an "oil company" whose competitors are Exxon and Texaco.

Halliburton is an engineering and construction company whose principal competitor is Bechtel. Halliburton makes the things which make recovering, refining, and transporting petroleum easier which makes gasoline cheaper for everyone. That is a good thing.

When Cheney was proposed as Defense Secretary one senator said, "I want to tell you how much your colleagues and former colleagues who had the privilege of serving with you in the House, as I did, before coming to the Senate, respect you and wish you well in this new endeavor to come. I applaud the choice and congratulate the President for the choice."

That Senator was, of course, Al Gore who will probably claim he didn't know that Cheney was being proposed for Secretary of Defense because there were no guns, planes, ships, or tanks in the room at the time.

For a sampling of Democratic praise for Secretary-designate Cheney, go here.

And interesting side story: Cheney succeeded then-Congressman Trent Lott (now Senate Majority Leader) as the Republican Whip in the House when Lott won election to the Senate from Mississippi. As the GOP was in the minority, Whip was the second highest position among House Republicans.

After Texas Senator John Tower was denied confirmation for the Defense post in 1989, President Bush tapped Cheney which created a vacancy in the Republican House hierarchy. Two men ran for Cheney's post: Congressman Ed Madigan of Illinois and Congressman Newt Gingrich of Georgia.

Gingrich won that election by a single vote to become Republican Whip and a senior Member of the House Republican Leadership. Five years later, Gingrich became the Speaker of the House.

If Cheney had not gone to the Pentagon, there might well have been no path to a leadership post for Gingrich to follow.

Democrats and Republicans were all over television and radio yesterday proclaiming the deep, true meaning of the Cheney choice.

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