Oath And Honor: A Memoir And A Warning
By
Leonard Zwelling
This is going to be a tough blog to write because I know it will annoy many of my readers who honestly believe that voting for Donald Trump again is a good idea.
Oath and Honor is the new book by former member of the House Liz Cheney (R-WY) who is indeed the daughter of Dick Cheney, the former vice president.
As I was reading the book, I earmarked many pages and underlined specific passages that I was going to use in this blog. I decided against that approach for the book’s subtitle says everything that needs to be said. This is a documentation of Ms. Cheney’s experience as a member of the House during the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and then her service as vice chair of the House committee that investigated the attack, its sources, and its protagonists.
In short, over the more than 300 pages, Ms. Cheney makes a compelling and thoroughly documented case that Donald Trump should never be allowed near the Oval Office again. Yet, with each passing day, Mr. Trump’s return to power seems more and more inevitable.
Why?
First, the current occupant of the White House is viewed as old, infirm, detached, and ineffective. I have had readers of this blog make impassioned pleas for Mr. Biden’s return to the White House in 2024 based on his many accomplishments. Frankly, I found these pleas wanting. Yes, he has gotten some things done, particularly his infrastructure plans, but he flooded the economy with government largesse that brought us inflation and his claimed foreign policy expertise is not panning out in Afghanistan, Ukraine, or the Middle East. At best, Biden is a so-so president. Meh!
Second, most Americans felt better about the country in 2019 than they do now. Again, this may not be fair given the plague that was Covid, but it is true. Mr. Biden’s approval rating is around 40% and that will not get you re-elected. He’s just not respected or trusted. I am going to guess that he will be noted as a temporary place holder in history, especially if Mr. Trump wins in 2024.
Three, Mr. Biden has stubbornly shown an unwillingness to address the reality of his age, his unpopularity, and his vulnerability to a Trump attack on the campaign trail, let alone in a one-on-one debate.
Representative Cheney meticulously goes through all the crimes committed by Donald Trump, the most heinous of which was the active interference in the peaceful transfer of power after a fair election. He is the first president in the history of the country to try to block the lawful inauguration of his opponent.
I really do get the appeal of Mr. Trump. He has simple answers to complicated problems like walls to stop illegal immigrants. Complicated problems have simple answers, and they’re wrong.
I agree with Ms. Cheney. Mr. Trump is a danger to the American democracy and our system of shared governance between the three branches. If he gets another chance at power, he will not make the mistake of surrounding himself with competent people who could serve as checks to his power as he did in 2016. Rather he will stock the cabinet and his staff with sycophants like Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell as well as his other co-indictees in Georgia.
Donald Trump is a danger to the Republic. Unfortunately, as this blog has written before, so is Joe Biden.
The solution is clear. But it will require the efforts of many patriots to make it real.
First, somehow, Nikki Haley has to win in South Carolina and the Republican Party needs to come to its senses and return to its values of strong defense, unfettered economic growth, and low taxes. If every Republican in Congress reversed course and backed Haley, this could happen.
Then Mr. Biden needs to wake up from his nap and announce his retirement while there is still time for a Democratic primary fight.
Short of this, as Ms. Cheney outlines at the end of her book, Donald Trump will regain the presidency and end American democracy as we know it.
Given that I tend to be a realist, my guess is that Trump will win and all I can do is hope Ms. Cheney is wrong in her predictions.
But I don’t think she is.
4 thoughts on “Oath And Honor: A Memoir And A Warning”
We plan to vote for Nikki Haley in the South Carolina Primary, even though we are recently Independents leaning Democrat. (As younger voters, we were moderate Republicans.)
Nikki is bright, experienced, and youthful in a ways that our nation needs. All the billionaires who will be supporting her this weekend in NYC should have the means to send Trump to “Mar-a-Lago Heaven” and move our nation towards the best future. Someone has to be clever enough to get both these old men off the stage.
Amen
Toward the end of your blog, you long for a return to strong defense, low taxes, And a strong economy. That sounds like the four years under Donald Trump.
If he doesn’t undermine the government first