Cheney sides with Limbaugh, not Powell
Published: May 11, 2009, 12:30 am
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WASHINGTON—Dick Cheney made clear Sunday that he would rather follow firebrand broadcaster Rush Limbaugh than former Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell into political battle over the future of the Republican Party.
Even as Cheney embraced efforts to expand the party by ex-Govs. Jeb Bush of Florida and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and the House’s second-ranking Republican, Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, the former vice president appeared to write his one-time colleague Powell out of the GOP.
Asked about recent verbal broadsides between Limbaugh and Powell, Cheney said, “If I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I’d go with Rush Limbaugh. My take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn’t know he was still a Republican.”
Powell, who was secretary of state in the first term of President George W. Bush and held the nation’s top military post under Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president last year. Nonetheless, since the election he has described himself as a Republican and a right-of-center conservative, though “not as right as others would like.”
Cheney, citing Powell’s backing of Obama over Republican nominee John McCain, said, “I assumed that that is some indication of his loyalty and his interests.”
The former vice president’s remarks on CBS’ “Face the Nation” were the latest step in his slow-motion estrangement from Powell since the two worked closely together to manage the Persian Gulf War in 1991 — Powell as the Army general who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Cheney as defense secretary for the elder Bush.
Powell and Cheney increasingly parted ways over the younger Bush’s policies concerning the war on terrorism, with Cheney usually prevailing.
Powell has argued that the Republican Party needs to move toward the center and reach out to growing black, Hispanic and Asian communities but that it has been shrinking instead because it hasn’t changed its approach the way the country has in the face of economic distress. “Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less,” Powell said last week.
For months, Powell has urged the party to turn away from the acid-tongued Limbaugh. “I think what Rush does as an entertainer diminishes the party and intrudes or inserts into our public life a kind of nastiness that we would be better to do without,” Powell said of the radio talk-show host.
Limbaugh said Powell is “just mad at me because I’m the one person in the country that had the guts to explain his endorsement of Obama. It was purely and solely based on race.” Both Powell and Obama are black.
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