Dick Cheney, former Vice President, recently released a video attacking Donald Trump.  It was a vicious assault.  Cheney said that “In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual that was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.”  Cheney also called Trump a coward and a liar for knowing that he had lost the election yet trying to deceive his followers to believe he had won.

It made me sad to listen to Dick Cheney.  I respect him as a patriot.  Nevertheless, despite my respect, I believe he is very wrong in his assessment of Trump.

First, I do not believe Donald Trump is a threat to the republic.  Following tabulation of the 2020 voting results, some of his more rabid supporters urged him to undertake drastic measures to deal with what they believed to be a rigged election, but he rejected their advice.  Also, suggestions that the January 6^th riots amounted to a Trump inspired insurrection collapse upon close examination.  How many rioters carried firearms?  How many of them used them?  Did Trump, with his “march peacefully and lawfully” admonition, urge them to storm the capitol?

As for the election, did Trump, as Cheney accuses him, know that he had lost?  On the contrary, I believe that Trump believed he had won, and I think he still believes that.  There is much evidence of widespread election chicanery; but even without that, the willful suppression of derogatory information about the Biden family had a profound effect on the outcome.  Considering all the facts, Trump may have been correct in thinking he had been cheated out of victory.

More than most men, Cheney should sympathize with Trump on the question of who won the election.  During and after the Iraq war Cheney was called a liar for insisting that Iraq had a stockpile of deadly chemical and bacteriological weapons.  As it turned out, Iraq did not.  Was Cheney a liar?  I think not. I believe he was a victim of bad intelligence.  Even assuming that Biden was the clear election winner, could not Cheney concede that Trump may also have been a victim of bad intelligence?  Why label him a coward and a liar?

The real purpose of Dick Cheney’s video was to express support for his daughter’s re-election to the House of Representatives.  The Wyoming primary takes place this month, and Liz Cheney is in difficult straits.  Trump supporters are out to defeat her.  She brought this on herself by becoming a very active member of the small Republican cabal that is seeking to end the political life of Donald Trump.  She destroyed her credibility among most Republicans by serving as vice-chair of Pelosi’s January 6 Committee and cooperating with persons like inveterate liar Adam Schiff in the committee’s extremely prejudiced and unfair proceedings.

Watch for the August 16 results in Wyoming.