Monday, January 06, 2014

One Presumes They May Be of the Mental Kind

Item: Liz Cheney to quit Wyoming Senate race.

WASHINGTON -- Liz Cheney, citing "serious health issues" in her family, is ending her campaign for a U.S. Senate seat in Wyoming.

A statement by the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney does not specify whose health has become problematic or the nature of the issue, but implies that one of her children is involved.

The announcement Monday comes nearly six months after Cheney picked a surprise fight within the Republican Party by challenging three-term incumbent Sen. Mike Enzi. The effort quickly became shadowed by a dispute within her own family over same-sex marriage.

The implication that it might be one of her children having health trouble comes from a statement averring how she entered the race to secure the future health and well-being of her kids. The implication, of course, is that she’s leaving because that is now threatened.

Naturally, this has nothing to do with the fact that she trails incumbent Senator Mike Enzi by 50 points, or has embarrassed her entire family with her reactionary stance on gay marriage.

Despite decades of public service pere et jeune filles, the Cheneys value their privacy. Just not anyone else’s, I guess.

And despite pere et jeune fille being the darling of conservatives for decades, Cheney has run into a brick wall of opposition from establishment Republicans in her ham-handed challenge to Enzi, who is also a deeply conservative…possibly the very definition of “rock-ribbed”…conservative. Even a Cheney, even in Wyoming, can overstep a boundary every now and then.

Of course, we wish the Cheney clan health and that whatever is challenging them at this time should pass quickly, but I can’t help that I get the feeling there’s a deeper emotional issue at stake. You don’t get this deeply in denial about what life is all about without being really screwed up.