Is Dick Cheney a Sith Lord?

That’s the undertone of Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin’s article about the widespread criticism of Dick Cheney’s suggestion that those who voted for Ned Lamont are aiding and abetting terrorists. Froomkin: “Cheney … may have crossed the line that separates legitimate political discourse from hysteria.”

Washington Post:

By insinuating that the sizeable majority of American voters who oppose the war in Iraq are aiding and abetting the enemy, Vice President Cheney on Wednesday may have crossed the line that separates legitimate political discourse from hysteria.

Cheney’s comments came in a highly unusual conference call with reporters, part of an extensively orchestrated and largely successful Republican effort to spin the obviously anti-Bush message of Ned Lamont’s victory over presidential enabler Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic Senate primary.

In making the case that Lieberman’s defeat was actually an enormous boost for Republicans, the customarily furtive vice president let loose not with compelling argument, but unsupported invective.

… I’m not a Washington Post political reporter, but Jonathan Weisman is, and here’s what he had to say in a Live Online discussion last week:

“Medford, Mass.: Exactly how is it that our sitting Vice President can get away with saying basically that people who exercised their constitutional right to vote for change (ie: Conn. primary) are helping terrorists? How is this not the headline of a story, instead of a footnote?

“Jonathan Weisman: The vice president also said the insurgency in Iraq is in its death throes, and that U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators. I’m afraid to say his utterances are losing their news value.”

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