AGNEW ON CRACK

Liz Cheney went on Fox News Sunday yesterday and said that the job discussion between Joe Sestak and Bill Clinton "just smells funny." To Digby, this is a sign that we're heading back to the future:

It's all there, even down to the "it just smells funny" routine. Earlier this week on the Mclaughlin Report, the increasingly agitated Monica Crowley accused the administration of a cover-up and they were all shrieking for an "independent counsel."

... what it signals is a return to the Clinton Rules and the scandal politics of the past. Regardless of whether or not any particular scandal takes hold, the way this works is by the cut of a thousand deaths.

...it's just a political assault from all angles designed to weaken the enemy over time until they can go in for the kill.

Digby isn't sure how far the right can go with this. Zandar is a lot more certain:

With the economy getting worse in 2011, no matter who's running the House, the Republicans will demand Obama be impeached. And yes, Liz Cheney will make her bones off the drive to send Obama to prison for the crime of not being a Republican.

They will go all in on Obama Derangement Syndrome. The bad part is there's a fair chance of it working.

Working? Yes, I could certainly imagine an impeachment vote succeeding if (as I suspect) the economy remains lousy through 2011 and if Republicans have won the House back -- though, again, without a supermajority in the Senate (and probably without a simple majority), it's extremely unlikely that Republicans could get the votes to convict on whatever trumped-up charges are in the articles of impeachment. It's also possible that House Republicans will think that a constant air of scandal is much more useful to them than an actual impeachment -- look how the last impeachment made the sheeple rally around that liberal pervert Clinton! Besides, not impeaching Obama, and suggesting that the deck is stacked against impeachment and conviction, will make it seem to the rabid GOP base as if there's still an unfair liberal bias in the system that's preventing Justice and Right and Truth from prevailing. (Making right-wing voters feel that the system is unfair is very useful for generating voter enthusiasm for the next election cycle.)

So I'm guessing that Republicans will probably keep the notion out there, on the front burner, but not act on it. Though you never know.

Digby's right about this:

I can't help but wonder whether or not the likes of Liz Cheney would so arrogantly shoot her mouth off if the Democrats hadn't decided that there was no need to look in the rearview mirror at the mayhem created by her father's bloodthirsty, corrupt regime. It might make these people think twice if they were held to the same standard they hold others.

And the irony is that Republicans absolutely aren't going to return the favor if they win back both houses of Congress and the White House in the next two election cycles. It's going to be open season on the Obama administration if he's gone and hasn't been punished. There isn't going to be a quid pro quo.

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Digby adds:

You can see the ambition rolling off of Cheney in waves. She's going to run at some point, I have no doubt. And she makes Palin look like a frisky little kitten by comparison. She is the most dangerous woman in America.

I agree -- and I have a crazy hunch about what office she's going to seek.

I keep looking at the GOP field for 2012 and thinking, Who's going to be the person with foreign policy experience who balances the likely governor or ex-governor at the top of the ticket? Are they going to be stuck with Gingrich as #2 for Romney or Huckabee or Palin or Pawlenty (or a Bobby Jindal whose career is revived by the BP oil spill)?

And then it occurred to me: Liz Cheney.

Sure, why not? To us she's a dangerous rage addict. But to the casual swing voter, she'll be just a mom -- but a mom with State Department experience who seems able to talk seriously about issues. She'll be a verbally adroit attack dog of the kind that Democrats never have the sense to put on their tickets. She'll lend crackle to a ticket headed by a Huckabee or a Pawlenty or a Jindal. And while she wouldn't seem very different from Palin demographically, that would be the point -- two angry moms! Two pit bulls with lipstick! The press would go wild!

Could a ticket like that win? If we head into a double dip recession, Dan freaking Quayle could probably win in 2012.

As I say, it's a hunch, nothing more.

But I'm scaring myself with it.