As predicted, the temptation proved too great.
For a couple of weeks now, I have been publicly critical of Liz Cheney’s decision to stump for Kamala Harris. My argument has been that endorsing a candidate and stumping for a candidate are different things, and that, once one starts campaigning as part of a team, the temptation to shed or attenuate one’s true convictions becomes acute. In early October, I wrote:
I do not begrudge Liz Cheney her decision to endorse Kamala Harris. I do not question her sincerity in doing so, either. If, as she claims, Cheney believes that Donald Trump has not merely disqualified himself from consideration but represents a tangible threat to the U.S. Constitution, then the course she has chosen is the rational one.
That notwithstanding, I argued that Cheney’s decision to campaign for Harris was a bad idea for this reason:
Campaigning is an all-or-nothing activity. In a statement, one can convey nuanced ideas. In a statement, one can easily contend that one strongly disagrees with a given politician but that one intends to vote for that politician nevertheless. In a statement, one can keep as much distance as one likes. On the stump? Not so much. Stumps are agitated, zealous, monomaniacal places that demand the assiduous downplaying of differences and the careless showering of adulation. Expressing her support for Harris in Wisconsin this week, Cheney conceded that the pair “may disagree on some things” and “may not see eye to eye on every issue,” before proposing that Harris would be “a president that can inspire our children.” Which . . . well, which is absolutely ridiculous, isn’t it? “We may disagree on some things” is a fine and useful phrase, but, for all its advantages, it is not one that can be credibly used to describe a person who the speaker is on record believing is a “radical” who “sounds just like Karl Marx,” who wants to “recreate America in the image of what’s happening on the streets of Portland & Seattle,” and who must not be given “the chance” to exercise power. That Cheney has shifted from attacking Harris without reservation to transparently euphemizing her critiques will make some observers wonder which of the two accounts is the real one — or, worse, if either is.
I think that I have been proven right. Here is the Guardian, in a piece titled “Liz Cheney urges conservatives to back Kamala Harris over abortion,” describing this week’s Harris-Cheney events in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania:
Liz Cheney, a former Republican congresswoman and longtime opponent of abortion rights, on Monday condemned Republican-imposed bans on the procedure and urged conservatives to support Democrat Kamala Harris for US president.
For anyone who is familiar with Liz Cheney’s history on abortion, that sentence is extremely jarring. And I’m afraid that it doesn’t become any less so when one gets to the details:
At the final event in Waukesha, Wisconsin, against a blue backdrop patterned with the words “country over party”, Cheney, 58, suggested that Republican-led states have overreached in restricting abortion since the supreme court’s 2022 Dobbs decision ended it as a constitutional right.
“I’m pro-life and I have been very troubled, deeply troubled by what I have watched happen in so many states since Dobbs,” said the former Wyoming congresswoman and daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney. “I have been troubled by the extent to which you have women who – as the vice-president said, in some cases have died – who can’t get medical treatment that they need because providers are worried about criminal liability.”
This position is incompatible with Cheney’s record. In February 2021 — that’s just two and a half years ago — Cheney proudly co-sponsored a bill that sought to impose a national abortion ban from “the moment of fertilization.” The bill was titled the “Life at Conception Act,” and it sought “to implement equal protection under the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution for the right to life of each born and preborn human person.” Had it passed, Cheney’s bill would not only have preempted the abortion laws of all 50 states, but it would have done so on the grounds that the Constitution mandated such a preemption. This, I think it is fair to say, represents about the strictest pro-life position that is possible to have. (For my criticism of the constitutionality of federal abortion laws of any sort, see here and here.)
Apologists for Cheney have advanced two defenses of her remarks. The first defense is that CNN misreported her position when it claimed that she had criticized the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs per se, rather than the state-level legislation that resulted from that decision. This defense is correct, albeit somewhat pedantic. Cheney did not criticize Dobbs; she criticized the laws that she knew were going to be passed, hoped were going to be passed, and, in her home state, had already been passed, once Roe was overturned. Hurrah?
(If we’re going to be pedantic about Cheney’s words, and/or use them as a proxy for her integrity, I might point out that, when Dobbs was issued, she said that “today’s ruling by the Supreme Court returns power to the states and the people of the states to address the issue of abortion under state law” — which, given that she was also trying to pass a supposedly constitutionally mandatory federal ban, was not her view at all.)
The second defense is that Cheney was talking only about certain provisions within certain post-Dobbs laws. In its write-up, the Guardian provides the quote that is being recruited to this case:
The current situation is “untenable”, Cheney said, and America needs a president “who understands how important compassion is, who understands that these shouldn’t be political issues, that we ought to be able to have these discussions and say, ‘You know what? Even if you are pro-life, as I am, I do not believe, for example, that the state of Texas ought to have the right, as they’re currently suing to do, to get access to women’s medical records.’
I find this second defense entirely unpersuasive. First: In both Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Cheney’s reported remarks came immediately after Harris had promised to sign a federal law guaranteeing the right to an abortion well into the third trimester — and in neither case did Cheney say anything to push back against it. Second, Cheney’s off-the-bat criticism in Wisconsin was of “so many states,” and in Pennsylvania it was of “our states.” Those are sweeping condemnations, not specific ones. Third: In Wisconsin, Cheney proposed that “you have women who — as the vice-president said, in some cases have died — who can’t get medical treatment that they need.” That, quite obviously, is an endorsement of a brazen Harris-campaign lie about a woman who died in Georgia that no pro-lifer should be repeating. (See our debunking here, here, here, here, and here.) Fourth: While I am open to criticisms of the way in which some post-Dobbs laws have been written and implemented, I am less interested in hearing this case from Liz Cheney than from others because, unlike many of her champions, I’ve read through the text of the bill that Cheney supported back in 2021. That bill was extremely short and extremely blunt. Here it is, in full:
To implement equal protection under the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution for the right to life of each born and preborn human person.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. Short title.
This Act may be cited as the “Life at Conception Act”.
SEC. 2. Right to life.
To implement equal protection for the right to life of each born and preborn human person, and pursuant to the duty and authority of the Congress, including Congress’ power under article I, section 8, to make necessary and proper laws, and Congress’ power under section 5 of the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the Congress hereby declares that the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being. However, nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize the prosecution of any woman for the death of her unborn child.
SEC. 3. Definitions.
For purposes of this Act:
(1) HUMAN PERSON; HUMAN BEING.—The terms “human person” and “human being” include each and every member of the species homo sapiens at all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.
(2) STATE.—The term “State” used in the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States and other applicable provisions of the Constitution includes the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and each other territory or possession of the United States.
This is not the sort of bill that one attaches oneself to if one cares about detail. Sure, one could say that it was just a start, and that, if it had passed, the minutiae would inevitably have been worked out by Congress in separate legislation or by the federal courts in litigation. But . . . well, that working-out-of-the-details is exactly what’s happening in the states right now, isn’t it? Roe was in force for nearly 50 years. When it fell — as it absolutely should have — there was a scramble to react to the change. That scramble has been messy. Are we really supposed to believe that the legislation that we have seen in the states has caused more confusion than Cheney’s vaguer and stricter law would have? It seems obvious to me that, had Cheney got her way, we would have seen all manner of complexities, unanswered questions, and unforeseen circumstances — and, given its time frame, we would have seen them from fertilization. Do we truly think that, in such a situation, Kamala Harris would have been silent? Do we think she’d have forsworn hyperbole, exaggeration, and even outright lies? In essence, Cheney is condemning the states for experiencing precisely the same host of criticisms that, if she had prevailed, would have attended her own attempt at an abortion ban. I find that disgraceful.
Unless Liz Cheney has changed her mind. That is, unless Liz Cheney has concluded that pro-life legislation either does not work or is not worth the aggravation to get right. If she has, that is her prerogative. If she has, then there is nothing wrong with her otherwise inexplicable decision to take the stage at a Democratic rally and use the opportunity to criticize pro-lifers. But one cannot have this both ways: If she has changed her mind, then the core argument that is being offered in her defense falls apart. Ultimately, to take Cheney’s words at face value is to admit just three options: Either (a) Cheney stands by the law she co-sponsored in 2021 — in which case her criticisms are absurd and hypocritical and opportunistic; or (b) she has changed her mind about the issue recently — in which case she has, indeed, moved toward her favored candidate; or (c) she never believed what she was saying — in which case she’s a fraud.
Which is why I do not, in fact, take what Liz Cheney said at her pro-Harris rallies at face value. As I have from the outset, I think that this is what inevitably happens when a politician who is accustomed to being on a team decides to actively stump for a candidate rather than to endorse them without extended comment. A couple of weeks ago, I lamented the temptation that comes along with stumping. “Stumps,” I wrote, “are agitated, zealous, monomaniacal places that demand the assiduous downplaying of differences.” The danger, I suggested, was that Cheney would end up “transparently euphemizing her critiques.” And so she has. Not only has Kamala Harris gone from being a dangerous Marxist radical to “a president that can inspire our children,” but Harris’s mendacious criticisms of pro-lifers are now being endorsed on stage. At one of her rallies, Kamala Harris described Cheney’s actions as “courageous.” Alas, that’s not the word I’d have used.