Sally Quinn thinks vice-president Dick Cheney should be forced out of office.
Do you know you Sally Quinn is? You should. She’s a big shot…a blue blood…even a king maker. Her father was Lt. Gen. William Wilson “Buffalo Bill” Quinn, a man that played a big role in creating the CIA and later commanded the Seventh Army in Germany during the 1960’s. Her mother was a well known socialite in Washington DC. After graduating from Smith College in 1963, Quinn became a reporter for the Washington Post. In 1978, Ms. Quinn married the then executive editor, Ben Bradlee, who had been a member of naval intelligence during WWII. Here’s a little more about Bradlee:
In 1952 Bradlee joined the staff of the Office of U.S. Information and Educational Exchange (USIE), the [Paris] embassy’s propaganda unit. USIE produced films, magazines, research, speeches, and news items for use by the CIA throughout Europe. USIE (later known as USIA) also controlled the Voice of America, a means of disseminating pro-American “cultural information” worldwide. While at the USIE Bradlee worked with E. Howard Hunt and Fred Friendly.
…Bradlee was officially employed by USIE until 1953, when he began working for Newsweek. While based in France, Bradlee divorced his first wife and married Antoinette Pinchot. At the time of the marriage, Antoinette’s sister, Mary Pinchot Meyer, was married to Cord Meyer, a key figure in Operation Mockingbird, a CIA program to influence the media.
Antoinette Bradlee was also a close friend of Cicely d’Autremont, who was married to James Jesus Angleton. Bradlee worked closely with Angleton in Paris. At the time Angleton was liaison for all Allied intelligence in Europe. His deputy was Richard Ober, a fellow student of Bradlee’s at Harvard University.
France eventually expelled Bradlee for conducting what they considered ‘intelligence activities’ in Algeria.
Bradlee and Quinn have some familiarity with messing with presidents that go astray. Bradlee oversaw the work of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein during Watergate. And Quinn went on a warpath against Bill Clinton after his affair with Monica Lewinsky was alleged. Harry Jaffe explained it at the time.
And then we have Sally Quinn, the self-appointed arbiter of Washington’s social scene. Since the White House scandal story broke in mid-January, Quinn has gabbed on the networks and cable channels, passing judgment on the president and hissing at first lady Hillary Rodman Clinton.
“If you consider the life of Bill Clinton,” she said on “60 Minutes,” “whenever he leaves the White House, he’s going to get on a plane, and where is he going to go?”
“What do you mean?” a baffled Mike Wallace asked.
“Well, he — he doesn’t even have a home,” she sniffed. “I mean, when you think about it, he’s homeless. I mean, they’ve lived in sort of government properties all their lives.”
What Quinn really means is that from her elitist perch, President Clinton is poor white trash — a homeless, rootless Bubba. No doubt this helps explains why he goes for women with big hair, and it allows Quinn to convince herself that he and Monica did unspeakable things in the Oval Office, even though there is as yet no proof.
But Quinn reveals her truly witchy ways when she talks about the first lady. She paints Hillary Clinton as a sad case, trapped in a lousy marriage, “floundering around in the last couple of years to try to find some project for herself.”
Actually, it could be said that Sally Quinn has been floundering around for the last couple of decades, when she failed first as a journalist, then as a novelist, before emerging as a hostess in a Washington society that even she admits is in its death throes. Which brings us to a central question: Who appointed Quinn as the mouthpiece for the permanent Washington establishment, if there is such an animal? A peek into Quinn’s motives reveals a hidden political agenda and the venom of a hostess scorned, and ultimately, an aging semi-journalist propped up by a cadre of media buddies, carping at the Clintons because they wouldn’t kiss her ring.
About kissing that ring.
According to society sources, Sally invited Hillary to a luncheon when the Clintons came to town in 1993. Sally stocked her guest list with her best buddies and prepared to usher the first lady into the capital’s social whirl. Apparently, Hillary didn’t accept. Miffed, Sally wrote a catty piece in the Post about Mrs. Clinton. Hillary made sure that Quinn rarely made it into the White House dinners or social events.
In return, Sally started talking trash about Hillary to her buddies, and her animus became a staple of the social scene. “There’s just something about her that pisses people off,” Quinn is quoted as saying in a New Yorker article about Hillary.
Quinn penned a memorable column in November 1998, wherein she laid out in embarrassing detail the prevailing sentiments of the Washington elite. For example:
“He [Clinton] came in here and he trashed the place,” says Washington Post columnist David Broder, “and it’s not his place.”
So, it is interesting to see Quinn call for Cheney’s head in today’s Post.
The big question right now among Republicans is how to remove Vice President Cheney from office. Even before this week’s blockbuster series in The Post, discontent in Republican ranks was rising.
As the reputed architect of the war in Iraq, Cheney is viewed as toxic, and as the administration’s leading proponent of an attack on Iran, he is seen as dangerous. As long as he remains vice president, according to this thinking, he has the potential to drag down every member of the party — including the presidential nominee — in next year’s elections.
As will become clear, Quinn hasn’t really thought this through. Also, before we continue, I’d like to note that Richard Nixon resigned on August 8, 1974, and not in 1973.
Removing a sitting vice president is not easy, but this may be the moment. I remember Barry Goldwater sitting in my parents’ living room in 1973, in the last days of Watergate, debating whether to lead a group of senior Republicans to the White House to tell President Nixon he had to go. His hesitation was that he felt loyalty to the president and the party. But in the end he felt a greater loyalty to his country, and he went to the White House.
Removing a sitting vice-president is definitely not easy. The president cannot legally fire him or force him to resign. He can only be legally removed by the impeachment process. Of course, he might agree to resign if that is what the president wanted. But, John Warner?
Today, another group of party elders, led by Sen. John Warner of Virginia, could well do the same. They could act out of concern for our country’s plummeting reputation throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East.
Dick Cheney is not going to listen to the bitching of a delegation of senators. But Quinn’s plan gets worse.
For such a plan to work, however, they would need a ready replacement. Until recently, there hasn’t been an acceptable alternative to Cheney — nor has there been a persuasive argument to convince President Bush to make a change. Now there is.
The idea is to install a vice president who could beat the Democratic nominee in 2008.
First of all, can anyone tell me who LBJ’s vice-president was between the assassination of JFK and the selection of Hubert Humphrey as his running mate in late August 1964? I didn’t think so. Secondly, any replacement for Dick Cheney must be confirmed by the Democratically controlled Senate. Do you think they think ‘the idea is to install a vice-president who could beat the Democratic nominee in 2008’? Quinn seems oblivious to these facts. So, she calls for the vice-coronation of…wait for it…former Senator Fred Thompson. Quinn considers and rejects Rudy Guiliani, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. Then she makes her pitch for Fred.
That leaves Fred Thompson. Everybody loves Fred. He has the healing qualities of Gerald Ford and the movie-star appeal of Ronald Reagan. He is relatively moderate on social issues. He has a reputation as a peacemaker and a compromiser. And he has a good sense of humor.
He could be just the partner to bring out Bush’s better nature — or at least be a sensible voice of reason. I could easily imagine him telling the president, “For God’s sake, do not push that button!” — a command I have a hard time hearing Cheney give.
Not only that, Thompson would give the Republicans a platform for running for the presidency — and the president a way out of Iraq without looking like he’s backing down. Bush would be left in better shape on the war and be able to concentrate on AIDS and the environment in hopes of salvaging his legacy.
How many ways is this wrong or delusional? Just because your far right stance on abortion is considered by many to be opportunistic and insincere does not make you ‘moderate on social issues’. And George W. Bush is never going to work on the environment to ‘salvage his legacy’. And the Democrats would never agree to give Fred Thompson the advantage of incumbency…and if they did it would hardly turn Thompson into a ‘peacemaker’.
Sally concludes.
Cheney is scheduled this summer for surgery to replace his pacemaker, which needs new batteries. So if the president is willing, and Republicans are able, they have a convenient reason to replace him: doctor’s orders. And I’m sure the the vice president would also like to spend more time with his ever-expanding family.
The Washington Post, where Ben Bradlee is still vice-president, seems to be engaging in a war on Dick Cheney. In addition to the four-part expose and Sally Quinn’s fatwa, Eugene Robinson weighs in with some bitter condemnation of the VeePee. Considering Bradlee/Quinn’s roles in forcing the resignation of one president and pushing the impeachment of another, Dick Cheney should take notice. He’s on the Georgetown Cocktail Set’s hit-list.
