I was never a huge fan of Liz Cheney, since I thought she’d risen to a position of authority because of daddy. Nepotism in politics is normal, particularly if your last name is Kennedy, but normal is not necessarily good. I agreed with her on national security issues, her neo-conservative approach to foreign intervention, and what I believed to be her social conservatism. To be honest, I thought she was a little squishy on life issues because her primary focus was on fiscal conservatism and hawkish foreign policy, but in an era where Nancy Pelosi was queen, I took what I could get. She just didn’t inspire.

Still, I was willing to live with it. We don’t elect heroes, we elect the people we think will serve our interests, and hope for the best. In the case of Cheney, those hopes were dashed the minute she started her petty personal feud with Donald Trump. In that moment, she became an avenging Liz of Arc, whose sole purpose in life was to make sure that he, his movement and his supporters were annihilated.

At this point you might be saying that I’m being completely unfair to the former Congresswoman from Wyoming, who was roundly defeated in the last election by people who saw through her vendetta and decided to elect “someone not named Liz.” You might think that she is heroic in trying to stop the GOP from reinstalling a dictator. You might think that the January 6th commission, at which she and Adam Kinzinger represented the only opposition voices to a phalanx of angry Democrats, was fair and balanced. You might find yourself in the very odd position of being a liberal who hates everything that you think Cheney once stood for but applauds her girl boss take-no-prisoners “I’m with Kamala” attitude.

If you see Liz Cheney through that lens, you will of course have a problem viewing her through mine. I’ll try and paint the picture for you in colors bold enough to attract your attention.

The Kamala-and-Liz-show currently touring the nation is a two woman cabaret event where this pant-suited Odd Couplet tries to convince persuadable voters that a hawkish Republican daughter of the man who was Bush’s shadow president and got us into a war with Iraq loves a liberal, woke, progressive female who thinks the Knights of Columbus is a domestic terror group. It’s interesting to watch the girls explain why we should forget everything they ever said about each other and accept the fact that their common hatred of Donald Trump and his supporters is enough. Erase that Etch-A-Sketch and start over! The enemy of my enemy is my gal-pal.

I don’t really care if Liz decides to shill for Kamala. Lots of Republicans have abandoned the party because they contend that it abandoned them and are sincere in their belief that a second Trump presidency will destroy the nation. I disagree with them, but I understand how they can reject his policies. I reject many of them myself, including his track record and announced future projects for immigration. They are, to me, deeply wrong.

What I have not done is push for people to vote for a woman who represents everything a social conservative should reject, which is why I don’t think Cheney was ever truly pro-life, even though she talked the good talk.

Cheney understands how it looks for her to get on the stage with the woman who wants to legalize abortion until the moment of birth and give her a giant political wet kiss. Cheney knows that those of us in the pro-life movement will view that as a betrayal of our values. This is how she addressed that when she was in Malvern the other night:

“There are many of us around the country who have been pro-life but who have watched what’s going on in our states since the Dobbs decision and have watched state legislatures put in place laws that are resulting in women not getting the care they need…That’s not sustainable for us as a country, and it has to change.”

While this seems radically pro-abortion to many of us in the pro-life movement, it pales in comparison to the rhetoric from Liz’s new best friend Kamala, who said this at the same event:

“I feel very strongly the government should not be telling any woman what to do with her body.” The clear message is that the government cannot tell a woman who decides the day before she is to give birth that she no longer wants to be a mama.

Add this to the recent revelation from Harris that under her administration there will be no religious exceptions for those who oppose abortion, and we can expect a country where Catholic doctors will be forced to violate their most fundamental beliefs in violation of the First Amendment.

That is Liz Cheney’s compromise for democracy. That is the world that she is trying to help create, in order to avoid what she believes to be fascism.

It is interesting to note that she suggested women could vote for Harris without telling anyone. This indicates that even she understands how difficult it is for women with deeply held moral beliefs to openly support someone like Harris. But that works both ways, as I said on TV.

There are a lot of women who have been shamed into silence, women who support Trump. No one has to know how they will be voting either, Liz. 

Christine Flowers is an attorney and lifelong Philadelphian. @flowerlady61