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Of isolation, monkey labor, and Liz Cheney

By Nancy Ford

How’s the year going for you?

So far so good here. Thank the Good Lord and my sweet and perpetually hand-washing partner, I’ve managed to avoid the covid. 

Not to brag, but I’ve got this isolation thing down, cold. Except for the peeing-in-jars thing, that Howard Hughes guy may have been on to something. 

With only a few glorious exceptions with my interaction with other humans for the past 12 months has been limited to biweekly trips to my favorite Kroger. Then the greedy corporate bastards closed that down, too. 

But I digress. The relentless gentrification purge and cultural bleaching of my Montrose is another topic for another column.

Less than two months in, 2021 has already provided a number of surprises. 

Who among us would have expected to add “forced monkey labor†into a list of phrases that would occupy space in our already overpopulated brains? Probably no one. Yet here we are. Norma Rae meets Planet of the Apes.

And here’s another phrase most of us never expected to utter: Good for Liz Cheney.

You remember Liz, Dick Cheney’s daughter. He’s the guy who was George W. Bush’s vice president, famous for several things: he shot his hunting companion in the face with a shotgun, and the got the guy he shot to apologize to him. That’s Dick. 

Then after leaving office he had about a hundred heart attacks, and now he has an artificial pump that allegedly runs on coal. That’s Dick. 

Oh, and he was largely responsible for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Yep, that’s Dick.

For the most part, Liz didn’t fall far from the Dick tree. She has been U.S. Representive Liz Cheney (R-WY) since 2017, continuing her family’s legacy of pulling political strings as a duly elected D.C. puppetmaster. I mean, as a duly elected official.

To fall in line with the extreme, Revival-Tent-versus-Big-Tent, alt-right faction of the Republican Party, Liz has long taken an anti-marriage equality stance. 

Fun fact: Wyoming’s nickname is the “Equality State†(cough). 

“I don’t believe we ought to discriminate against people because of their sexual orientation,†she generously told FOX News during one of her early campaigns. “If people are in a same-sex relationship and they want their partner to be able to have health benefits or be designated as a beneficiary in your life insurance, there’s no reason we shouldn’t do that. 

“I also don’t support amending the Constitution on this issue,” Liz continued, her feet dangling limply on both sides of the equality fence. “I do believe in the traditional definition of marriage.” 

The next thing we heard was the sound of her sister Mary’s head exploding.

Mary Cheney, you may recall, is a lesbian. She legally married her wife, Heather Poe, way back in 2012. The couple has two children together. She probably drives a Subaru.

Nonetheless, Mary’s marriage and family fell short of Auntie Liz’s definition of traditional.

“For the record, I love my sister, but she is dead wrong on the issue of marriage,†Mary generously responded at the time. “Freedom means freedom for everyone. That means that all families — regardless of how they look or how they are made — are entitled to the same rights, privileges and protections as every other.â€

Needless to say, Liz Cheney’s toxic conservatism and lack of compassion for her own sister earned what I expected would be my undying contempt. 

Until 2021.

In the aftermath of the January 6 attack on the Capitol by wild-eyed neo-Nazi domestic terrorists, Liz and nine of her Republican colleagues had the courage to lay the blame where it belongs: right at Trump’s feet.  

“The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President,†she said after the deadly riot. “The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution. I will vote to impeach the President.â€

Naturally, Liz now faces not only death threats but also condemnation by a majority of her Republican peers. 

She is now the GOP’s standard-bearer for common sense and love of country. From zero to hero. 

I’m not sure what Liz’s current stance is on marriage equality, but I hope she’s evolved. I hope she and Mary have patched things up. I hope she is re-elected, if that’s what she wants.

Good for Liz Cheney. 

Wow, that tastes weird.

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