I have an important suggestion to make. Read on …….

Last night, I read the first third (100+ pages) of Liz Cheney’s recently released memoir, Oath and Honor. I call it a memoir, and in a way it is, but this book does not tell you the story of Liz Cheney’s life. In fact, so far (and I would guess this is true for the rest of the book, as well) I have learned virtually nothing about Cheney, except that she has a strong moral compass and the strength and willingness to act in accordance with it. There is nothing in this book about growing up in Wyoming (after being born in Wisconsin, as I heard her say last week), about being the daughter of a vice-president, of marriage and children, running for Congress, or any other such thing. There is also nothing in this book whatsoever about policy.

This book is about honesty, and loyalty to the concept of the United States as a country of laws, under a constitution. It is not about which laws are good laws, or about whether the Constitution is perfect or flawed. She is not arguing for any sort of revolution. She is arguing against all revolutionary concepts that require the breaching of that Constitution. I don’t think this is a conservative trait. It’s a moral stance.

Following a prologue, the book is divided into five parts. I have read the first two, titled “The Plot Against America” (homage to Philip Roth?) and “The Attack”. Still to be read are “A Plague of Cowardice”, “No Half Measures” and “The Relentless March of Evidence”. This book is about Donald Trump and his attempt to remain the President, irrespective of the results of the 2020 election, his failure to succeed and the impeachment that followed.

I read the first two sections of the book with my mouth open. It didn’t even occur to me to close it. The story Cheney tells is (a) very readable and intelligible, (b) remarkably concise, and (c) puts all those things that you have heard a thousand times and have become numb to in once place, so you can see them as a whole, and shudder at their implications.

The book, so far, is not only damning of Trump, and of some of his White House staffers. It is damning of his personal attorneys, from Rudy Giuliani, Sydney Powell, and John Eastman on down. And it is particularly damning of virtually all Republican members of the House and Senate of whom she speaks. So far the only House exceptions seem to be Illinois’ Adam Kinzinger and Texas’ Chip Roy. On the Senate side, so far (I expect this might change), Mitch McConnell is given, I would say, a grade of C-/D+, much higher than the grades she would give to most of her Republican colleagues.

The problem, as I glean from her writing, is simple. Trump, to stay in office, was making outrageous claims, even after 60 judges had rules against them. And, she says, most (virtually all?) of her colleagues either knew that his claims were bogus the day he made them, or that they had been unanimously show to be wrong by the courts and that once the legal challenges had been played out, they should be dropped. Yet, she said, virtually every Republican, irrespective of what they thought or even of what they were willing to say to her privately, publicly continued to give Trump’s false claims support and credence. This, she found surprising, disappointing and outrageous.

While she paints with a broad brush, she does single out three of her fellow members of Congress as being perhaps a step worse than the others. One is Kevin McCarthy, who she describes (my words) as a liar, a hypocrite, and as someone who knows right from wrong, but is too much afraid to act upon what he knows. The second is Mike Johnson, now the Speaker of the House, and the third is Jim Jordan, whom she seems to believe is completely worthless. Perhaps I should add Marjorie Taylor Greene, whom she paints (my words, again), as a clown.

I am looking forward to the remaining three parts of the book, to be sure. But having said that, the first two parts, one of which deals with the planned and executed attacks against the November 4 voting and the naming of alternative electors and presenting them for approval, and the other of which deals with what happened on January 6, both the rioting, and the actions of House members to certify, or fail to certify, the electoral college votes that had been presented to the House by the various states. And it should be remembered that 139 Republicans, and a half dozen or so Senators, voted against the certification of the constitutionally valid electors.

So, and although this is at the end of my post, this is what is important, and I am going to write part of it in capital letters because of its importance, just to make sure you look at it.

I understand that Cheney must have had a number of reasons to write this memoir. One is to preserve what she experienced for history, another is to get it off her chest, perhaps a third is to extract a little revenge against the villains of the piece, and fourth is to make some money. Whatever the reasons, the publication of the book took guts, just as her actions supporting the investigation and then impeachment of the President took guts.

But I think the first two parts of this book are so important that, money and copyright and all those good things have to be sublimated to making the text available to everyone. And, in this day and age, when you don’t have to pay to bind and distribute hard copies of material, when you can just push a button and circulate material to millions of people, I think that is what should be done now.

I THINK THAT THIS MATERIAL SHOULD BE CIRCULATED TO EVERYONE ON ANY LIST OF REPUBLICAN DONORS, OFFICIALS, AND PROSPECTIVE VOTERS, YOUNG AND OLD, THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY. AND I GUESS TO DEMOCRATS AND INDEPENDENTS, TOO, TO ENCOURAGE THEM TO COME OUT AND VOTE.

Of course, most won’t read it (even if it comes with an introductory paragraph or two showing why they should read it), but we don’t need big numbers. If 5% of those who receive a link to this by email read it and if it changes the vote of even a portion of those people, it could sway the election. And if it circulated widely, its circulation will be reported widely, and it will become news in itself, perhaps leading others to give it a look.

Now – how do we go about this? We don’t have a lot of time.