Fellow House Republicans have booted Liz Cheney from GOP leadership, punishment for her having the stones to challenge Donald Trump's poisonous and anti-democratic falsehoods about the 2020 election.
Cheney is no longer conference chair. But until Wyoming voters repudiate her, she will remain an independently elected representative in the party of Lincoln, Reagan and, regrettably, Trump. Which means it remains her duty and her charge to continue to use her voice to speak the truth. That she did in her speech Tuesday night. It was short, but critically important: "Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar." Republicans can make her a pariah, but they cannot shut her up.
In fact, by booting Cheney from her position, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the rest of the party underline how thin the spooked elephant's skin remains. They communicate to the nation that rather than rise to the challenge of rebutting Cheney's facts about Trump with evidence of their own (which, ahem, they don't have), they'll just swap her out for an apologist who parrots Trump lines and lies, in this case New York Rep. Elise Stefanik.
That's what McCarthy and company seem not to get: Their attempt to bury Cheney elevates her. She isn't now just a dissident to the Trumpite politburo; she's been officially deemed a threat and erased from the portrait. She is gaining national stature she never could have dreamed of otherwise.
FROM AN EDITORIAL IN THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
