Liz Cheney in 2012?

When Larry King asked her last year about the “birther” conspiracy, she said she didn’t believe Obama was born in a foreign country, but explained the movement by saying people are “increasingly uncomfortable with an American president who seems afraid to defend America.” Her uncompromising views were apparent even before that, going back to her two stints at the State Department under George W. Bush. During her first tenure at State, as a deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs under Colin Powell from 2002 to 2004, Cheney faithfully followed administration policy but became known for pushing her father’s give-no-quarter views on terrorism. “It was very awkward, and people had to be careful in front of her,” says one former official. “How do you conduct a viable meeting if you think one of the people is going to turn around and tell all to the vice president?” She also wasn’t shy about letting people know who she was. “She came across to me as…pushing her weight around,” says Powell’s former chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, who has often been harshly critical of Dick Cheney and the Bush White House. “She knew who her daddy was.”…

Dick Cheney told Fox News last year that he’d “love to see [Liz] run for office someday,” and he thinks she wants to. Liz herself is more coy about her political plans, but if the impact of her “Al Qaeda Seven” attack is any measure of her ambition and effectiveness, a run may not be far off. After the ad slammed Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department for not disclosing the names of the seven lawyers, Holder was forced to admit that he himself had once filed a “friend of the court” brief in the case of an accused Qaeda detainee. (Holder had argued against President Bush’s claim that he could indefinitely lock up a U.S. citizen without charging him with any crime.) Now, thanks to donations from old political supporters of her father’s, like Florida real-estate magnate Mel Sembler, Cheney’s group is also planning to apply the “soft on terror” charge to Democrats in this fall’s midterm elections by airing targeted TV ads in swing districts. Though Cheney isn’t saying, her group could also be readying her for a 2012 congressional run from Virginia, her current home, or her parents’ home state of Wyoming.

GOP strategist Vin Weber says Cheney appeals to the “Sarah Palin constituency,” but she has more intellectual credibility. “Nobody says about Liz” what they do about Palin, he says.