Dick Cheney, Gone But Not Forgotten
I had been wondering if Dick Cheney were unwell given Liz Cheney’s silence.
He died yesterday.
Amid the chaos of the Trump Administration, implementing all of Cheney’s dreams of unitary executive on Chicago’s residents and Latin American fishermen, his death didn’t even make it above the fold of the NYT.
This blog has written probably 500 stories on Dick Cheney — about torture, about illegal surveillance, about drone strikes, about outing Valerie Plame.
But the most recent are telling for his legacy:
Tulsi Gabbard’s NIE Lies Make Dick Cheney Look Honest by Comparison
John Yoo’s Old Trash and the South Shore Apartment Invasion
Dick Cheney’s Apprentice Strikes (on John Bolton’s refusal to testify in impeachment)
Child Rapist George Nader Introduced Dick Cheney and Ahmad Chalabi
We never did recover from the things Dick Cheney did to the United States. And now the precedents he established have empowered a madman.
I have wondered how frustrated he must have been to see his former party ignore his warnings:
source: Associated Press
He helped lay the groundwork for Trump after wresting executive power for himself and neoconservative aims while in office, only to be ignored while watching his daughter get bashed by his own party.
Of course, said Cheney, it’s good when I do it!
Dick Cheney’s record as Ford’s Chief of Staff set the tone for his whole career: The WH needs more power, and the Congress less power. Yes, he opposed Trump, but Cheney set the stage for the manner in which Trump 2.0 is operating, and did his part to turn the GOP in Congress into little more than WH puppets.
Thank you.
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/intelligence/2016-02-29/gerald-ford-white-house-altered-rockefeller-commission-report
Dick Cheney was instrumental in pulling 86 pages about CIA assassination history from the Rockefeller Report. The Ford Administration did editing, the Rockefeller Commission being silent about it happening.
Yes, Dick was the guy who knew how to manipulate the levers of Government to carry out his feverous dreams and thereby enabled to put the country on its current path.
It will be interesting to see how TFG handles this:
Will he order flags at half mask?
Will he order any special honors?
Will he call Dick and his daughter traitors?
Etc.
You already have a partial first answer. The AP’s report of Cheney’s death has no comment at all from the White House on Cheney’s passing, nor does the NYT’s report.
They did lower the flag.
“He’s dead. Good.”
Bette Davis.
That’s incorrectly attributed to Bette Davis. It was comedian Jackie Mabley who said of her deceased former husband,
The sentiment, however, is accurate.
Rimshot!
You know that quote by Moms off the top of your head?
I’ve had to use it a few times recently, particularly in reference to Henry Kissinger’s passing.
Ethel Merman allegedly had a blank chapter in her autobiography for her ex Ernest Borgnine in another example of catharsis after a bad marriage.
I don’t see any honoring of Cheney by the current administration if they can avoid it.
I’m not sure of all the protocol here, but I believe that the honor of laying in state or in repose in the US Capitol Rotunda is a privilege granted by the leaders of the House and Senate. If the GOP members of Congress want to show a little spine and stick it to Trump (quietly), granting that honor to Cheney would do it.
He is one of a very small group of folks who both served in the House and was President of the Senate, thus giving him strong history with both chambers. (Gerald Ford is another.) The GOP on the Hill could plausibly say that they are honoring Cheney’s service on the Hill as well as his executive service, not sticking it to Trump.
But everyone would know that for GOP representatives and senators who are tired of being seen as Trump’s lackeys, this would be a very DC stick in Trump’s eye.
Do not bet that any such thing happens.
Mikey won’t let them have even that special session, because then it would be noticed that he could have done it weeks ago.
I really, Really, REALLY believe in redemption.
But not for torture.
In a small but typical event, let’s remember how Dick Cheney shot another hunter in the face at a hunting lodge (IIRC in TX) and proceeded to blame the victim for his gross violation of hunting safety protocols. These lodges are places where birds are groomed to be easy targets so the hunters can feel manly.
Cheney was so powerful at that point that the other hunter apologized to him.
The (buck)shot heard round the world spawned a classic poetry contest at FireDogLake
He deserves some credit for denouncing Trump.
Cheney never thought about receiving a Nobel Peace prize. He’d have been offended if it were offered him.
Cheney denounced Trump not for his goals or his methods, but his style. After all, they shared the same goals and methods.
Thanks for this post, EW.
One of the most frustrating things to me of the Trump era is having to listen to casual comments about how he makes people nostalgic for George W. Bush. After I recover from my inevitable minor seizure, I try to explain that Papa Dick & W set the stage for everything that has followed. Often, the listener agrees but our collective inability to remember political actions and their consequences for more than a month leads to our inability to stop the ratchet that has landed us in a fascist state.
Papa Dick was a monster (pro-torture war criminal) and a fascist (unitary executive enabler). The fact that HIS leopard eating face party took a bite out of his daughter should never blind us to that fact.
Cheney complaining about Trump seems like a Tim Robinson in the hot dog suit “we’re all trying to find the guy who did this” moment.
And credit to him for leading ten former Secretaries of Defense to sign their names to the letter addressing military leadership and warning them away from participating (by following illegal orders) in the upcoming coup.
An awesomely good thing.
One I would have never believed. Until it actually happened.
But lets not get carried away here and get all misty-eyed over this man.
Ding-Dong!
The Dick is dead!
Which old Dick?
The wicked Dick!
Ding-Dong the wicked Dick is dead!
There is a lesson here for Trump (not that he listens to anyone other than nutjobs). Immense power fading to “I did not know he was still alive.”
As evil as Cheney was, he seemed to think that what he did was for America. Trump thinks he is America.
The Venn diagram of Dick Cheney’s America and Donald Trump’s America is almost a perfect circle. About the only difference is Dick would include his lesbian daughter.
These obituaries always sadden me – I want the villains of our day to live long enough to stand trial and hear the clang of cell doors from the inside.
Liz Cheney’s attempted pushback against Trump and the Trumpistas always seemed to me less a matter of principle than an attempt to reclaim the power of the Bush-Cheney faction within the Republican Party.
Viewed that way, it came as no surprise whatsoever that it failed wretchedly.
I thought he was past 90, as he’d been around so long.