Axios….
Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush in transit on Feb. 28, 2008.Smith Collection/Gado/Getty
From a Republican stalwart who redefined the vice presidency to an outspoken MAGA opponent, Dick Cheney’s impact on American politics spanned decades.
The big picture: A polarizing force in the “war on terror,” he expanded the reach of his office in the wake of the country’s deadliest terrorist attack and helped drive the costly, unpopular Iraq War built on faulty intelligence.
Cheney, 84, died Monday from complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, his family announced.
- “Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing,” his family said in a statement.
Flashback: Cheney’s lengthy political career also included stints as defense secretary, a White House chief of staff and a Wyoming congressman.
- He suffered cardiac problems for decades — but that did nothing to loosen his powerful policy grip during his tenure, notably in areas of national security.
Details: Take a look through Cheney’s impactful political career, in photos.
Image…Smith Collection/Gado/Getty
I have already commented but it is somewhat remarkable that he passed away 25 years to the day of the 2000 election.
Nevermind, Election Day was November 7, not November 3, which is what it first said when I looked it up on Google.
Of course, that Election Day lasted longer than it should have.
Be it a Susie Wiles, Harriet Hageman, Tom Emmer, Pete Hegseth, or JD Vance, I am sure we would all prefer a Dick Cheney right now.
Indeed….
Not a word of condolence from the current President, Vice President, or anybody in the Administration.
A funeral ceremony inside Capitol Hill would be standard when a former Vice President passes away, but Mike Johnson will not allow that to happen if Donald Trump tells him.
Many on the left have negative feelings about Cheney and will perhaps shrug off or support such a snubbing, but there is not a current living former President or Vice President of either party (including Mike Pence, and maybe the possible exceptions of Dan Quayle or Al Gore) that Trump does not hold a major grudge against and will likely use his power as President, as long as he has it and controls Congress, to try to prevent any sort of official recognition during a time of mourning. This would certainly include Joe Biden.
Cheney and even Pence do NOT count……
Trump & Co Are about King Trump
Other ‘Republicans’ DO NOT Rate
post in moderation
Ron Suskind in The New York Times’ opinion pages:
The Tragedy of Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney is now gone, but we will be living with his legacy for a long time to come. He wrote a playbook of how to exercise executive authority beyond constitutional boundaries and the rule of law. Donald Trump has added pages and is working on a sequel.
It was Vice President Cheney, guiding his under-experienced boss, George W. Bush, who brought unitary executive theory into view. Operating out of a parallel executive office, staffed with people loyal to Mr. Cheney directly, he unleashed the war on terror, justifying brutal new tactics, an ill-conceived invasion and a system of mass domestic surveillance. He declared his priorities to be national emergencies, obviating the need to work within the structures of democratic power. He went after those — Colin Powell, Christine Todd Whitman, Paul O’Neill — who stood in his path. And he prioritized the bank accounts of the wealthy by supporting tax cuts in wartime against the strongest of warnings.
Disastrous as all those actions were, Mr. Trump has undertaken even more significant expansions of power and illegality, often under even more dubious claims of emergency. Basically, it’s the war on terror model without the war. Mr. Cheney made it possible.
The two men couldn’t have been more different in manner and method. Mr. Cheney favored careful planning with an eye to the long game. Mr. Trump insistently operates on instinct. Mr. Cheney, in the march to war, took pains to help cook up credible-seeming evidence. Mr. Trump has no need for evidence; whatever he posts on Truth Social is his new reality. Mr. Cheney, cynic though he was, honored the dictates of the electorate. Mr. Trump, of course, did so only when he won.
After the Jan. 6 Capitol incursion, Mr. Cheney and his daughter Liz became fierce and vocal critics of Mr. Trump. Mr. Cheney felt so strongly about the danger of a second Trump term that he abandoned the party he had served his whole life and endorsed Kamala Harris instead. It was a remarkable development for a man who had always played his cards so close to his vest, always positioning himself as a silent power.
By then, however, it was too late. The people he hoped to reach were suspicious of anyone who warned about presidential power or lectured about democratic norms. Mr. Cheney had done as much as anyone in history to undermine Americans’ trust in their institutions and leaders, including Mr. Cheney himself.
A false case for war will do that. So will the worst financial crash in 80 years, whose consequences middle- and working-class Americans were left to suffer unblunted. Many of them went on to join Mr. Trump’s army of grievance and anger.
The full story started decades earlier…..
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/opinion/dick-cheney-vice-president-authority-trump.html
Cheney WAS a Politican….
He came up thru the system….
Bush II had a soul….
Trump is NOT a politician….
No soul…
Seeking to destroy ANY system in his way….
Cheney crashed and burned in the ned of Bush II’s time…
One would assume with there was hard feeling aftervwards …..
Inane