If this book were read by an intelligent person who spent the past 10 years on, say, Mars, she would have no idea that Dick Cheney was the vice president in one of the most hapless American administrations of modern times. There are hints, to be sure, that things did not always go swimmingly under President George W. Bush and Cheney, but these are surrounded by triumphalist accounts of events that many readers — and future historians — are unlikely to consider triumphs.
This is not surprising. The genre of statesman’s memoir rarely produces self-criticism, or even much candor. Apparently, the point is to redeem your large advance from the publisher with a brisk, self-complimenting account of your life and times, with emphasis on your moment in the limelight. There should, of course, be a dash of “news” and a few frank passages about your true feelings — about others, not yourself.
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Former Vice President Dick Cheney's new book takes aim at former Secretary of State Colin Powell who said on "Face the Nation" he takes issue with the way Cheney is promoting the book. (Aug. 29)
We’ve now had three self-serving memoirs from the past administration: the memoirs of Bush, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Cheney. Future historians who have the stomach to try to figure out what happened under our 43rd president will be frustrated by all three books, because none of them wrestles with the enormous issues raised by this pugnacious administration and the world-changing messes it left for its successors to clean up.
For Cheney and his daughter Liz, whom Cheney describes as “my collaborator and the CEO of our book team,” the only real point of writing about the vice presidential years is to make clear how right Cheney always was, and how wrongheaded were his critics and bureaucratic rivals. More than once he tells us he would do again exactly what he did the first time, “in a heartbeat.” He acknowledges no serious regrets about anything.
This big book is not just about being vice president. Its first 255 pages are devoted to Cheney’s eventful life before the day Bush asked him to lead the effort to find him the right running mate for the 2000 campaign. The story of his rise from humble origins (his father was a federal civil servant and a staunch Democrat) is a good one and is briskly told. But at every juncture where it might have actually been revealing, Cheney avoids self-examination or revelation.
So he tells us how he got to Yale on a scholarship with the help of an enthusiastic alumnus who was a Wyoming oilman, and fell in with “some kindred souls, young men like me who were not adjusting very well [to Yale] and shared my opinion that beer was one of the essentials of life.” He flunked out, came back, flunked out again. What was that about? The question isn’t asked or answered. He never even explains how and why he became a conservative Republican.
Once launched on his vice presidential adventure, Cheney’s story rarely departs from versions he has already told repeatedly in speeches and interviews.
He does not try to explain why Bush ended up choosing the head of his vice presidential search team (Cheney) as his running mate, but his pride in being selected is obvious. Remember, Cheney had actually formed an exploratory committee to consider a presidential run himself in 1996, so the brass ring of American politics had been on his mind for some time.
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