Dick Cheney's Brand of Conservatism

"Michel now looks like a figure from a forgotten Republican past, an amiable congressman from Peoria, Illinois, who had voted for all the major civil-rights laws and who loved crafting legislative compromises with Democrats. In the eighties and early nineties, Michel was the House Minority Leader. The rise of Newt Gingrich and his incendiary brand of Republicanism eventually forced Michel aside-but during much of the time that Michel was leader, Cheney was one of his principal deputies."

"We were speaking some months before the September 11th attacks, and it's likely that George W. Bush still saw Cheney in the same way that Michel did. Cheney had loyally served George H. W. Bush, a much more moderate Republican than his son, had been chief executive of a Dallas-based energy contractor, and had gone from running the 2000 Republican Vice-Presidential search-a perfect assignment for a neutral professional-to becoming the Vice-Presidential nominee himself."

"After 9/11, it instantly became clear that Cheney had been a genius at appearing to be neutral, at least to Republicans who outranked him, rather than actually having been neutral. Within minutes of the attacks, he was in charge (Bush was out of town), expertly putting the country on a path that led to the War on Terror and the Iraq War."

Bob Michel remembered Cheney as a phlegmatic, process-oriented deputy rather than a conservative ideologue. Michel represented an older, compromise-minded Republican era and served as House Minority Leader while Cheney worked as one of his principal deputies. Cheney served George H. W. Bush, led a Dallas energy firm, and managed the 2000 Republican vice-presidential search before becoming the vice-presidential nominee. After the September 11 attacks Cheney assumed de facto control and guided policy decisions that produced the War on Terror and the Iraq War. Later, Cheney reemerged as a fervent critic of Donald Trump, prompting questions about the evolution of contemporary conservatism.

Read at The New Yorker