"In his final days at the White House, Dick Cheney proposed an epitaph. His, he suggested, had been "a consequential vice presidency." It was an understatement, and characteristically oblique. Consequential might describe Lincoln or Lenin, Gandhi or Genghis Khan. Cheney was speaking of influence, and for once he acknowledged his own. He knew he had changed the nation's course, and he professed to have no regrets. After all this time, I'm still not sure whether to believe that."
"What I learned from archival research, hundreds of interviews, and many hours of watching Cheney at close quarters during his Pentagon years, is simply not compatible with his caricature on the left as a villain. Vice, the vicious satire that the director and screenwriter Adam McKay claimed to base heavily on my book about Cheney, mimicked a documentary but strayed miles from a faithful portrait. Cheney's legacy is far more complex, beginning with the motives and singular personal code that guided him."
Dick Cheney framed his vice presidency as "consequential," acknowledging influence and professing no regrets. His role as principal architect of the Iraq War and the War on Terror inflicted serious damage on America's interests and moral standing. Archival research and extensive interviews reveal a more complex figure than the simple villain caricature. The film Vice diverged significantly from a faithful portrait. Except for years at Halliburton, Cheney devoted his adult life to public service without signs of personal corruption. He earned praise as a skilled defense secretary, led deft diplomacy and Gulf War successes, embodied fervent patriotic convictions, and inspired deep loyalty, while as vice president he assumed he knew better than the citizens he served.
Read at The Atlantic
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