# Dick Cheney Dies... Anticlimactic?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-dies-anticlimactic/1024555>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [November 4, 2025, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-dies-anticlimactic/1024555 "2025-11-04T12:48:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 17\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2025, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-dies-anticlimactic/1024555/21 "2025-11-04T16:55:04Z")

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If you’re going to compare him to trump, well, gee whiz, what a nice guy!

Fuck that dead hearted bastard. He should have died in a supermax (or Gitmo) for war crimes. Being better than trump doesn’t excuse what Darth Cheney did to this country. If anything, he paved the road for trump.

Flags should be flown at double-high staff.

Burn his corpse, piss on the ashes, and burn them again.

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**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2025, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-dies-anticlimactic/1024555/22 "2025-11-04T17:13:12Z")

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Yeah, someone being “better than Trump” is a low, low, _low_ bar to clear. You can a vile, disgusting human being and _still_ be better than Trump.

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**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2025, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-dies-anticlimactic/1024555/23 "2025-11-04T18:43:16Z")

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> [@Chad\_Sudan](#):
>
> His passing prompts the recollection of a simpler time, when military occupation, extraordinary rendition, and indefinite detention were crimes the U.S. committed outside its own borders.

The humor is tempered only by the truthfulness of that statement.

> [@dolphinboy](#):
>
> Frankly, I didn’t know he was still alive.

He’s been [“more machine than man”](https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a69248937/dick-cheney-death-heart-history-no-pulse-device/), as Obi-Wan Kenobi would say, for a long time now; [“Twisted and evil”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONdLEqzhXOI).

> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#):
>
> Oddly, he was fiercely anti-Trump.

Not so odd; he was a fierce neoconservative in the unapologetic post-Reaganism mold, determined to bring peace and (US-friendly pseudo democracy) to every oil-rich nation on the planet even if it meant killing large swaths of the population to do it. The destruction of infrastructure was regrettable but Halliburton is standing by to bring emergency resources to the rescue…for a price. While he shared a certain sense of venality with Trump, pretty much everything else about his worldview and the place of the United States is orthogonal to “MAGA” and I’m sure he reviled in the utter incompetence of Trump’s nominees as even more bumbling than Donald Rumsfeld and Tommy Franks.

As for “talking smack” about Cheney, the above observations aside, I think I said everything about him I needed to say while we was alive (or at least in a state of “not quite dead”) and I can only imagine needing to say more in the case that someone nominates him for a Nobel Peace Prize or sings his praises as a facilitator of international harmony and cooperation. I’m saving up my Cheney-themed invective for daughter Liz when she tries to return to the public sphere in a post-Trump push to shape this burgeoning autocracy in her own inimicable style based upon the family legacy.

Stranger

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**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2025, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-dies-anticlimactic/1024555/24 "2025-11-04T19:03:47Z")

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So I once did a research paper on private military contractors, which included this bit of trivia.

after the end of the first gulf war, Halliburton approached the government about privatizing much of our military logistics. Cheney, who was Secretary of Defense, paid them something like $12 million to conduct a feasibility study, after which Halliburton determined that, yes, privatizing military contracts was a really good idea, but they were the only ones who could provide those services.

Sec Def Cheney then facilities them getting an exclusive contract, where they are guaranteed to earn a profit above their costs. Cheney then leaves office and becomes CEO of Halliburton.

During his time as CEO Halliburton loses its contracts because of price gouging.

Cheney then becomes Vice President. Halliburton gets back its deals with the government, which were substantial, what with the invading Iraq and all.

Graft and corruption at its finest.

> **[Contract Sport](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/02/16/contract-sport)**
>
> What did the Vice-President do for Halliburton?

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**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2025, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-dies-anticlimactic/1024555/25 "2025-11-04T20:04:50Z")

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> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#):
>
> He’s been [“more machine than man”](https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a69248937/dick-cheney-death-heart-history-no-pulse-device/), as Obi-Wan Kenobi would say, for a long time now; [“Twisted and evil”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONdLEqzhXOI).

Obi Wan said this in the company and in the hearing of R2D2 and C3PO. If I were them, I’d be grossly insulted.

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**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2025, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-dies-anticlimactic/1024555/26 "2025-11-04T20:15:57Z")

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> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> Obi Wan said this in the company and in the hearing of R2D2 and C3PO. If I were them, I’d be grossly insulted.

It’s not as if anyone in the _Star Wars_ films seems to give a flip about the ‘inalienable rights’ of clearly sentient and machine intelligences. At best, they get kind of attached to a useful and devoted chirpy little droid but are otherwise indifferent to how androids and robots are treated, putting them in harms way and even using them as purpose-built robot forces fighting enslaved clone armies fighting a war between softskins who believe in mystical powers and ghosts. The _Star Wars_ movies, if you think too hard about them, are a kind of horrorshow of fascist, racist, genocidal forces who conduct warfare which results in the destruction of entire planets or ecological devastation of flourishing forest-moons with native populations of sapient species, and the Rebellion comes of just slightly better than the Empire, especially in the full context of the prequels.

Stranger

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**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-dies-anticlimactic/1024555/28 "2025-11-05T04:20:38Z")

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I appreciate this thread. I’d seen the headline and not thought too much about it, but thanks to this I paused and took a moment of quiet reflection to gloat about outliving the motherfucker. We must seek joy where we find it. I only wish he could have lived to see Mamdani elected.

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**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-dies-anticlimactic/1024555/29 "2025-11-05T09:49:02Z")

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[![](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1267292345167122442/1435473991308677240/bafkreigrkxxpga4ry2gtf32zwwe6nom63bqg5n6nn6vu7g6qeem5qbbtda.png?ex=690c18d5&is=690ac755&hm=1dfba8596d26e1ff07eb088bcb9874c57a3147c6aa98a76ba1fd6f472cc57cd5) ](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1267292345167122442/1435473991308677240/bafkreigrkxxpga4ry2gtf32zwwe6nom63bqg5n6nn6vu7g6qeem5qbbtda.png?ex=690c18d5&is=690ac755&hm=1dfba8596d26e1ff07eb088bcb9874c57a3147c6aa98a76ba1fd6f472cc57cd5)

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**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-dies-anticlimactic/1024555/30 "2025-11-05T22:11:05Z")

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Yes, to me it was anticlimactic. When I learned of his death, it turned out that I didn’t give a shit. I mean, it’s good that he’s dead, but who cares?  
When I drove past the village hall building this morning and saw the flags at half staff, I thought: Oh, what a nice gesture my town made for Donna Jean.

> **[Donna Jean Godchaux supplied steel and soul to the Grateful Dead in their prime](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/nov/04/donna-jean-godchaux-grateful-dead-tribute?CMP=share_btn_url)**
>
> Godchaux sang on classics by Elvis and Otis Redding and had a long solo career, but it’s as a member of the Dead’s classic, acid-drenched 70s lineup – and as the band’s only female member – that she will be remembered

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**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-dies-anticlimactic/1024555/31 "2025-11-05T22:14:08Z")

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> [@solost](#):
>
> Just goes to show what a miracle modern American health care is… if you happen to be rich and politically powerful enough to afford it.

What a waste of a good donated heart.

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**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2025, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-dies-anticlimactic/1024555/32 "2025-11-06T16:11:10Z")

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> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> What a waste of a good donated heart.

So because you don’t like someone’s politics they should die?

BAD dog!

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**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2025, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-dies-anticlimactic/1024555/33 "2025-11-06T17:12:20Z")

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> [@Spiderman](#):
>
> So because you don’t like someone’s politics they should die?

He is responsible or hurting and killing a great many people, did great harm to the nation, and helped push the US towards fascism. _He_ certainly had zero concern for the life of anyone else.

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**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2025, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-dies-anticlimactic/1024555/34 "2025-11-06T17:46:32Z")

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> [@Spiderman](#):
>
> So because you don’t like someone’s politics they should die?

If their “politics” (what a simple word for the harm Darth Cheney committed on the world) harms thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, then yea. Your question sounds like you think killing _you know who_ in 1932 would have been a bad thing.

With great power comes great responsibility.

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**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2025, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-dies-anticlimactic/1024555/35 "2025-11-06T17:56:15Z")

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> [@Spiderman](#):
>
> > [@wolfpup](#):
> >
> > What a waste of a good donated heart.
> 
> So because you don’t like someone’s politics they should die?
> 
> BAD dog!

There’s always a prioritized waiting list for transplant patients, and you can bet that Cheney was immediately put at the top of the list, thus depriving someone else who had been waiting longer and was undoubtedly more deserving, or at least wasn’t a PNAC conspirator.

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**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2025, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-dies-anticlimactic/1024555/36 "2025-11-06T19:24:51Z")

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> Richard Nixon is gone now, and I am poorer for it. He was the real thing – a political monster straight out of Grendel and a very dangerous enemy. He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time. He lied to his friends and betrayed the trust of his family. Not even Gerald Ford, the unhappy ex-president who pardoned Nixon and kept him out of prison, was immune to the evil fallout. Ford, who believes strongly in Heaven and Hell, has told more than one of his celebrity golf partners that “I know I will go to hell, because I pardoned Richard Nixon.”
> 
> ~Doctor Hunter S. Thompson

And –

> “If the right people had been in charge of Nixon’s funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.”  
> ― Hunter S. Thompson, Where Were You When the Fun Stopped

It applies to Cheney, and one hopes, other Republicans.

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**Author:** ![Ancient\_Nerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed655f/32.png) [@Ancient\_Nerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ancient_Nerd)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2025, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-dies-anticlimactic/1024555/37 "2025-11-10T03:36:25Z")

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> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#):
>
> those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles River is not deep enough to float a casket for most of the year.

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**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2025, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-dies-anticlimactic/1024555/38 "2025-11-10T14:12:44Z")

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> At the stroke of midnight in Washington, a drooling red-eyed beast with the legs of a man and a head of a giant hyena crawls out of its bedroom window in the South Wing of the White House and leaps fifty feet down to the lawn…pauses briefly to strangle the Chow watchdog, then races off into the darkness…towards the Watergate, snarling with lust, loping through the alleys behind Pennsylvania Avenue, and trying desperately to remember which one of those fore hundred identical balconies is the one outside of Martha Mitchell’s apartment…Ah…Nightmares, nightmares. But I was only kidding. The President of the United States would never act that weird. At least not during football season. ~~~Hunter S. Thompson

A better quote?

Yes?

Yes?

It also applies well to our sitting President.

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