# Dick Cheney Reconsidered **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 11, 2010, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574 "2010-02-11T18:55:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2010, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/21 "2010-02-11T22:32:56Z")
Just another amoral puppet of corporate America who had “better things to do in the 60s” than be drafted. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2010, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/22 "2010-02-11T23:24:45Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I’ve read in a few places that Cheney’s personality seemed to change after his heart attack - which is not an uncommon occurrence. His personality when he worked for Gerald Ford might in fact have been different from his personality now. I have heard similar rumors here in DC related to his bypass surgery in the late 80s or early 90s. A while back, I did a few moments of googling and found that, indeed, there seems to be a correlation between bypass surgeries and personality changes. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/23 "2010-02-12T01:14:06Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > Cheney was hugely popular as SecDef during the first Gulf War. “Hugely _popular_”? Do you have a cite for that? I don’t disagree that Cheney’s handling of Desert Storm was considered competent, but I certainly don’t remember (nor have I seen evidence for) that estimation translating into “huge popularity” for him personally. “Hugely popular” in the Desert Storm context means somebody like General Norm Schwarzkopf, who really was a media celebrity as a result of the war. Applying that term to Cheney just seems strange. > [@Sam Stone](#): > > He exudes an air of competence and intelligence, and talks in ‘straight talk’, which people love - when they agree with him. Another politician like that is Don Rumsfeld, who started out in the Bush administration as its most popular figure - a near rock star in political circles. > > But guys like that can also come across as dismissive and arrogant, which is maddening if you don’t agree with them. They’re lightning rods. Both of them rode the heights of popularity, then became enemies #1 and #2 when public opinion turned against what they were doing and they continued being themselves - unapologetic, forceful, dismissive of other viewpoints, etc. AKA “unable to admit mistakes and willing to lie in order to avoid confronting mistakes”. What put the nail in Rumsfeld’s coffin with his bosses in the Bush administration was the embarrassing outcome of the Iraq invasion, compared to his earlier confident predictions. Remember that [Rumsfeld back in 2003 said](http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/09/rumsfeld-predictions/) that the war “could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months”, and then in 2005 tried to deny that he’d ever made any such prediction? Rumsfeld was also disliked even by many people who agreed with his overall policies, such as [Pentagon military leaders](http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=105900481), because he behaved like a jerk to them: > [@](#): > > [Q:] There were complaints within the Pentagon about Donald Rumsfeld’s leadership. What were some of the things he did that upset the Pentagon leadership most? What were their biggest complaints? > > [A:] Well, one was his seeming dismissiveness of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which is comprised of the heads of the military services, the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. Rumsfeld came into office very determined to assert civilian control. He had the view that the military under the previous Clinton administration had gotten too much of what it wanted and that civilians had not been able to exert the kind of decisive leadership that they should. And in subsequent months and years the sense that the chiefs had of being marginalized only increased. They felt left out of a lot of the war planning and not really consulted in the way that they felt they should have been. But, in addition to Rumsfeld’s short-circuiting the joint chiefs, it was, there was a lot of concern about his style in dealing with senior military. He often came across as abrasive, as impatient, as arrogant. > > He defends his manners saying that the big leagues, as they were in, these senior officers with stars on their shoulders should have been able to take his questioning and his challenging. But, they felt that it bordered really on the discourteous and they really resented his manner in many of their contacts with him. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/24 "2010-02-12T01:43:01Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > Does anyone know anybody that Ford _didn’t_ like? He hated Ronald Reagan right up to the point RR announced his diagnosis. Despised Nixon as soon as he said he would not resign even if it would hurt the party. Had a long grudge against Jimmy Carter but mellowed with time. He never cared for Walter Annanburg’s second through last wives. ---
**Author:** ![IClaudius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c37758/32.png) [@IClaudius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IClaudius)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/25 "2010-02-12T01:48:21Z")
Before 9/11 Cheney was a signatory to the Project for a New American Century which envinced his pugnacious attitude to foreign policy and military force. And long before that Cheney wrote the [minority report whitewashing Iran Contra and Oliver North](http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&ved=0CAcQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2007%2F07%2F09%2Fopinion%2F09wilentz.html&ei=GLJ0S7LrGZSMnQfq_PzLCQ&usg=AFQjCNFbQOniG1NzPmL7LKc2WBgLQ7TGOg). So, the idea that 9/11 changed him from a reasonable mind to a unhinged neo-con is absurd. He is probably best not considered as a neo-con at all, but there is little doubt he was a long-time advocate of ridiculous, unencumbered theories of executive power and the first-order utility of American military power. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/26 "2010-02-12T01:50:00Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > “Hugely _popular_”? Do you have a cite for that? I don’t disagree that Cheney’s handling of Desert Storm was considered competent, but I certainly don’t remember (nor have I seen evidence for) that estimation translating into “huge popularity” for him personally. Events that far in the past are hard to cite. I couldn’t find any cites that showed any popularity polls or anything other hard data on this, so I’m going off memory. Schwarzkopf was certainly the ‘star’ of the show, but Cheney also gave a lot of briefings, and got a ton of airtime and a lot of favorable commentary. I would say that those two, plus Colin Powell gained the most personal prestige from that war. And he was popular enough that I can recall his name always popping up on various lists of prospective presidential candidates through the 1990’s, and he was an early favorite ‘if he wanted to run’ for the 2000 election. So maybe it was that he was wildly popular among Republicans, and that’s what I remember, and he wasn’t on anyone else’s radar. I did find a cite that said that he had a 63% approval rating in his first year as VP, climbing to 68% by the end of the second year, and then it began to decline all the way down to 30% by the end of his second term. > [@](#): > > AKA “unable to admit mistakes and willing to lie in order to avoid confronting mistakes”. I’m not debating their relative merits here - just their popularity. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/27 "2010-02-12T02:02:29Z")
Anyone know of Cheney is sober these days? I know he was a hard-core juicer (2 DUI’s?) but dont know if he is on the wagon or not. I wonder how alcohol changes his personality, as he strikes me as someone who is usually up for a fight, at least politically speaking… ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/28 "2010-02-12T02:32:57Z")
Interestingly, Ford liked a drink most evenings. He stopped once Betty discovered she was an addict. It might be worth noting, both Gerry and Betty thought Bill Clinton was an insanely great politician, but an absolute sex addict. Of course this might just be because the vocabulary of addiction was commonly used by the couple. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/29 "2010-02-12T02:54:46Z")
I know Gerald Ford kept a headstash of Coors at the White House, back in the day when Coors was not sold east of the Rockies… ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/30 "2010-02-12T03:04:07Z")
Yeah, Ford seems to have been a nice guy. Of course most of what I know about him, I learned from this book, so consider that too. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/31 "2010-02-12T03:43:25Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > I think Ford’s opinion of both Nixon and Cheney tells us more about Ford (who was a generous, affable, easy-to-get-along with guy) than it does about the other men. > > Does anyone know anybody that Ford _didn’t_ like? His dad, Leslie King. Had no use for him. Ford’s original name was Leslie King Jr. If he had kept that name, we would’ve had President King. Neat, huh? ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/32 "2010-02-12T05:26:49Z")
Oh yeah, absolutely hated his biological father. As an adult, he sued the guy for back child support, apparently just for giggles. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/33 "2010-02-12T06:40:55Z")
Cheney shot his best friend in the face with a shotgun. And then made his friend apologize. He is the most loathsome character ever in American politics, having spent 8 years as Vice President cowering at some undisclosed location except to pop up at fundraisers while in office. After office he repeatedly criticized the efforts to combat an evil that he had earlier cautioned against criticizing. He authorized torture and murder and the ruining of his political opponents by closing down a multi-billion dollar anti-proliferation effort. If I were to ride in an elevator with Cheney, I’d spit on him and do the time. I would not do that to W, who is also an irresponsible sack of bile. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/34 "2010-02-12T07:50:03Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Events that far in the past are hard to cite. Aye, 1991 was practically before written language was invented. It’s astounding that we know anything that occurred before it. > [@](#): > > I couldn’t find any cites that showed any popularity polls or anything other hard data on this, so I’m going off memory. Perhaps the lack of any polling of his popularity is indicative that he wasn’t “hugely popular?” My own memory of him was that he appeared competent as Bush senior’s SecDef, but he quickly fell off of the radar. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/35 "2010-02-12T10:28:52Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Aye, 1991 was practically before written language was invented. It’s astounding that we know anything that occurred before it. No, but it was before a lot of documentation was put online. Unless you have a Nexus account, a whole lot of newspaper articles from that time simply aren’t available online. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/36 "2010-02-12T11:10:01Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > A couple of possibilities present themselves. > > 1. Cheny is a great guy who has simply been misunderstood. > 2. Cheny is a nasty man, and Ford was a poor judge of character. > 3. Ford was a nastier fellow than we think, and so naturally he like Cheny. > 4. Cheny was a great Chief of Staff by made a nasty Veep. > a. because he changed while Veep, or > b. because he changed between the time he was CoS and when he became Veep. 1. Cheney is simply good at telling people who could help his career what they wanted to hear from him. Sort of like the Dilbert definition of a leader: “A leader is someone who is good at getting people to do things that benefit the leader”. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/37 "2010-02-12T11:47:18Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > I suspect that while Cheney may have been perfect for the Chief of Staff role but unfit for Vice President. For comparison, consider the idea of Rahm Emanuel as VP. Did anyone else just feel a cold chill down their spine, or was it just me? ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/38 "2010-02-12T12:39:19Z")
A few years back I heard an aging British Politician on the radio (probably BBC world service - I forget who it was, Lord Chalfont maybe) who talked about how he had known and respected Cheney back in the '70s or '80s, and what a reasonable, sensible and pragmatic guy he had been. He said he could not understand how that guy had turned into the man who was Bush’s VP, who he clearly regarded as quite awful, if not crazy. I guess that is evidence that Cheney changed somewhere along the way. Of course he was always very conservative, but there is a big difference between old-fashioned, pragmatic conservatism and the sort of stuff Cheney was doing over the past few years: starting wars for the hell of it, abrogating the Bill of Rights, and seemingly doing his utmost, including outright lying, to keep the American public as scared as possible. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/39 "2010-02-12T12:49:53Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > For comparison, consider the idea of Rahm Emanuel as VP. > > Did anyone else just feel a cold chill down their spine, or was it just me? It might just be you. It wouldn’t be dull, that’s for sure. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574/40 "2010-02-12T13:26:55Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > No, but it was before a lot of documentation was put online. Unless you have a Nexus account, a whole lot of newspaper articles from that time simply aren’t available online. :rolleyes: It was before the vast majority of information in the internet was put online. Oddly history began before 1991; you can even find information about it online. I hear information could still be cited and verified even in those dark ages before Al Gore invented the internet for us, the elders speak of bizarre devices called ‘books.’ The statement that > [@](#): > > Events that far in the past are hard to cite. is absurd on its face and nothing but weaseling. Again, perhaps the reason you > [@](#): > > couldn’t find any cites that showed any popularity polls or anything other hard data on this, so I’m going off memory. is because he actually wasn’t a ‘hugely popular’ public figure outside of small circles. Had he been so popular, it shouldn’t be difficult to cite, right? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dick-cheney-reconsidered/528574.md?page=3)