Dick Cheney's legacy: paving the way for the Trump Regime

His head’s too big for Vader’s helmet? Source: unknown.

There are plenty of victories to celebrate today. Propostion 50 passed in California that will help offset Texas’ gerrymandering to win seats for the Republican Party, Zohan Mamdani is now mayor of New York, Abigail Spanberger is now governor of Virginia, and Mickie Sherrill is now governor of New Jersey.

Before I continue, I want to be clear that I am not necessarily dancing in joy that Dick Cheney is dead. His life meant something to the people close to him and certainly, it would be utter troll behavior of me to ignore that. Additionally, one of my teachers, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, cautioned against “negative rejoicing.” That said, we live in an era that is a direct result of Cheney’s actions and policies. We are faced with an unhinged authoritarian that could not have existed had not the behind the scenes machinations, lies, and misdeeds of the former Secretary of Defense and former Vice-President not been successful. Until people wake up and understand that the seeds of the destruction were planted by such so-called patriots, we are doomed to continue sleepwalking throughout history.

If I were Hunter S. Thompson, I would go on a lengthy screed about Cheney, his hawkishness, his bullshit about Iraqi WMDs, and his deep ties with Halliburton that should have had interviewers asking “Mr. Vice-President, are you absolutely sure that Saddam Hussein has weapons of destruction or is that black glint in your dead eyes the reflection of bright futures of oil stock dancing in them?”

As it is, consider HST’s reaction to the George W./Dick Cheney ticket:

“Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for - but if he were running for president this year, against the evil Bush-Cheney gang, I would happily voter for him.”

Cheney might not have been the crook that Dick Nixon was, but in many ways he was far, far worse. He set the tone for American foreign policy as Secretary of Defense under Reagan, arguably more so than then-Secretary of State James Baker. Of course, Cheney’s service goes back to Ford as Gerry’s chief of staff. 

Consider his voting record in the House of Representatives: he voted against establishing the U.S. Department of Education, he opposed establishing a national holiday for Martin Luther King (but supported it years later), he endorsed Reagan for president, and hey, even voted against overriding Reagan’s veto of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act since he was opposed to sanctions against different countries (“they almost never work”), he voted against a non-binding resolution calling on South Africa to release Nelson Mandela (oh, and let the record show that 31 Democrats supported that) because the African National Congress was considered a terrorist organization. 

Interestingly, as Secretary of Defense, Cheney actually oversaw reduction in military spending. I know. That’s a shocker, but it wasn’t like it was a huge budgetary reduction. He did support NATO and was skeptical of any long term peace, anywhere and he did persuade Saudi Arabia to allow bases and war planes on Saudi soil. This was fine for us in terms of the Gulf War, but radicalized a Islamists and one Osama bin Laden in particular. You say potato, I say “lack of foresight.” And no, this is not hindsight. Our bases were built near holy land and you don’t think that conservative religionists are going to overlook that slight, do you?

Cheney deployed troops to combat the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, dispatched the first 26,000 troops as part of the Unifited Task Force to provide security and food relief in Somalia, and yes, was instrumental in laying the groundwork for Operation Desert Storm. To be clear, this is the stuff Cheney was made for and honestly, he was clear-eyed about US involvement in the Middle East. He knew “we’re always going to be involved.” Well, of course, Dick: OIL. Although, his disingenuous follow-up about “maybe it’s part of our national character [that] we like to have these problems nice and neatly wrapped up…” and that “you deploy a force, you win the war, and the problem goes away.” All of this went by the board with his later boss’s “Mission Accomplished” bullshit. 

However, at the time, Cheney was a realist enough to know that “it doesn’t work that way in the Middle East.” All of this only serves to show Cheney as a Kissingeresque Machiavellian. I’m not sure who was more dangerous, but both shared the belief that they were right and anything else was capitulation or weakness. Give credit where credit is due, though; he did step down as CEO of Halliburton when he took office as Vice-President. I think this is where people are lulled into the poppy field languor of thinking that in the not-so-distance past, Republican leadership was honorable and pure of intent. 

You may say that if you believe in Manifest Destiny, white and might makes right, government is the problem, and the poor are poor because they don’t work hard enough. Sure, I applaud them on the strength of their convictions. While the rest of us pay for their hubris and overweening arrogance and greed. Other than that, hey, glad they have principles.

And oh, what years the Shrub Years were! How about that War on Terror? Hah? Good stuff! How about those weapons of mass destruction that Saddam had? Awesome stuff, pushing that narrative!!

Oh. Wait. You mean that “there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Quaeda”? But Dick, you said that Saddam had a ten year relationship with them! Why, you wouldn’t fib, would you?

“It is hard to name a government official with less credibility on Iraq.” Senator John Kerry throwing shade.

And lord knows, the man did not bow to public pressure. When told that the American people had lost confidence in the war, he replied, “So?” Yeah, Rumsfeld gets credit for being the White House official who told a reporter that “we’re making our own reality”, but Cheney sure helped pour the cement in the foundation.

Also, t would be unfair to assume that the man had no love for his family; he did support his daughter Mary when she came out as a lesbian. He stopped short of endorsing same-sex marriage across the board, saying it should be left up to each state to decide. 

I could go on about how, when the Bush administration was accused of conflicts of interest n the wake of the Enron collapse, Cheney refused to file reports with the National Archives and Records Administration and refused to release documents, citing executive privilege. Sound familiar? The VP’s office was ground zero for the Valerie Plame leak, outing and compromising a CIA operative. Albeit that Richard Armitage stepped forward to claim sole responsibility. Whether there was a coordinated conspiracy on the Bush administration’s behalf to damage Plame or her husband Joseph Wilson, is almost moot; either through ignorance, incompetence, or malfeasance, a CIA agent’s cover was blown and her and her families lives endangered, while also damaging US intelligence’s credibility further.

Look, there’s enough stuff to wade through in Cheney’s life and career that practically ensure that you’d need to take a shower afterward. From shooting Texas attorney Harry Whittington in the face (and neck and torso) to actively expanding the powers of the Executive Branch, to fucking lobbying G. W. Bush to grant Scooter Libby a pardon (remember those days when pardons for criminals didn’t just drop from the sky? And yes, Trump pardon Libby in 2018), to his endorsement of “enhanced interrogation” (you know, torture).

The Washington Post ran a four-part series on Cheney that stopped short of saying that he ran a shadow presidency. The emphasis was on how much he had the last word and how much his counsel guided the Bush administration. I don’t know, Wapo, that sounds pretty close to a shadow presidency. But hey, it got you a Pulitzer.

There is simply no way that I can find any positive merit to this man’s actions and policies. In addition to the foregoing, he actively worked to ease environmental protections and regulations, open access to federal lands for logging, and basically, point the way for what we’re seeing unfold before us now. I mean, shit. He thought the Tea Party Movement was “a positive influence on the Republican Party”, essentially paving the way for the crazies that would evolve into MAGA. And let’s not forget he endorsed Trump in 2016 (though he voted for Kamala Harris in 2024; he FAFO’d?) 

This has been a longer post than I expected for a man I very much do not like and who laid the groundwork for the hellscape we are dealing with every fucking day. If I haven’t written with greater hyperbole, it’s simply because a cursory overview of his life, policies, and actions speak loudly for themselves. That he was awarded several accolades in his career is galling (an honorary doctorate of public service from Brigham Young, perhaps, tracks), while embroiling the country in the lengthiest war in our history. Speaking of which, he is another example of the Hawk Republican who sees an enemy behind every tree and wants to blow up the forest while never having any tactical knowledge about how to wage a war, let alone never having even served in a branch of the Armed Forces.

Yet, here we are. One of the greatest monsters ever to hold office is dead and I do not mourn his passing. Normally, I’m willing to allow that we are very often complicated beings, but Cheney does not strike me as particularly complex. His war-mongering, his bullying, his bullshit was key to destroying whatever goodwill was afforded us after 9/11 and helped send us on a downward spiral that saw relief here and there with Obama’s two terms and Biden’s one, but which helped drive some of the deepest nails into the coffin of the republic. 

The Rogue’s Gallery of Assholes that have brought us here litter post-war American history like so many mounds of dog shit that the owners were too lazy to pick up and dispose of. Dick Cheney is a particularly large one; he’s not alone, but he’s the most recent to depart this existence. The pity is that if you called him out as one of the enablers for this would-be despot, he’d either deny it or just not get it. I don’t know that Cheney was that much of a fool; surely, somewhere in his dark psyche, he must have had a neuronal twinge of recognition that he was very much party to laying the groundwork for the Regime. 

If there is a next world, I hope every day (if that’s how time works there) he’s confronted with the faces of people who died as a direct result of his work, surrounded by the shades of disaster and loss, and hears, moment by moment, the unvarnished truth of the results of his militant conservatism.”

I start reading obituaries of this misanthrope and they are replete with obfuscation and lies, covering for his outright evil. Yes, some find it amusing that he embraced being compared to Darth Vader; oh, look, see! He has a sense of humor! But like Trump, the embrace of a character so evil only reflects the evil of their characters.