Dick Cheney Reportedly to Take Aim at George Bush in New Book
Dick Cheney will reportedly criticize former President George W. Bush in his memoir of their two terms in the White House. Cheney is expected to give detailed accounts of his arguments with the president in the book, an unprecedented move by a former vice president, especially one known for his loyalty and confidential counsel.
The book, according to The Washington Post, will be based on the copious notes Cheney took while vice president and reveal private debates inside the Bush White House. Cheney has said ominously that “the statute of limitations has expired” on many of his secrets, according to the Post.
“When the president made decisions that I didn’t agree with, I still supported him and I didn’t go out and undercut him,” Cheney said, according to his authorized biographer, Stephen Hayes. “Now we’re talking about after we’ve left office. I have strong feelings about what happened . . . and I don’t have any reason not to forthrightly express those views,” Cheney told Hayes, according to the report.
Cheney’ memoir, negotiated by uber-agent Robert Barnett, is planned for publication in spring 2011. The Post reports that Cheney is writing from an office he built above his garage in a new house in McLean, Va.
As I wrote recently, Bush and Cheney left the White House in January barely on speaking terms over Bush’s decision not to pardon Lewis “Scooter” Libby, according to an article inTime magazine. Reportedly, the vice president pushed so hard against an unwilling Bush to pardon Libby, a former Cheney staffer, that their relationship was strained to the breaking point.
An associate who discussed the forthcoming book with Cheney told the Post, “What impressed me was his continuing zeal. . . . He was still very much in the fray. He’s not going to soften anything or accommodate shifts of conscience.”
Cheney seems almost angry that he was not able to accomplish his policies during the two terms in the White House. “There was no sense in which he looked back and said, ‘I wish I’d done something differently,’ ” the associate told the paper. “Rather, there was a sense that they hadn’t gone far enough. If he’d been equipped with a group of people as ideologically rigorous as he was, they’d have been able to push further.”
In my years working for politicians, the rule of thumb was that conversations with the official were considered private and sensitive counsel, and were not discussed outside the office. We all also lived by the policy that the politician needed trusted staff to openly debate issues and get advice, with the assumption that we would keep that counsel private, even after the official left office.
Cheney, the ultimate Washington insider, would be violating the well-known though unofficial code of politics if he writes about private conversations with the president and criticizes his own boss. For a man who seemed during his eight years in office to put loyalty above all else, this reportedly tell-all book would show the world that Cheney’s utmost loyalty is to his own legacy.
