On Wednesday, a group of columnist types had lunch with Dick Cheney. One of them was our divine Kate O’Beirne. She had a Corner post on it, here. She said — in essence — “We’ll miss him when he’s gone.” I, of course, second that motion. (Emotion?)
Another participant was Charles Krauthammer. When the vice president saw him, waiting in a small room with the rest of us, he said, “I’m honored.”
The vice-presidential residence, at the Naval Observatory in Washington, is very pretty. And it’s a little less big than you might suppose it to be. A mansion, yes, but a modest mansion, if you will. And the grounds are notably beautiful. This is one of the most attractive and inviting spots in Washington.
That’s how the vice-presidential mansion and environs look. How about the veep himself? Fit, rested, ready — but not ready, alas, for administration work. I think Cheney may look better now than he did when he was sworn in, eight years ago.
As we were chatting before lunch, we got to talking about the 1976 presidential campaign, for some reason: how Ford came from 30 points down and almost won. “If only you’d had a couple more weeks,” I said. (Cheney was Ford’s chief of staff.) “Yes,” said the veep. Then we talked about Ford’s Poland gaffe, in the debates — what a killer.
Cheney has what seems to be an extraordinary memory, by the way: remembers events and episodes in considerable detail.
In due course, we sat down for lunch and our formal conversation. I’d like to tell you some about it — sort of in the spirit of the presidential column I did, a month ago. (Here.) Then, you had Bush on the record and pretty much unfiltered — speaking for himself. Here, you’ll have Cheney.
‐Where will he live? He and his wife will divide their time between Wyoming, their home state, and a new house in McLean, Va. (outside Washington). “Our family is here, and I can look out the back door of the house and see the preschool where all the grandkids go.”
‐Impromptus readers are familiar with a theme of mine: For decades, Cheney was one of the most respected Republicans in the country. Respected by all sides and factions. This was true when he was with Ford, when he was a House member (and leader), when he was defense secretary. John Tower’s nomination went down, Bush (41) turned to Cheney, and everyone said “Hurrah.” You never heard a bad word about Dick Cheney. He was the ultimate in the sober, sensible, responsible politician-statesman.
But now he’s viewed as a right-wing monster: a Torquemada or Attila the Hun. What the heck happened? I put this question, about image, to Cheney himself. (Kate interjected, “I’m surprised he’s allowed to live near preschools.”)
Said Cheney, “There’s no question, and I’m well aware, that my image today is different from what it was before I took this job, and that I came out of my time — well, in the White House with Ford, or in the Congress, or as secretary of defense, with pretty good standing. A polling question would have been generally positive on who I was and what I’d done. And there’s no question that [my standing] has been diminished by the last eight years. I account for that in a number of ways.”
One, “I think the election in 2000 was so close that a lot of people came away from that angry that we had won, some believing that we hadn’t won. There was sort of a residue, if you will, of criticism there that reflected the frustration some of our opponents felt in connection with the outcome of that election.”
Two, there’s “the nature of the job I’ve had this time around. I am not in charge of anything. I don’t run anything. I don’t run 4 million people in the Defense Department, or the White House staff. My role in its purest sense is strictly advisory. I can go to virtually any meeting I want to go to. I’m included in all the policy debates and discussions, and I get to advise the president on the issues of the day.
“But that means, for me to be effective, I can’t talk about it. I’d sit down with a group of reporters and the usual question was, ‘Well, what did you advise the president?’ And the answer had to be, ‘I’m not going to tell you’ — because if I talked all the time about the advice I gave the president, I would shortly find that I wasn’t asked for my advice.
“In other words, to be effective I had to be out of the limelight, not out there explaining myself or what I did, but really taking a low profile.
“And you add to that a third factor, which was the basic challenge we’ve had to deal with: 9/11. I believed — and the president did too, obviously, because he ultimately made the decisions — that our first obligation was to do everything we could to make certain that we didn’t get hit again, that there wasn’t going to be another 9/11 on our watch. And that meant that we had to aggressively find ways to defeat al-Qaeda, or to defeat further attempts on the United States. And that meant collecting good intelligence. And that meant setting up things like the Terror Surveillance Program and the enhanced interrogation techniques for al-Qaeda types like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed . . .”
Moreover, “a lot of this, in order for it to be successful, had to be highly classified. We didn’t talk about the Terror Surveillance Program until the New York Times revealed it in December of ’05 — that there even was such a thing. And secrecy was a very important part of having a successful policy. But it also played into the notion that Cheney is some kind of secretive, manipulative, doesn’t-like-the-public, doesn’t-like-the-press individual. And it played into the, I guess, negative image.
“I think it’s that combination of things that means, at the end of eight years, we don’t get a lot of credit for what didn’t happen — although I think we deserve a fair amount for the success that we’ve had in defending the nation. And the president made some very tough decisions, and I was obviously associated with those policies and strongly supported them — and still do to this day, and go out and defend it publicly when I’m asked about it.
“Then” — and here Cheney gets exercised — “you end up in a situation where your critics start labeling everything you’ve done some version of ‘torture.’ And that word gets thrown around with great abandon.
“So it’s been a difficult environment in which to portray yourself as somehow warm and fuzzy. Hillary Clinton referred to me as Darth Vader. I joke that I asked my family if they were offended by that, and they said, ‘No, it humanizes you.’
“So, I’ve looked on it — it’s been part of my job, and I don’t feel like I’ve been treated unfairly or maligned. [Others of us do.] It goes with the turf. And if I had it to do all over again, I would do exactly what was done — because I think it was that important. I think it’s the only way you could do it.”
‐On executive power: “I think we’ve enhanced the ability of the presidency, the institution, to do what needs to be done under these circumstances” — in the War on Terror. Some people allege that the Bush-Cheney administration has had “a fixation on a strong executive.” But Bush & Co. acted as they did “for a reason.”
“There’s no question that I came to the job with a view that, in this day and age, it was important that the presidency not be weakened, as I thought it had sometimes been in the past: in the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate and so forth. But what it also takes in terms of going forward — it’s not something you sort of do and it’s done. It’s a continual struggle. And maybe that’s as it should be.”
Remember the vice president’s energy task force? Congressman Waxman and environmental groups were demanding to know whom he had met with. Cheney said that they had no right to know that. “It would have been easy to say, ‘Well, it’s just the energy task force. If you don’t have anything to hide, why don’t you just lay it all out there?’ Well, that wasn’t the point. There was a principle involved. And we fought it all the way to the Supreme Court, and won 7 to 2.
“But you’ve got to be prepared to do those kinds of things if you’re going to defend your turf, so to speak.” And “this isn’t some kind of macho thing, where you’ve got sharper elbows than the guy next to you in the line. It’s a matter of — I think our system works best in this day and age with a strong executive.”
‐Someone asked Cheney, “Is there anything in the realm of national security that’s particularly disturbing to you that you’ve seen in the course of the transition as to what the Obama people have planned?” The vice president answered,
“Well, I’d have to say, first of all, I’m not really interactive on a daily basis with the transition teams. They’re working with the agencies and departments. No, my concern would be more based on the campaign rhetoric we heard about interrogation techniques and those kinds of things. Obama did vote for the FISA-reform legislation we passed last year, which was, I think, basically a positive sign. But on the other hand, he was extremely critical and has continued to be very critical of our interrogation program.
“So I think the most important thing for him and his people is to take the time to find out exactly what it is we’re doing, and why we’re doing it, and whether or not it has worked, before they start making decisions based on campaign rhetoric to scrap certain things or drop certain approaches, or to agree to limitations to their authority.”
‐On Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: “It’s been public that he went through enhanced interrogation techniques. And he produced a wealth of information for us. It sort of went into — the way I think of it — a basic database about al-Qaeda. There was a lot we didn’t know on 9/11 about the organization, about the people, about where they operated, where they trained, what their plans were, how they motivated folks, where their financing came from — just a lot of information we didn’t have that we were able to obtain from a few senior al-Qaeda officials that we captured early on, some of whom were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques.”
‐Someone asked, “Are you going to write about all this?” Cheney said, “I’m thinking about it. . . . I’m giving serious thought to writing a book. I haven’t made any commitments or signed any agreements or anything like that, but . . .
“I said to somebody the other day, ‘I’ve got 40 years of stories to tell and scores to settle.’ And so — no, I am giving it serious thought. I’ve never done it. Well, Lynne and I wrote a book together, many years ago, but I didn’t really do that much. She did all the work.
“I was a young member of Congress, and somebody said they’d like to publish a book if I’d write it. And I went back and said, ‘Well, I’ll do it if my wife can co-author it with me, since she’s already a published author, and if we could do it about the House.’ So we did. The way it worked was, Lynne would go down to the library every day and do all the research and write all the basic copy, and then she’d bring it home at night and show it to me. And it took me a while to figure out that she didn’t really want my thoughts.”
‐Cheney told us that he seriously considered a run for the presidency in 1996. He rejected it and had no regrets. “I thought I was young enough to have another career besides politics. I had done 25 years at that point in public life . . .” After making the decision not to run, “I signed on to Halliburton and we went to Texas. I thought that was the last of my political career. By then I was — what? — I guess in my early 50s and thought I had time to go do other things. It was a very conscious decision on my part. . . .
“I think I’ve had a hell of a ride. I’ve loved being vice president. It’s been an amazing time to be here. The president has been great. He’s been true to his word that he’d get me actively involved and that I could play a major role in his administration. But I’ve never looked back in terms of that basic decision I made 15 years ago, that I wasn’t going to run in my own right.”
‐Somebody asked about Cheney’s conservatism — conservatives have always felt that they have a friend in him. Cheney answered amusingly:
“When the president first started talking to me about this job, one of the things I asked him to be able to do was go to Austin and sit down with him on a Saturday morning — and Karl Rove — and walk through all the reasons why we shouldn’t pick me, why I was a bad idea. Sort of a self-vetting process. We talked about the fact that I was from a small state with three electoral votes, which he was going to carry anyway; that I’d had three heart attacks; that I’d been kicked out of Yale twice — laid all the stuff out there. I also said, ‘I’m pretty conservative, you need to know that.’ And I said, ‘No, I mean really conservative!’
“There were still some of them who were surprised when the campaign got cranked and the Democrats started digging in,” combing through Cheney’s voting record and so forth.
‐On Iraq and Afghanistan: “I look at the situation out there today, and I think we’re close to achieving the objectives we established for ourselves in Iraq. We’ve got the level of violence down to the lowest rate since ’03. We’ve got a constitution written, three national elections, an increasingly capable Iraqi military, a strategic framework agreement now with the legitimately elected Iraqi government that provides for our gradual and eventual withdrawal. These are all things that, if you said five years ago, ‘What are your objectives in Iraq?’ these would have been the objectives.
“We’re not home-free, but we’re close, in my opinion.
“On the other hand, Afghanistan continues to be difficult, partly because Afghanistan is different from Iraq, partly because — it’s an extremely poor nation. It doesn’t have much by way of resources, and clearly it’s going to be a continuing requirement” for the U.S. to pay attention to Afghanistan, and maintain a presence there. “And it’s made doubly difficult because of Pakistan next door, which is a safe haven, or has become a safe haven, for the Taliban and, to some extent, al-Qaeda.”
‐In June 2004, Cheney used some choice words with Sen. Pat Leahy — he “dropped the F-bomb,” as a friend of mine put it delightedly. “That may be what I’m remembered for,” Cheney said two days ago.
Reminiscing, he said, “Well, I expressed myself rather forcefully at the time, primarily because the senator had held this press conference with his colleagues, blasting me and my affiliation with Halliburton, as I recall, alleging that I was using my position to throw contracts to Halliburton or some such thing, which I did not do. And then I ran into him on the floor that day and — we were not in session. I always emphasize we didn’t do this when we were in session. We were not in session!
“We were lining up for the class picture. Periodically, we do these pictures of the Senate,” with everybody in his chair. “We hadn’t gotten posed yet. We were still milling around on the floor. And Pat came over and put his arm around me and treated me like a long-lost brother. And, frankly, I was pissed. And so I expressed myself rather forcefully.
“So the relationship was strained there for a while. But we’ve overcome those difficulties. We had the Red Sox down when they were world champs, at the White House. And Senator Leahy, a noted Red Sox fan, was there that day. He’s great at taking pictures. And he took some pictures of me and provided those photographs to me, which I appreciated. It was a thoughtful gesture.”
Also, “he and John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee — of course, Senator Leahy is chairman of the Senate Judiciary — are the ones who passed the legislation this year providing for Secret Service coverage for vice presidents after they leave office for six months, and after that on an as-needed basis. And I thought that was a rather thoughtful gesture on their part, which I appreciated, and which they went forward with because it was a good policy, even though I had my personal differences with both of them.”
‐How about the incoming vice president? Smiling, almost chuckling, Cheney said, “Well, I like Joe. He’s a — he is an engaging fellow. He and his wife came here and we had a very pleasant hour as we showed them around the house. It’s the first time I’d met her. I hadn’t seen her before. But it was — well, I think it would be fair to say it was a lot easier, smoother than when we came to call on the Gores eight years ago.”
And what was that like? “It was awkward, because we’d had this tough, tough fight. He’d run for reelection — had run for election as president. . . . The recount had drug on for five weeks. There was a group of people out here on the street throughout that period of time, which I had nothing to do with, but with signs, yelling, ‘Get out of Cheney’s house!’ You could hear them inside here. And it was tough for them.”
‐Someone asked about regrets. Cheney said, “From a policy standpoint, I wish we’d been able to make more progress on the Social Security issue. We came out of the ’04 election and the president felt strongly about it, and we worked hard on it for a year — town halls all over the country . . . But we could never really get any traction on it. We couldn’t get any of the Democrats to agree to sort of engage us on it. And I think that was an area . . . that I wish we’d been able to make some progress on.”
‐Cheney reflected on the job of vice president — which is, of course, entirely dependent on the president. You do what the president wants. Or nothing. “I always hark back to the Kennedy-Johnson relationship. Here’s Lyndon Johnson, who had been one of the most successful and powerful and influential legislative leaders — Senate leaders — in the history of the Republic. And he became vice president. And the thing you’ll remember about Lyndon Johnson’s vice presidency is, he imported some camel driver from Afghanistan he met on one of his trips. That’s what I’ve got stuck in my mind about the Johnson vice presidency.
“And of course, in those days, Mike Mansfield and the Senate Democrats didn’t want him around, wouldn’t let him come back to the policy lunches in the Senate — after he’d been the Senate leader.”
‐“What are your thoughts,” someone said, “about the way out of the political wilderness for the Republicans?” Cheney answered, “I’m fairly relaxed about it in the sense that I’m not one of those people who are wringing their hands about the demise of the Republican party. I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think that having seen this before . . .” — and then he talked about 1974, that disastrous year for the GOP. Two years later, of course, the Republicans lost the presidency. But four years after that, Reagan won, and the Republicans retook the Senate, launching a new era.
“So, as I look at it, I think the party obviously has to recruit some good leadership. Some of the old guys like me need to step aside and move on to other things.”
Whom does he like among younger Republicans? “There’s some very talented guys out there,” he said — and he named three House members: Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, and Adam Putnam. And three Senate members: Jon Kyl, John Thune, and Richard Burr. (Kyl is the same age as Cheney, but never mind.)
“I mean, there’s a lot of folks who will have the opportunity now to sort of rejuvenate the party,” to reclaim “fundamental principles that have led to success in the past. And it may take a few elections here, but the pendulum will swing and we’ll get a shot at it again. . . .
“So, I’m not as pessimistic as a lot of people are. This is part of the normal cycle of a competitive two-party system, and it’s basically, fundamentally healthy for the nation.
“What’s going to happen here [on January 20] is truly remarkable, if you think about it. I mentioned to somebody the other day — they asked me if I thought things had gotten better or worse during the 40 years since I came to Washington. And I thought back for a minute and was reminded that in 1968 we started the year with the Tet offensive in Vietnam. We had Lyndon Johnson withdraw from the campaign, we had Martin Luther King assassinated, we had Bobby Kennedy assassinated, we had riots in the cities, we had a riot in Chicago that was called the Democratic national convention.
“And here we are 40 years later and we’re about to swear in the first African-American president in history. That’s remarkable. I didn’t vote for him and don’t agree with him on a lot of issues, but I think it really says a hell of a lot for the country that we’ve come that far in that period of time.
“And so I’m basically an optimist — both for the country and for the party.”
‐A word on President Bush: “I think he’s been a remarkable man — is a remarkable man. And the thing that I admire about him most is a willingness to take on tough decisions, to make those decisions and then live with them, and not look back. And I especially think that’s been true on what he’s had to do in the national-security arena. And I know how hard he’s worked at it. I know the depth of his feelings about what he’s had to ask people to do.
“I’ve watched him especially with the families of the men and women who didn’t make it home. And he has a great capacity to share with them and, to some extent, comfort them that’s beyond anything I’ve ever been capable of. I think he’s been a very, very effective leader in that regard. And as I say, I think that when people get a little more perspective and are able to look at Iraq and look at Afghanistan, and look at the Global War on Terror, and look at our ability to defend the nation successfully for the last eight years, he will be well regarded.”
‐In a discussion of bailouts, Cheney talked about wage and price controls — that Nixon-era maneuver. “I came away from the experience feeling that was an inappropriate exercise of governmental authority.” (He was in the administration at the time.) “Wage-price controls are really bad. I don’t even put it on my résumé.”
That was one of the funniest lines of our lunch, and there were many.
“What the government was basically doing there was intervening to control the wages and prices and profits of every enterprise in America. And I thought [the move] was basically motivated by politics. It wasn’t sound economic policy. Nobody even claimed it was sound economic policy. The rate of inflation was low when we started. Anyway, that’s one category of things I obviously didn’t approve of, although I was part of it.
“Last summer, when we ran into financial problems and problems in the financial sector — I viewed that as very different. Again, it was government taking on a major role, and obviously also moving large quantities of financial resources, but the financial system is to some extent the engine that drives the economy. If it doesn’t work, if the banks don’t have the money to lend, if you’ve got a liquidity crisis in the financial sector, nothing else works.
“Also, government has obligations in the financial sector it doesn’t have in other parts of the economy. The Federal Reserve Board, the control of the currency, the Treasury department and so forth — all of these things are government responsibilities. . . .
“And I also have felt that — and I’m not an economist, so I’m obviously winging it to some extent here — but that past governmental policies contributed significantly to the financial crisis where it arose. And there I’m talking about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and subprime mortgages and mortgage-backed securities and so forth . . .” So if “government was involved in pursuing those policies that allowed those things to happen, it had contributed in part to the crisis that developed.
“The final point I guess I’d make is that government does have regulatory authority and responsibility where financial institutions are involved — the SEC, etc. — and that when that crisis developed, there wasn’t anybody to look to, to try to solve those problems and get us through that period, other than the federal government.”
But: “Separate and apart from that is the question, for example, of the automobile industry. One of the first things I did when I came to town as a congressman — this was back in 1979 . . . I remember going with Dave Stockman [a Michigander!] over to the Senate — I think he’s maybe in his second term, I’m in my first term — and we went over and testified before, I guess it was probably the Senate Banking Committee, against the Chrysler bailout — the first one. Of course, we didn’t succeed then. But that reflected my views about whether or not we should allow the private sector to function.”
‐By the way, did you catch Cheney when he said, “I’m not an economist, so I’m obviously winging it to some extent here”? I thought that said something about the man. I wonder if you can imagine Vice President-elect Biden saying that. Cheney probably knows a lot more about economics than he, and Biden probably regards himself as a match for Lord Keynes.
‐Near the end of our lunch, someone asked, “Is there a hand of Providence in American history?” Cheney said, “That’s a very interesting question. I guess I think — without answering your question directly, I think America is a very special place, that it’s unique in the history of the world; that there was clearly genius involved in the establishment of the Republic; and that it has been either extraordinarily fortunate from time to time, or one can find the hand of Providence, if you will, in what’s happened to the nation over the years.
“I just got through reading Tried by War by James McPherson, a great book about Lincoln and his generals, and what he went through in terms of trying — you all know the history — trying to find the right people to command.”
‐Finally, the vice president dropped a political tidbit I had never heard before — in all my reading, and all my asking and listening. We were back on the ’76 campaign. “Before the convention that year, we were searching for a vice president, because Nelson Rockefeller was out. . . . And we had Teeter [Bob Teeter, the pollster from Michigan] do a poll on Ronald Reagan for vice president. And it showed clearly that Reagan was the best pick for Ford as vice president. And we took it up to Camp David to meet with the president to show it to him, and he threw us out. He didn’t want to hear it.”
‐Friends, I’ll wrap up now — it’s been a long column, or rather report, or rather conveyance. I haven’t said much — said much myself. (I did take that shot at the vice president-elect.) But you hear me all the time — my opinions, my stories, my interpretations, my remarks. I thought it would be nice to let a principal speak at length, before more than just a small group.
I am one of those who consider Dick Cheney — Richard B. Cheney, to get formal — one of the best public servants of recent times. He is smart, decent, and versatile. He is thoughtful about big issues and impressive with details. He knows the government inside out. He is part politician, part policy wonk. He is also a leader. His opinions, and the ways at which he arrives at them, are utterly sound. He is a superb communicator (when he chooses to communicate). His temperament is so good as to be enviable.
And the widespread image of him as some sort of villain is sick. Sick.
One of the best decisions George W. Bush ever made was to ask Cheney to run with him — and to be his partner in government. I wish Cheney could have been president — not instead of Bush, but at some point in his career. I wish he could be president still.
How about that?
Most people — including many Republicans and conservatives — are happy to see the backs of Bush and Cheney. The thought of their leaving, replaced by those who are replacing them, makes my blood run cold. This is true especially where the world, and all its dangers, are concerned. I hope I’m wrong.