On the menu today: Happy Election Day to New York City, New Jersey, and Virginia, as well as Pennsylvania (state supreme court races), California (that pro-Democrat redistricting referendum), and the 18th congressional district of Texas. This morning brought news that former Vice President Dick Cheney has died. From the powerful “Darth Vader” denounced by just about everyone on the left in the George W. Bush presidency to a high-profile Kamala Harris voter, some people will argue that Cheney changed. But I think it’s more that the entire U.S. political landscape turned upside down and inside out, while Cheney stayed the same.
Rest in Peace, Dick Cheney
Former Vice President Dick Cheney passed away last night at the age of 84. His family issued a statement early this morning:
“Richard B. Cheney, the 46th Vice President of the United States, died last night, November 3, 2025. He was 84 years old. His beloved wife of 61 years, Lynne, his daughters, Liz and Mary, and other family members were with him as he passed. The former Vice President died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease.
“For decades, Dick Cheney served our nation, including as White House Chief of Staff, Wyoming’s Congressman, Secretary of Defense, and Vice President of the United States.
“Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing. We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country. And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man.”
You’re likely to see a lot of sneering and contempt for the former vice president in the coming days, probably from both sides of the political spectrum.
Back during the Bush presidency, critics called him “Darth Vader.” Cheney himself thought it was pretty funny. They called him that because he was, by some measures, “the most powerful vice president in American history.” The overwhelming consensus on the left was that George W. Bush, Yale and Harvard graduate, plane-flying first lieutenant in the Texas and Alabama Air National Guard, Texas Rangers owner, and former governor was a dunce with an IQ of 91. Dick Cheney just had to be the sinister power behind the throne; it couldn’t possibly be that Bush and Cheney, veterans of the business world, had settled into roles comparable to a chief executive officer and chief operations officer.
The irony is that a lot of the people who hated Dick Cheney in 2004 and a lot of the people who loved him had switched places by 2024. In last year’s presidential race, Cheney endorsed Kamala Harris:
“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Dick Cheney said in a statement. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again.”
“As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris,” he added.
A lot of Republicans perceived that as a betrayal. Certainly, a lot of right-of-center Trump critics couldn’t bring themselves to endorse the walking disaster area that was Kamala Harris. But by 2024, Donald Trump had remade the Republican Party in his own image. Over an eight-year span, the GOP became more isolationist, more populist, more protectionist and skeptical of the free market, much more libertine if not libertarian and less interested in traditional values. And, of course, Donald Trump had made sure that Harriet Hageman defeated the vice president’s daughter, Liz Cheney, in the August 2022 Wyoming Republican congressional primary.
But eight years earlier, Dick Cheney was the only former Republican president or vice president who endorsed Donald Trump in 2016. (That came after Trump had contended on the campaign trail, “They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none. And they knew there were none.”) And at the start of Trump’s first term, Cheney emerged to help get Rex Tillerson confirmed as Trump’s secretary of state.
From MAGA villain to hero to villain again, in the span of a decade or so. Some people will argue that Dick Cheney changed, but I think it’s more that the entire U.S. political landscape turned upside down and inside out, while he stayed the same. In the coming days, many Democrats will denounce Cheney’s legacy . . . which is strong alliances, foreign aid, opposition to dictators, and support for democracy at home and abroad, all things that Democrats claim Trump is in the process of destroying or has destroyed.
And yet, on the Venn Diagram, the worldview of Cheney and Trump overlap quite a bit. Both elected Republicans supported a strong military and American geopolitical supremacy; they just had different ideas of how to get there. Both supported American energy independence and wanted to see America as an energy exporter.
People forget that Cheney voted against the creation of the U.S. Department of Education. He was resolutely pro-Second Amendment; he was one of just 21 members of Congress who voted against a ban on armor-piercing “cop killer” bullets, and “one of only four members of the House voting against a ban on plastic guns that could slip through airport security machines undetected.” Not even the NRA opposed that one!
President Trump wants control over the Panama Canal and has threatened the use of military force. Dude, who do you think invented that move? Dick Cheney’s the man who was running the Pentagon when the U.S. invaded Panama and toppled Manuel Noriega. Cheney would say years later, “There were two guys out there who seriously underestimated George [H. W.] Bush. One was Noriega and the other was Saddam Hussein.”
Oh, you say President Trump wants to use the U.S. military to target drug cartels? Cheney was the trailblazer on that one, too, although some may find where Cheney chose to draw the line ironic:
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, redefining the Pentagon’s mission to make the anti-drug campaign a “high priority,” today gave military commanders three weeks to find new ways to stop the flow of narcotics, even if it means diverting troops from other activities.
Mr. Cheney said at a news conference that sending soldiers into Latin America to train local forces fighting drug rings is ”a dangerous business” and he could not rule out casualties.
But he said he did not envision allowing American soldiers to participate in actual operations, and he rejected Congressional proposals to let military aircraft shoot down planes suspected of carrying narcotics if they did not respond to warnings.
“Obviously the first time you made a mistake, you would have severe problems,” he said. “I’m not eager to see that kind of authority granted to us. The idea that we would go out and willy-nilly shoot down unidentified aircraft strikes me as not a very good one.”
Controversy over deadly U.S. military strikes on vehicles suspected of carrying narcotics? Imagine that!
We’re currently seeing a U.S. military buildup around Venezuela, and President Trump has acknowledged that he has authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to take covert action against Nicolás Maduro’s regime. (Between that, bombing the Houthis, bombing the Iranian nuclear program, killing Qasem Soleimani, etc., why does Trump denounce neocons again?)
In the past week President Nicolás Maduro has accused the U.S. of attempting a coup, ordered the U.S. Embassy staff slashed from more than 100 to 17, barred Americans from visiting the country without a visa and — for good measure — issued a ban on visits by former president George W. Bush and vice president Dick Cheney for committing “terrorism and grave human rights violations” against Venezuela when they were in office. Not that either was planning a trip here.
I wonder if Maduro’s speeches are written out, “I have been the victim of terrorism and grave human rights violations perpetrated by [INSERT CURRENT U.S. PRESIDENT HERE].”
Interestingly, at various points in his career, Cheney opposed unilateral U.S. sanctions on certain hostile regimes and wanted U.S. companies to be free to invest in Iran, Libya, Myanmar, and Cuba. That sounds downright . . . Trumpian.
The discussion of Cheney’s legacy as vice president is likely to focus on the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
You don’t hear much about Iraq anymore. No one would say that the country is a paradise, but compared to life under Saddam Hussein, modern-day Iraq is a considerable improvement. That’s a low bar to clear, obviously, but modern-day Iraq is also a considerable improvement over modern-day Afghanistan. (A common argument in the 2008 election from Barack Obama supporters was that we had to get out of the “bad war” in Iraq so the country could focus on the “good war” in Afghanistan. Well, you see how all that worked out.)
In 2024, Human Rights Watch concluded, “While Iraq continued to enjoy increased security and stability in 2024 following decades of armed conflict, impunity and a lack of justice and accountability for serious crimes, shrinking civic space, flaws in the justice system, discriminatory legal norms disproportionately impacting LGBT people, women, children, and minorities, and inadequate provision of government services remained key areas of concern.” The United Nations Refugee Agency summarizes, “While military operations have ceased and some regions are stabilizing, over 1 million people remain internally displaced, many for years, and thousands more are struggling to reintegrate into areas still lacking basic infrastructure, security, and services.” The U.S. Institute for Peace wrote earlier this year, “Iraq continues to recover from cycles of conflict that have displaced millions of people and caused widespread destruction. As the country rebuilds domestically and reintegrates into the region and the international community, it also needs to improve governance, diversify its economy and address water insecurity, among other challenges.”
And Iraq is, year by year, getting less corrupt. (“Less corrupt” is, sadly, some distance away from “not corrupt.”)
Sure, by American or European standards, Iraq is still in awfully rough shape. But compared to neighbors like Syria and Iran . . . life in Iraq doesn’t look so bad. A lot of men in the Iraqi armed forces played a role in defeating ISIS and have the scars to show for it. The country is holding parliamentary elections in a week; the country has held parliamentary elections in 2005, 2010, 2018, and 2021. I’ll bet you’ve barely heard a peep about any of those elections since the purple fingers of 2005.
A whole lot of people will denounce Cheney, contending that the U.S. never should have taken action to remove Saddam Hussein, his regime, and his psychotic sons. (At that link, the author refers to Cheney wanting to bomb an Iranian nuclear reactor and facing opposition from the rest of the Bush team in 2007, when Cheney’s memoir makes clear he was discussing a Syrian nuclear reactor site.) In their minds, another generation of Iraqis living under the abusive heels of the Hussein family is a better, more stable world.
I suspect a lot of Iraqis would disagree.
ADDENDUM: Over in the Washington Post, some thoughts on the Heritage Foundation immolating its own heritage and its own foundation by sticking by Tucker Carlson and contending there’s nothing wrong with a softball interview with Nick Fuentes. “Heritage is, as its erstwhile hero Milton Friedman would say, free to choose to go in this direction, and all of Heritage’s donors, supporters and allies are free to choose whether they still want to hold Heritage in high regard.”