Warrior or war-monger

I was going to write today on the war threats that North Korea has made against the United States and Iran has made against Israel but a show I watched last night on Showtime changed my mind. It was a documentary about Dick Cheney, who served as vice president under George W. Bush.

It was essentially a video biography of Cheney, because his interviews took up most of the footage, but there were also interviews with both supporters and opponents of his which provided for a more balanced perspective.

Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, and after attending elementary school there, his family moved to Wyoming which he called home for the rest of his life. He had early scrapes with the law and was arrested twice for driving under the influence during his late teen-age years. His girlfriend, who later became and still is his wife, told him he was going to have to change his ways or she wasn't going to go with him anymore. He took the warning seriously, started concentrating on his school work and, in his words, "discovered I was a pretty good student."

He took five deferments when he reached draft age during the Vietnam war which kept him out of the military until he turned 26, which ended his obligation. He said he had other things to think about in the '60s than serving in the military.

In a fortunate bit of luck, he was asked to serve as a congressional aide at a very young age and while doing that, he met Donald Rumsfeld who he worked closely with for the rest of his career.

He referred to Rumsfeld during the latter's retirement ceremonies as the best friend he ever had.

He also ran for Congress and was elected several times from Wyoming. He gained national prominence when he was selected by George W. Bush to be his running mate and they won election twice, giving him eight years in the White House. The interesting thing about his selection is that Bush had put him in charge of the vetting process of possible vice-presidential candidates and Cheney said they had the most intense vetting process in the history of presidential politics.

When all was said and done, Bush decided he wanted Cheney instead of the people he had been vetting so Cheney submitted a very limited account of his history to Bush himself. So he turned out to be the least- vetted candidate in history at a time when the other candidates were the most vetted.

The fascinating thing about the documentary to me, was when he said if he had everything to do over again, he would do it exactly the same way. From torturing prisoners to starting and maintaining wars on false pretenses, he felt like he made no mistakes.

For a guy who sought five deferments during the Vietnam war, he obviously didn't mind putting other young men and women in harm's way. "Do as I say and not as I do" I suppose. He said that when you're doing things, that's no time to reflect on what other people think. You do what you think needs to be done and you let the chips fall where they may.

He is said to have been the most powerful vice president in history and I think even that is under-stated. I believed at the time and believe even more today after watching the documentary that he was not vice president but co-president. Especially in their first term, Bush almost always took Cheney's advice. In fact, the Bush presidency would have been very different had he selected someone else instead of Cheney to be his right-hand man.

But he didn't and history will ultimately make the final judgment on the impact Cheney had on the Bush presidency.

The last four years were not nearly as harmonious as the first four were, with Bush separating himself from Cheney more and more.

Cheney recalled one executive meeting they had in the West Wing when he proposed a certain solution to a problem and when the president asked the others there who approved of Cheney's idea, not a single hand was raised.

By the middle of the second term, Bush told his appointment secretary that he didn't want to have any more meetings or even phone calls with Cheney.

The final act that severed the ties between the two men was Bush asking for, and receiving Donald Rumsfeld's resignation, a move that Cheney disagreed with totally.

The two of them became permanently estranged after that and remain so today.

I've always had the perspective that you can't argue for one side if you don't know both sides, and that's why I watch and read as much about the opposition as I do the people I support.

Even though I probably drew conclusions from the documentary that supporters of Cheney wouldn't have, at least I watched it.

I think communication and understanding among competing groups would improve dramatically if more people did that.