Didion on Cheney

I've never really spent much time reading about our Vice President, but, since I have a need to finish most articles (except those on fine arts) in the NY Review of Books, I pored through an article on him by Joan Didion. Here is how she begins:

"It was in some ways predictable that the central player in the system of willed errors and reversals in the Bush administration would turn out to be its vice-president, Richard B. Cheney. Here was a man with considerable practice in the reversal of his own errors. He was never a star. No one ever called him a natural. He reached public life with every reason to believe that he would continue to both court failure and overcome it, take the lemons he seemed determined to pick for himself and make the lemonade, then spill it, let someone else clean up."

Essentially, Cheney, in Didion's view, settles on a particular view of the world and does not change. For example, an exchange with Powell wherein Powell talks about the unanticipated and unintended consequences of war leads Cheney to conclude that these consequences are not the issue, Saddam is. "Conclude" is probably not the correct word to use as it implies a process of reasoning, which seems to be totally absent from Cheney's participation in a discussion.

"The One Percent Doctrine" quotes Cheney, "(going to war) is not about our analysis or finding a preponderance of the evidence". Again, the decision has been made, it cannot be changed no matter whether it is correct or not.

Cheney appears to have some odd views. Watergate was not a criminal conspiracy; it was a power struggle between the legislature and executive. The mistake in planning for the Iraq war was in getting there too soon, as if this negated the need for a post-war plan. The mistakes of Iran-Contra were Reagan's signing the Boland Amendment and waiving executive privilege for the Congressional investigations.

Cheney also appears to be very skilled in leaving no trail. The passing of executive orders classifying the papers of both the president and vice-president (the only vp so 'honored') and granting the vice president the same power as the president to classify information certainly help cover his tracks. Strangely, his office refuses to tell the editors of the Federal Directory who works in the vp's office. When he goes home to Wyoming, his staff will not confirm that he is there although Air Force 2 is.