No matter what you might think about Dick Cheney, this is an important read about a man who for more than 40 years played a key role in shaping US foreign - and domestic - policy. Take away his eight years of service as Vice President and you are reminded of his time as Defense Secretary for George G.W. Bush, his senior roles in House Republican Leadership, his tenure in the Nixon Administration.
While I'm still plowing through the book on my Kindle, the one thing that surprised me the most is how Cheney owes his entire career to Donald Rumsfeld. Literally from the first days when Cheney rolled into town in his Volkswagen as a congressional fellow. Rumsfeld constantly turned to him as a key aide and Cheney always performed. I suspect it gives some deeper insight into their relationship during the Bush Administration.
What also is quite interesting is how Cheney wrote the the book with his eldest daughter, Liz. Now seen by many as having taken up the mantel of her father and the next generation of Cheney politicos, she is feisty and deeply opinionated. She's also seen as a leading spokesman for the neo-con foreign policy crowd - leaving me wondering how much of an influence she may have been behind the scenes when we watched Dick Cheney move from being a Nixon centrist to a Reagan Republican to the spear throwing, fire-breathing neo-conservative. Well, I guess I need to finish the book to plumb these depths further. And that will be my weekend reading -- hope you find it interesting, too.
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