Long before the age of MAGA and Donald Trump, Dick Cheney was one of America’s favorite political villains. During his stints in Federal Government he was strong advocate of war, torture, and unchecked surveillance. For eight years, he stood as the face of one of the most disgraceful presidential administrations in modern history.
Most of us hoped we wouldn’t see that level of lies and lawlessness of the Bush administration ever again. Instead, when Trump and his goons stormed the stage eight years later, the Bush-Cheney years suddenly looked almost quaint.
In 2022, Cheney joined Democrats in calling Trump “the greatest threat to our republic.” Two years later, he did what would once have been unthinkable: he endorsed Kamala Harris for president, declaring that Trump “can never be trusted with power again.”
Strange turn of events.
A vice-president without a heart
Cheney dodged the Vietnam draft through five deferments, saying later that he “I had other priorities”. He went on to spend his career to advocate for sending other people’s children into battle. Once in power, he became one of Washington’s most strongest advocates for military intervention abroad.
After the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, Cheney used the nation’s fear and anger to pursue (potential) illegal policies. He was a champion of the Bush Administration’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” (torture) and actively hid US secret prisons and extraordinary rendition to third-party country’s from Congress.
At home, he helped direct the government’s surveillance machinery to turn inward on U.S. citizens. Warrantless wiretapping and large-scale collection of American citizens’ private information were the result. These policies have permanently set back our civil liberties and privacy rights.
When Osama bin Laden slipped away during the Battle for Tora Bora, the Bush administration looked for new targets. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq became the new threat to the American way of life. Without saying so explicitly, Cheney was again a key figure in whipping up the nation for war a oil. He repeatedly invoked the now-debunked lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction to drum up public opinion.
Former diplomat Joseph Wilson challenged that narrative, publicly questioning the administration’s claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger. In retaliation, Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, leaked the identity of Wilson’s wife (covert CIA operative Valerie Plame) to the press as a political hit job. The exposure effectively ended her career.
Libby was later convicted of obstruction and perjury, only to be pardoned by Donald Trump in 2018. The irony is rich: Trump, the man obsessed with finding and punishing “leakers,” rehabilitated one of Washington’s most infamous ones.
Meanwhile, Cheney’s old company, Halliburton, made out like a bandit during the Iraq War. Much like Trump later steering government business to his own properties, Cheney maintained financial ties to Halliburton even as it raked in roughly $39–40 billion in Iraq War contracts, many of them no-bid. Cronyism, profiteering, conflict of interest — Cheney opened a door that Trump would later tear off its hinges.
Epilogue
And today? Are we meant to mourn Dick Cheney’s passing? No — but we can remember his words, and more importantly, his deeds. They stand as a cautionary tale for whatever comes after our MAGA era.
Dying from heart disease did prove one thing, though: Dick Cheney had a heart after all.