Allan J. Lichtman: How will Cheney go down in history?
[Allan J. Lichtman is a history professor at American University in Washington. His most recent books are "The Keys to the White House" and "White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement."]
Since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the vice presidency has not been a purely ceremonial position (ironically, it was FDR's vice president, John Nance Garner, who said that the office "wasn't worth a warm bucket of spit"). Garner was important because he helped sell FDR's New Deal on Capitol Hill. Vice President Richard Nixon was a major political force within the Eisenhower administration. Dan Quayle, George H.W. Bush's vice president, headed up a Council on Competitiveness that quietly intervened in regulatory decisions to ease burdens on U.S. industries. Walter Mondale under President Carter and Al Gore under President Bill Clinton were notable advisors on a range of foreign and domestic issues.
Dick Cheney, however, has emerged as by far the most influential vice president in U.S. history. Yet Cheney's tenure is also a cautionary tale for future vice presidents. At the end of the Bush-Cheney years, most Americans think that their country is on the wrong track, President Bush is the most unpopular president in the history of polling, and Cheney's approval ratings are below 20%.
After the highly contested 2000 election, it was Cheney who rejected the wise advice that Bush should govern from the center and find common ground with Democrats. Instead, Cheney insisted that "the suggestion that somehow, because this was a close election, we [conservatives] should fundamentally change our beliefs I just think is silly."
As vice president, Cheney met secretly with industry representatives to craft an energy policy that married the administration to big oil and an environmental policy that ignored the threats of global warming, sought to weaken clean air laws and provided private corporations greater access to public resources. Cheney's counsel secretly crafted a military order that stripped foreign terrorism suspects of their rights under the Constitution and the Geneva Convention and authorized cruel methods of interrogation. In refusing to obey an executive order on how to handle national security secrets, Cheney's counsel asserted that "the vice presidency is a unique office that is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the legislative branch."
Cheney was the driving force behind a host of other dubious policies. His counsel developed the rationale for the warrantless wiretapping of Americans. Just three months after Sept. 11, 2001, Cheney pushed for war against Iraq. Going well beyond reliable intelligence, he said in August 2002 that "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction; there is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us." Also in 2002, despite contradictory intelligence, he insisted that Hussein's regime "has had high-level contacts with Al Qaeda going back a decade and has provided training to Al Qaeda terrorists." Domestically, the tax and budget policies that he helped implement have led to record spending increases and budget deficits.
In the post-Cheney era, the next vice president should expect to make a major substantive contribution to the new administration. But he or she should consider taking a more humble and less autocratic approach to the office than Cheney.
Read entire article at LAT
Since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the vice presidency has not been a purely ceremonial position (ironically, it was FDR's vice president, John Nance Garner, who said that the office "wasn't worth a warm bucket of spit"). Garner was important because he helped sell FDR's New Deal on Capitol Hill. Vice President Richard Nixon was a major political force within the Eisenhower administration. Dan Quayle, George H.W. Bush's vice president, headed up a Council on Competitiveness that quietly intervened in regulatory decisions to ease burdens on U.S. industries. Walter Mondale under President Carter and Al Gore under President Bill Clinton were notable advisors on a range of foreign and domestic issues.
Dick Cheney, however, has emerged as by far the most influential vice president in U.S. history. Yet Cheney's tenure is also a cautionary tale for future vice presidents. At the end of the Bush-Cheney years, most Americans think that their country is on the wrong track, President Bush is the most unpopular president in the history of polling, and Cheney's approval ratings are below 20%.
After the highly contested 2000 election, it was Cheney who rejected the wise advice that Bush should govern from the center and find common ground with Democrats. Instead, Cheney insisted that "the suggestion that somehow, because this was a close election, we [conservatives] should fundamentally change our beliefs I just think is silly."
As vice president, Cheney met secretly with industry representatives to craft an energy policy that married the administration to big oil and an environmental policy that ignored the threats of global warming, sought to weaken clean air laws and provided private corporations greater access to public resources. Cheney's counsel secretly crafted a military order that stripped foreign terrorism suspects of their rights under the Constitution and the Geneva Convention and authorized cruel methods of interrogation. In refusing to obey an executive order on how to handle national security secrets, Cheney's counsel asserted that "the vice presidency is a unique office that is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the legislative branch."
Cheney was the driving force behind a host of other dubious policies. His counsel developed the rationale for the warrantless wiretapping of Americans. Just three months after Sept. 11, 2001, Cheney pushed for war against Iraq. Going well beyond reliable intelligence, he said in August 2002 that "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction; there is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us." Also in 2002, despite contradictory intelligence, he insisted that Hussein's regime "has had high-level contacts with Al Qaeda going back a decade and has provided training to Al Qaeda terrorists." Domestically, the tax and budget policies that he helped implement have led to record spending increases and budget deficits.
In the post-Cheney era, the next vice president should expect to make a major substantive contribution to the new administration. But he or she should consider taking a more humble and less autocratic approach to the office than Cheney.
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