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Thursday’s service was officially the funeral of former Vice President Dick Cheney. In reality, it was a wake of sorts for an era of politics anchored in ideological conservatism, hawkish vigilance on national security, and respect for traditions that seem notionally quaint in an era of President Donald Trump’s dominance.
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“Though not a happy assignment, I do consider it an easy one. Because there was so much to like and admire about Dick Cheney,” a somber former President George W. Bush eulogized in a Washington National Cathedral packed with luminaries of a bygone era. As the former President spoke fondly of his former understudy, it was impossible not to be reminded of how unrecognizable Washington has become in the years since Cheney loomed over the District as a shadowy puppet master. More recently isolated as a persistent critic of the Trumpist turn inside the GOP, Cheney’s final act in Washington was one that reminded the town just how quickly things can snap.
“This was a Vice President totally devoted to protecting the United States and its interests,” Bush said of his Vice President. “There was never any agenda or angle beyond that. You did not know Dick Cheney unless you understood his greatest concerns and ambitions were for his country.”
The audience felt like a callback to another era in politics. Long faded were grievances about the United States’ muscular response to the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Instead, former Cabinet Secretaries and corporate overlords mingled with now-grey former junior Bush White House aides. Megadonors who once were kings of backroom deals were among the first in line for security checks, a call-back to the late 1990s when Bush’s ascent seemed inevitable.
“He knew that bonds of party must yield to the single bond that we share as Americans,” said daughter Liz Cheney, a former House member who was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump. She lost her GOP primary for the crime of joining a Trump-critical panel investigating the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to keep Trump in power.
To be sure, Dick Cheney was never exactly beloved in either party. Democrats saw him as a master of dark arts, beholden to his former pals in the oil industry and a warmonger who goaded the nation to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to help his benefactors. Republicans saw him as an exploiter of Bush’s insecurities and an opportunist who amassed power at the expense of Congress. All the while, the current landscape of Trumpists—populists, nationalists, nativists—continue to view him as the embodiment of all that ails political elites.
Cheney, who died at age 84 this month, drew an audience that included not just Bush but also former President and Vice President Joe Biden, former Vice Presidents Kamala Harris and Al Gore, and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi—all Democrats who were hardly fans of the Vice President when he was in power. Rachel Maddow, a liberal host on MSNOW who had been a steady critic of Cheney’s advocacy for and defense of the war in Iraq, was also a seated guest, more proof that time can ease a lot of rage.
Former House Speaker John Boehner and former Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, too, were in the crowd that was an unmistakable throwback to yesteryear. Yet current Senate Leader John Thune, who has shown a degree of independence from the current White House, was sitting near the front with other dignitaries. So, too, was Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Trump, who made Cheney-hating a pastime for his MAGA-verse, was neither invited nor in attendance. Snubbed, too, was Trump’s current second-in-command, J.D. Vance, according to those familiar with the matter.
Trump’s Vice President during his first term, Mike Pence, was there, as was Dan Quayle, who was Vice President while Cheney was the Secretary of Defense. After the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Cheney was one of the most outspoken Republicans in praising Pence for standing up to Trump’s efforts to deny Biden’s election victory.
Trump, who is required by law to lower White House flags to half-staff upon a former Vice President’s death, did so for Cheney but has made no other public tribute for him. And reactions from Capitol Hill, where Cheney served as a House member, have been similarly muted given Trump’s contempt for both Dick and Liz Cheney. It would not have bothered Cheney, who delighted in his reputation as an all-powerful insider; his trailer hitch in the post-White House years was modeled after a Star Wars ship, a nod to his Darth Vader nickname.
That reputation irked Bush while he and Cheney worked down the hall from each other in the West Wing. Things between them soured further when Cheney sought mercy for an aide who got caught up in a scandal over leaked classified information. Bush commuted the criminal sentence but did not pardon him, as Cheney had sought. (Trump pardoned that aide, Scooter Libby, in his first term. At the National Cathedral on Thursday, Libby was one of Cheney’s honorary pallbearers.)
Bush and Cheney, of course, reconciled, and it came through in Bush’s tribute. “They do not come any better than Dick Cheney,” Bush said.
Certainly few came to the vice presidency with any deeper experience.
At age 34, Cheney became the youngest White House Chief of Staff in history, running the day-to-day operations for President Gerald Ford. He later represented Wyoming in the House, climbing into the GOP Leadership as a no-nonsense conservative. President George H.W. Bush tapped him to lead the Pentagon, giving him ownership of the first Gulf War and a second toppling the government of Panama.
When George W. Bush was looking for an understudy, he tapped Cheney to lead the search. In turn, Bush tapped Cheney for the job after watching his mind churn through pros and cons of candidates. Over the next eight years, Cheney turned the typically backwater role into one of the driving forces in Washington and beyond, using his power to launch two more wars, implement harsh interrogation and severe surveillance programs, and a dramatic retooling of anti-terrorism policies that remain on the books to this day. He was widely seen as the political muscle and the limitless brains behind Bush’s agenda.
But his capacity to define national priorities remained the focus on Thursday at his funeral. Described by Bush as a quiet, contemplative counselor who kept calm during moments of crisis, he suggested the final word on Cheney’s legacy in Washington was one of a caring family man who harbored little ambition for himself.
It certainly was a contrast to the caricature of a ruthless insider. But it was an even stronger contrast to the current political leadership here in Washington.
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