What makes Dick Cheney so unusual a Vice President is that he knows this is his last gig. He really couldn’t give two hoots who he ticks off because after this it is time for the carpet slippers.
When Bush picked Cheney in 2000, the general view was that this was a good thing as it would mean that Cheney could give Bush advice without worrying about what the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire would make of it. It also meant that he didn’t need Bush’s help to win the Republican nomination, so he could give Bush frank advice unworried about the consequences of offending the president. But over the course of Bush presidency it has become apparent that Cheney’s liberation from political constraints has made him utterly contemptuous of anyone else, outweighing the other benefits.
Quite how empowered Cheney feels becomes apparent in this snippet from a forthcoming bio of him, flagged
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