Ah, memories of the past. It seems like just yesterday that, instead of the fringe right obsessing over Obama’s birth certificate, we had the fringe (well, they didn’t seem to think so) left obsessing over Cheney’s vice-like grip over Bush.
All sorts of fantasies were concocted over this one, but it seems that it wasn’t quite like that. (Yes, most sane people knew that, but let’s fact it, BDS was pretty widespread towards the end there.)
According to the author of the Post piece, Barton Gellman, who earlier wrote a book on Cheney called “Angler,” the former vice president believes Bush made concessions to public sentiment, something Cheney views as moral weakness. After years of praising Bush as a man of resolve, Cheney now intimates that the former president turned out to be more like an ordinary politician in the end, Gellman says.
“In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him,” Gellman quoted a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney’s reply.
“He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney’s advice. He’d showed an independence that Cheney didn’t see coming.”
So it turns out that Bush wasn’t captured by Cheney after all – at least not in the later days of the administration.
Proposed endings to this post:
1. No, wait. This is actually part of Cheney’s diabolical plan! I see it all, can’t you?
2. <incredibly bored>Boy I can’t wait to see what the left makes of this one.</incredibly bored>
Add your own in comments.
Something should go here, maybe later. 