Cheney VS W?

Hey Vice-Precedence Blog Readers!

I just want to go along with Jason and say how great a book "Bland Ambition" is. Several times while reading it I laughed out loud and was introduced to many facts I had never heard of and ideas I had rarely, if ever, thought about. Since the publication of "Bland" there hasn't been another book approaching its scope and level of scholarship and humor. There's a reason why the few books about this subject published since "Bland" use it so much, as Jason points out, because its the best right now. Hopefully our book can be just as good in its own way. On a personal note, Professor Tally is a very nice and open guy and has been a big supporter of getting this film made and we're grateful to him for his support and being a part of our film.

As for VP Cheney, on Monday "The Washington Post" had some comments from the former "enforcer" of the last administration that weren't exactly praise for his former boss. According to Cheney, President Bush "went soft" in his second term, and didn't take enough of his (Cheney's) advice on policy and caved in to criticism from the public and Congress-both of which Cheney doesn't have much respect for in my opinion. In fact, Cheney said that the fact that public opinion influenced President Bush's policies in his second term was an example of "moral weakness".

Cheney, it seems to me, has come around to these opinions since he started working more on his (STILL UNTITLED! ARGHH!) book and has examined those last days in office more closely. What with that recent cover-story in TIME exposing the friction and division between President Bush and VP Cheney in their final months in office over Scooter Libby, it seems that Cheney is trying to get his side of the story out even before his book comes out.

It seems that back at the end of his and Bush's term, besides being furious about the Presidents refusal to pardon Libby (as I reported in an earlier blog and was shown in TIME) he was also frustrated by the fact that President Bush was taking his advice less and less and showing that he was his own man and not Cheneys "Yes-Man" or puppet as many had said for seven years. To me, that's a good thing in a way-its all well and good to take advice from people you respect, but sometimes, you have to follow your own instincts, conscience, and gut. Especially if you're the President of the United States and you're calling yourself "The Decider".

"The Washington Post" story reported the following for their article, for which they interviewed associates working with Mr. Cheney on his book-here is this unnamed associates quote:

"In the second term, Cheney felt Bush was moving away from him, 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. It was clear that Cheney’s doctrine was cast-iron strength at all times — never apologize, never explain — and Bush moved toward the conciliatory,”

Very interesting.


Oh, and in case you were wondering, it looks like both his and President Bush's memoirs will both come out around the same time-the week of 9/11/11-the Tenth Anniversary of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. What will the former Presidents response be to all this? So far, nothing. Is he saving it all for his book? We'll see, and as soon as we know-you'll know.

Thanks for reading!

Matt Saxe