Named himself VP, pushed us into a war that wasted trillions of dollars and took a hundred thousand+ lives, supported apartheid, opposed releasing Mandela, ordered the public identification of a CIA asset, advocated for the unitary executive theory, set up the extraordinary rendition program and black sites, was in the pocket of big coal and oil, hid federal records, and made torture the stated policy of the United States. (And I'm leaving out a bunch of other stuff.) But now he's dead so let's say nice things about him.
Some humans are such demonic filth that even when they die, you feel like it's unfair they weren't tortured before dying. But I guess it's better than him exhaling into the same air as us.
Ace nails it as usual http://ace.mu.nu/archives/417163.php Cheney embraced an unapologetic, no-hedging, no reaching-across-the-aisle, no compromise "strong form" of neoconservatism, meaning there was no hiding its failure when it failed. He could not blame-shift or claim that "Real Neoconservatism has never been tried" or that he only got to implement half of the neocon foreign policy, and we'd have to implement the full 100% to determine if it worked or not. It was tried, we implemented 100% of it, and it failed so spectacularly that former neocons such as myself (and many of you) turned away forcefully, permanently, and in revulsion. Which did have the salubrious effect of ushering in a new theory of government and foreign policy -- which largely was the refurbishing of an old theory -- personified in the unlikely avatar of a loudmouth real estate tycoon from Queens, NY. At least in that respect, Cheney provided a service. Political questions are rarely tested in such laboratory-perfect sort of experiment, and Cheney finally put unapologetic neoconservatism to the acid test and delivered us all the results. They were not the results we wanted, but they were the results we needed. Alas, many Americans died trying to vindicate the now-obviously-absurd political claim that we can or should attempt to politically and culturally transform backwards and barbaric societies, hundreds or even thousands of years away from reaching modernity organically, by sending in a several tens of thousands of American fighters to trade bullets and bodies with savages and terrorists for a decade. We tried. It may be called a Nobel Failure, or just a failure. It was a costly failure in terms of money and precious Americans' lives (and limbs) lost. It failed, and now we know. As I've never stopped regretting: We elected George W. Bush and Dick Cheney on the theory that the military exists for war-fighting and destroying the enemy, not to serve as armed Social Engineers and Progressive Reformers to advance primitive societies. We elected them to make sure that Bill Clinton's folly in Haiti -- which involved 25,000 "peace keepers" -- would never be repeated. The US military would henceforth be deployed only to destroy an enemy and secure an advantage for the US, not to "nation build" failed or backwards states barely removed from the Dark Ages. Instead, we wound up being signed up for a decade-plus of nation-building on a scale that Bill Clinton would have blanched at. Bill Clinton played around with using the US armed forces as an evangelizing force for progressivism. Dick Cheney took Bill Clinton's early experiments and made them into the central animating theory of US foreign policy. Dick Cheney tested the limits of overwhelming American military might and to our great regret, he found those limits, at enormous loss of American life. RIP to Dick Cheney and more importantly, RIP to neoconservatism, nation-building, and chasing our tails around the world in pursuit of absurd utopian goals like "bringing freedom to Islam" and bringing reform and democracy to those who "hate our values."
He is an anti Trumper so of course he does not have a heart just like his daughter Liz. Anyone who does not love Trump has no heart. Do you have a heart?
It's been too long for me to be celebrating, but I ain't sad. I could do without the cultural chauvinism. Also interesting to see he thinks Trump is somehow a repudiation of Cheney's neoconservatism. Trump is leaning into the unfettered executive philosophy that Cheney promoted. Similar disdain for civil rights and for international rules-based order. And now Trump is starting to dabble in foreign adventures too. From my perspective, I don't see much difference between Cheney and Trump. For all the shade Cheney threw Trump's way in his retirement, I kinda think Cheney would have been a very loyal and effective soldier for Trump if he had been young enough to have a place in Trump's administration.
