Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency

by Lou Dubose, Jake Bernstein, JAKE BERNSTEIN LOU DUBOSE

Book Overview

Dick Cheney is the most powerful yet most unpopular vice president in U.S. history. He has thrived alongside a president who from day one had little interest in policy and limited experience in the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400065763
• ISBN13: 9781400065769
• Release Date: October 2006
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 261 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Cheney: Secretive and paranoid

"Vice", a perfect name for this book, confirms what so many of us have long thought about Dick Cheney...he's cold, secretive, ruthless, heartless and ultimately paranoid. Making the case against the Vice President with an astonishing narrative, authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein peel away the layers behind the throne's real power. If the emperor has no clothes, it's the work of his tailor. As the authors point out, Cheney doesn't seek power so much as power seems to follow him. With incredible luck and skill, Cheney rose from being President Ford's Chief of Staff (the youngest in U.S. history) to a ten-year stint as Wyoming's only Congressman, to George H.W. Bush's Secretary of Defense to his current role in the White House. While not a meteoric rise, it followed the building blocks that Cheney so desired. He could not really have been disappointed that his brief thoughts of a run for the White House didn't pan out.....he's gotten his wish to be in charge. To be fair, Dubose and Bernstein give Cheney some credit...he was well thought of as SecDef (contrast that one to Donald Rumsfeld's malfeasance!) and his crisis management on 9/11 was intact. But one angle that the authors argue is this...that Cheney's series of heart attacks may very well have made him a changed man...and not one for the better. Certainly his hatred of the CIA gets full coverage in "Vice" and we also receive a comprehensive look at Cheney's relationship with Halliburton. There's even a chapter on the dark one's dark partner, Lynne, titled "Lady MacCheney"...if you thought lowly of the Veep before, this chapter will seal the deal. The scariest thing to be reminded about after reading "Vice" is that Cheney is still in power, although reading this book just after Scooter Libby's conviction adds an extra bit of interest... will the Vice President's power now begin to wane as he becomes the most reviled person to hold that office in history. Time will tell but in the meantime, read "Vice" and learn more about the enemy within. It puts you right in the thick of the swirling current surrounding Dick Cheney and is wonderfully written. I highly recommend it.

Must read

Whether you believe Dick Cheney is trying to protect our country by "fighting terrorism" or is simply unhinged by hubris (and perhaps ill health), you need to read this book. Don't be swayed by terms like "Torture Presidency" or "Lady MacCheney". Yes, the book has bias, but its reporting is too thorough for dismissal as a partisan hack job. Anecdotal evidence suggests his influence is banking. Yet he bestrides this administration like a Claude Raines villain in an old Warners adventure movie, a guardian-chamberlain dominating Dubya, the cocksure, brittle dauphin on the throne. Fellow reviewer Robert D. Steele says Cheney should be placed in irons, and presents persuasive evidence crystallizing the themes of the book. Vice documents how Dick Cheney and his long-time counsel David Addinhgton have put into action an authoritarian "unitary executive" theory to give the president unwaarranted powers, and have arrogated these powers to the vice president's office, accountable to no one. It's all here: torture, signing statements, shadow governance in "the dark side, if you will," as Cheney puts it, eavesdropping on the White House staff, the lies leading to the Iraq War, the wiretapping, the seeret energy task force, sweetheart Halliburton contracts, the failure - almost surely deliberate - to reconstitute Congress in prospective post-attack plans. The 25 questions for Dick Cheney at the end (page 225 or thereabouts) should be at the top of Congress's list when Cheney and Addington get their subpoenas. At the the same time, the book raises as many questions as it answers, largely due to the authors' lack of access, a largely absent paper trail (a tip learned from Cheney's mentor Don Rumsfeld) and the secretive nature of this enigmatic American version of Yuri Andropov. (An aside: The handling of the Texas hunting accident and subsequent reassignment of all the Secret Service agents had touches of Kremlin black comedy). The book raises, but cannot answer, Cheney's evident shift from an extreme, but pragmatic, right-wing Rpublican who said Saddam Hussein's downfall was not worth "very damn many" American lives, to the rigid, hell-bent-for-war authoritarian ideologue we see today. (Is it 9-11? Partly. The heart attacks? Perhaps. Cheney's onetime friends are baffled. But the authors can only raise the questions.) So, if the final book has yet to be written, this one gives us a useful map. The surprise is that it has not received more notice; it is on par with - and in some ways superior to - the recent works of Suskind, Ricks, Isikoff, Woodward, Rich and Chandrasekaran, among others, who have tried to shed light on this administration's apparently endless dark corners.

23 Documented High Crimes That Should Put Cheney in Irons Immediately

EDITED 5 September 2007 to add ten links to other related books. This book is vastly more detailed, and covers more high crimes and misdemeanors, than either State of Denial, which misunderstands Bush as being in charge, or Crossing the Rubicon, which focuses primarily on Cheney's role in first permitting 9-11, and then working assiduously to cover up his malicious malfeasance. See also Ron Susskind's book, "One Percent Doctrine," which crucifies Cheney, Rumseld, and Rice. I take this book so seriously that I urge everyone to get the "Do It Yourself Impeachment" kit. He should be required to immediately resign or be impeached. He should not be allowed to serve another month in office. For the sake of brevity, here is a list of impeachable offenses documented by this book: 1) Secret meetings in violation of the law to include exclusion of government experts 2) Refusal to honor demand from Congress for a list of participants 3) Lies to the public about Iraq, while holding maps of oil fields and already having in mind a US-only domination of those oilfields (he first focused on Iraqi oil while serving Secretary of Defense Brown) 4) Over-ruling of the Environmental Protection Agency on very important matters including its concern over Halliburton's reliance on hydraulic fracturing that uses chemicals that contaminate aquifers--Cheney personally ensured that the EPA's wording was replaced with Halliburton's wording. 5) Consistent and pervasive usurpation of Congressional authorities and consistent and maliciously deliberate avoidance of appropriate disclosure. 6) Fostered attacks on Sy Hersh, and considered authorizing a break-in on his home. 7) From the 1970's, see also Ron Susskind's One-Percent Doctrine, subverted the authority of the Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller, and teams with Justice Scalia (then an assistant attorney general) to increase executive privileges and push back reforms. 8) As a Congressman personally blew off Russian offer in 1983 for arms cuts, and subverted the authority of the President and the Secretary of State then serving. 9) As an extremist Republican, supported Ollie North and the White House in violating the Congressional prohibitions on aid to the Contras, and obstructed justice thereafter. 10) Page 78 has a lovely discussion of how Cheney and North were "in the zone" in deceiving the public and Congress during the televised hearings. 11) Adopted as his own the lunatic report by Khalizad (who is a very lazy scholar, see my review of his rotten RAND book on revolution) and Libby, on how the US as a superpower should be able to do ANYTHING. 12) Attempted to undermine due process and keep tactical nuclear weapons in the Army inventory. 13) Subverted the authority of the Secretary of State (Colin Powell) by allowing his daughter to overrule Ambassadors and meet privately with various heads of state. 13) Lied repeatedly to the public about his continuing financial equities with Halliburton, and was so

This Book Proves that Bush is a Figurehead

This book is a must-read for anyone that has even once wondered why Congress refuses to question an executive branch that is the most secretive and power-hungry in American history. I used to have unadulterated hatred and zero respect for George W. Bush, and while the latter remains true, this book made me realize that he is little more than a figurehead behind Cheney's imperialistic and hegemonic foriegn policy. Cheney has thirsted for presidential power since he was Secretary of Defense in the Ford administration and now he finally has it. Every intelligent and informed citizen should read this book.

Cheney, the Secret President

There is more to Cheney than meets the eye. The first part of the book gives an overview of his political life before becoming Vice President, which is necessary for the reader to understand how he operates. Cheney is very ambitious, secretive, and ruthless. He will do whatever it takes to gain power, despite his unpopularity. He has contempt for our democratic way of life, and regularly circumvents the US Constitution, whenever it gets in his way. After reading this book you will more fully understand how we got into the Iraqi mess, and wonder how much freedom Americans will have after Bush and Cheney are out of office. I was convinced Bush and Cheney should be impeached before I read this book, and this book reinforces my opinion.