Ackerman on Cheney

Spencer Ackerman reviews Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President, a very serious argument that's never been made with such care, by Steve Hayes:

Throughout 524 pages of turgid, soul-killing narrative, Hayes presents meaningless anecdotes about Cheney in robust detail -- did you know Cheney has "dozens" of books about fishing in his library? -- while skimping on most instances that could be expected to shape the man. A case in point: Cheney was with President Ford, whom he served as deputy chief of staff and then chief of staff, on April 23, 1975, when Ford authorized bringing the final American remnant home from Vietnam. What effect did proximity to the end of the defining foreign-policy debacle of the era have on him? Hayes doesn't tell us. Despite receiving vastly more access to Cheney than any other reporter, he instead quotes from press secretary Ron Nessen's memoir that Ford, Cheney, Nessen, and Donald Rumsfeld "stood there silently, staring at the carpet, alone with our thoughts, unable to say anything appropriate." Hayes opts instead to relate in detail world-historical flashpoints like the time when Liz Cheney was forced to admit that a Georgetown driver had totaled her dad's Mazda RX-7 while she had borrowed it.

Sounds awesome.

Comments

I totaled my dad's 65 Belvedere. Do I have the seeds of a novel too?

Posted by steve duncan | July 25, 2007 10:55 AM

Cheney. Oh, the magic of that name. Like "chancre", "spittoon", "fetid", "assassin", etc.

We really need to know what makes him tick. Other than that lucky pacemaker, of course.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 25, 2007 11:01 AM

Better buy three copies, in case two of them are destroyed in the blast from the imploding home mortgage market.

Posted by Primigenius | July 25, 2007 11:33 AM

Hey, keep in mind, the OTHER driver totaled the car! That made it too easy to evade responsibility impressively. She had to add that the Mazda was going well, everything was fine, don't listen to nay-sayers and defeatists about the car being totaled, just to impress Dad.

Posted by putnam | July 25, 2007 11:46 AM

I wouldn't have guessed you'd see Cheney in an RX-7.

Posted by Tyrone Slothrop | July 25, 2007 1:15 PM

According to Cheney himself (via his blog): My new book is better than fresh baby blood... the Bible, and my wife Lynne’s America: A Patriotic Primer

Posted by Adam Benjamin Varga | July 25, 2007 2:21 PM

Karen DeYoung has a good review in last Sunday's WaPo. She also notes that the Hayes book is not exactly a penetrating analysis.

Posted by THS | July 25, 2007 3:39 PM