Vice President Dick Cheney is an embarrassment to the United States and his time to resign or be dismissed may be now. That said, this is not a humorous column about the vice president shooting his hunting mate in the face, nor is this a depiction of Cheney as an unintelligent politician. I believe that much more so than his boss, Cheney is an intelligent and knowledgeable person, but this is precisely what makes him dangerous to both America and the world.
The stories about Cheney paint a picture of a hardworking, but vindictive, warmonger who used the system to his advantage. Whether pursuing administration goals (by influencing the hiring of George H. W. Bush as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency) or vengeance against those who question the administration (by allegedly allowing Valerie Plame's identity to be revealed after her husband questioned claims about Iraqi weapons intelligence) Cheney has carefully exploited the system to reach his desired ends.
Cheney has accomplished such with little regard for the people who pay the price for his actions. His "legacy" will be marred with stories of a secretive man who put radically conservative politics and the almighty dollar above all else.
In one notable example, though he claims to love his lesbian daughter, he doesn't love her enough to view her as equal to her heterosexual peers in terms of the right to have a legally recognized marriage. When asked about the issue, Cheney is known to get upset and/or refuse to answer.
Though Cheney was a supporter of the Vietnam War, he sought and received five separate deferments. In a 1989 Washington Post interview Cheney said, "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service."
Those priorities involved preparing for his first political position in 1969 as an intern in the Nixon administration, under Donald Rumsfeld, then Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. Under President Ford, Rumsfeld (as chief of staff) and Cheney (as assistant to the president) worked together to consolidate presidential power and remove high-ranking government officials they disagreed with (including national security adviser Henry Kissinger and Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger). More than 30 years later, Cheney and Rumsfeld would again work closely to consolidate power in the administrative branch, especially in regard to intelligence and the military for President George W. Bush.
Despite supporting sending his peers to the Vietnam War (and twice sending his children's peers to the war with Iraq) and opposing the rights of homosexuals, such as his own daughter, Cheney has not forgotten about everyone close to him. After the United States invaded Iraq, Cheney made sure that his former employer, Halliburton (who had given him a $34 million severance package in 2000), was financially comfortable with a $7 billion no-bid contract for subsidiary KBR.
In his book, "Against All Enemies," Richard Clarke, the White House veteran and counterterrorism expert who started during the Reagan era, described Cheney as a complex individual: "On the surface, he was quiet and soft-spoken. Below that calm surface ran strong, almost extreme, beliefs. He had been one of the five most radical conservatives in the Congress. The quiet often hid views that would seem out of place if aired more broadly." Among some of Cheney's most memorable expressions of such views while serving in Congress are his votes against making Martin Luther King Jr. Day a national holiday and against funding the Head Start program.
I believe Cheney is an embarrassment to all Americans who wish to portray a positive image of the United States to the world and who believe in a transparent, honest and trustworthy American government. He is an embarrassment to those who believe in peace, family and safety over the poisons of war profiteering, radically conservative politics and oil.
The most recent calls for Cheney's resignation have centered on his role in the CIA leak that revealed Valeria Plame's identity, but the case for Cheney's dismissal goes back much further. Widely viewed as one of — if not the most powerful vice president in modern times — Cheney's behavior and decisions should have all Americans asking questions about the role of the vice president in the American political system.
It remains to be seen whether Cheney will even be physically capable of completing President Bush's second term, but with the 2008 presidential election cycle already under way, now is the time to ask those questions.
Ryan M. Dinkgrave is an MSU public relations graduate student and State News columnist. Reach him at dinkgra2@msu.edu.
