Darth Vader’s Evil Twin

To say I was shocked when I heard that Cheney was slated to give a keynote address at the Republican convention three weeks hence is a huge understatement.  Why would McCain further associate himself and the party, which he presumptively leads, with Dick Cheney, the only politician who has lower approval ratings than Bush 43 and Dan Quayle (when he was Veep)?  Just one more of a myriad of mysteries about the politician that no one really knows.

Ok, it’s stretching a point to say that no one knows Cheney, but if they do it’s not because Dickey-boy told them anything.  He’s one of the most notoriously closed mouth politicians since “Silent Cal”…..Calvin Cooldige that is.  Not only does Cheney not say much, he listens even less.  I thought it might be useful to give you some topical highlights of the man we all love to hate.

Academia

…His comment about flunking out of Yale, “I’m really not a very good student”.  It’s true.

…He was able to cram a four year undergrad degree into six years at Casper Community College and the University of Wyoming.  Yes, I know it’s not exactly the Ivy League, but some of you, dear readers, can claim similar (even worse) records at similar (even lesser) institutions.

…He abandoned his Phd studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison saying, “Gee, I didn’t know it would be this hard”.

 Citizenship

…He was the proud recipient of two DWI’s before he was twenty five.  And he didn’t even know Bush then.

Military Record

…The point is he doesn’t really have one.  He never served anywhere but Congress.

…He set a record for draft deferments at four while speaking out and voting in favor of the Viet Nam war.  Actually, he got five deferments, but he had to get his wife pregnant to get the fifth one.  I dunno why he didn’t just take the Bush path and get in a National Guard unit, but he seemed to have a knack for the deferment process, plus he didn’t have a father who was President.

…As Secretary of Defense suggested that pursuing Saddam to Bagdad wasn’t worth more American lives (this in relation to the first war with Iraq).

…In one of the most monumental misperceptions of military and social history said, “my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators”.  Speaking of the second war with Iraq that he managed.

…Was widely quoted saying that the Iraq War (the 2nd) was “an enormous success story”.  No other living person on this planet has been found to agree with this assessment.

Legislative Record

…Voted against overriding Reagan’s veto of economic sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa.

…Voted against a non-binding resolution of Congress requesting South Africa to release Nelson Mandela from prison

…In 1979 voted against making Martin Luther King’s birthday a national holiday.

(Do we see a trend here?)

…Voted against the Head Start program for early childhood education

…Voted against creating the Department of Education

(Another trend perhaps?)

Managing Personal Relationships

…Said when when Senator Patrick Leahy had the temerity to question the appropriateness of non-competitive contracts awarded to Halliburton, “go fu*k yourself”.

Business Acumen

…Never got a paycheck from anyone other than the government (unless you count his stint as Director of the Council on Foreign Relations) until he became CEO and Chairman of Halliburton on the heels of his Veepness.

…Was smart enough to drive the stock of Halliburton from $8.49 to 21.09 by doing business with the countries that he was later to label the “Axis of Evil”.

Ok.  Enough of this stuff from the public record.  I should confess.  I know Dick Cheney, and he even knew me, at least for awhile.  During the period that Cheney was CEO of Halliburton he also served with me as a director of my company.  It was not a pleasant experience even though I went bird hunting with him and didn’t get shot.

I might as well start there.  With the shooting that is.  Cheney is one of the most accomplished hunters I’ve ever been around.  We hunted doves for three days in Argentina and he never missed a shot.  He was hunting with a custom made Italian gun that cost more than most Americans make in a year, and he must have brought down nearly a thousand birds.  So my theory is that he didn’t accidentally shoot the good doctor in south Texas.  Hunters of Cheney’s experience and quality don’t accidentally shoot people.  The doctor must have said something that offended Cheney’s sense of patriotism and he decided to teach him a lesson by peppering his **s with some hot lead.  If only the guy hadn’t had a heart attack in the process, no one would ever known.  I know what you’re thinking, but yes it could have happened.

Cheney requires two things.  Loyalty and secrecy, or secrecy and loyalty.  I’m not sure which comes first.  The absence of either is not tolerated and the more power Cheney accumulated, the less tolerance he had for shortcomings in either of these critical attributes.

I chanced on a conversation between Cheney and Jim Baker (also on our board and an old political crony of Cheney).  They were giddy with delight in that some details of what had come to be called “Travelgate” had been publicly disclosed.  “We finally got the SOB”, Cheney said.  Baker nodded and added, “this is the smoking gun”.  I did not know then and do not know even now what Travelgate was all about nor did 99.9% of all Americans, but Cheney and Baker were convinced that this was the event that would finally cause Clinton to be chased from office in shame.  If not Lewinsky, then Travelgate.  When I somewhat timidly interjected that it was possible that no one except them cared a whit about events transpiring long ago in the White House Travel Office, and thus would probably not cause the downfall of President Clinton, they glanced at one another and telepathically signaled one to the other that…..my loyalty was suspect.  And they were right.

Cheney’s typical demeanor at our board meetings was of someone with the pressures of the world upon him and not enough time (or interest) to deal with day to day events or issues.  He seemed disinterested and uniformed about the business issues that boards grapple with, and I’m fairly certain he had never read any of the materials we sent him in advance.  The highlight of his board participation seemed to be at the passing of cocktails before our regular board dinner.  As far as I can remember, he never initiated a conversation with anyone other than Baker, and responded only when there was no other option.

My final encounter with Cheney arose from my concern that our board was being provided with financial projections that were “rosy” at best, and outright misleading at worst.  Perhaps not an altogether unknown practice in corporate American, but a practice that I believed would accelerate a downward spiral for my company.  I decided the appropriate course of action was to privately inform Jim Baker, our lead director, of my concerns, and to suggest that a committee of independent directors of the board might want to look further into recent financial projections provided by management.  Not exactly earth shaking stuff for someone who had been White House Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Treasury, but important nevertheless.

After some weeks of awkward silence, I was told that the information I provided was appreciated, and that I had done the right thing by informing Baker of the situation (the board fired our CEO), but……my actions had raised questions of my loyalty in the minds of certain of the directors.

If only I had known about Scooter Libby.

Late addendum:  I read in this morning’s WSJ that President Bush had asked Cheney to fly out and check on the situation in Georgia (as in the former state of the USSR).  Cheney quickly agreed and then asked as an afterthought if Bush wanted him to swing by Alabama and Mississippi as well, if he had time.