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Thomas L Mischler's avatar

Mr. Fallows, this one hit me like a ton of bricks. Thank you. Most important, you made it clear that you weren't repeating what you heard - you were speaking of personal experience with Mr. Cheney, rendering a legitimacy to your words that few can match.

I call myself a "Gerald R Ford Republican" though GHW Bush was the last Republican I voted for. I turn 70 tomorrow, and though I've lived 40 minutes away for the past 4 years I just visited the GR Ford Museum for the first time last week. I grew up in West Michigan; my mother attended South High School, Ford's HS. I was working for Amway Corporation in Ada when Ford became president; two of his closest pals were the co-owners of Amway. I could go on, but you get the idea.

When I was nearing the end of my Ford Museum visit, sitting listening to the eulogies, I had tears streaming down my face. Ford & Carter became fast friends while campaigning opposite one another, and Carter's eulogy was what prompted the waterworks. Both men exemplified an era that we Americans have thrown to the pigs: a time when America chose men and women of integrity and character to be our leaders, instead of the grotesque carnival barkers we see in office today. The difference between then and now could not be more profound.

And so yes, it is encouraging, after his many sins during the Bush II years, for Dick Cheney to at least appear to be the same sort of man of character I remember Ford and Carter to be. Like you, I disagree with just about everything he and his daughter stand for, but I respect both for their principled stand against the most evil charlatan this nation has ever seen. So thanks again for this brief but moving personal reflection.

PS - your quote on young/old, liberal/conservative goes way back, and has passed through a number of iterations. I once referred to Churchill's alleged version when saying my life followed the opposite trajectory, which would seem to indicate that I have neither heart nor soul. So perhaps my 70's - and Cheney's 80's - will bring just a tiny glimpse of that wisdom that is supposed to come with age.

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Gary Wollberg's avatar

For me, the only way to think of Dick Cheney in anything resembling a charitable state of mind is to consider his life a tragedy. Starts off honorable (albeit misguided). The character flaw of ambition leads him to misuse a position of trust to manipulate a waif who could not think for himself. Finding himself empowered, the ambition grows with a desire to overmatch all those in whose service he once was, showing them all he has the steel to lead. He thus engages in heinous acts. He is overmatched by events and shown to be both cruel and ineffective. The bullying style he exemplified while in power itself empowers those who should be his allies to instead turn into enemies who attack his family. He flails about trying to protect his family when they act with the honor he long ago abandoned to his ambition. All that is left is the final heart attack and the curtain to close. The irony may be that only James Fallows is left to deliver the eulogy.

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