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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (27480)	7/23/2007 6:04:34 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Cheney: A word from Stephen Hayes Power Line Stephen Hayes is the Weekly Standard senior writer whose whork we have frequently highlighted here. Steve's new book is the biogaphy 'Cheney: The Live of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President'. Tomorrow the book is officially published. We invited Steve to write a message to Power Line readers about the book and Steve has graciously responded: <<< Thanks for the opportunity to share a few thoughts with your readers about 'Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President'. He was a fascinating subject -- someone who has worked at the highest levels of government for the better part of the past 40 years. The more I learned, the more I wanted to know. The result is a meaty biography that traces Cheney's life from his birth in wartime Nebraska (1941) through nearly six-and-a-half years of his vice presidency. Two aspects of Cheney's life and career I thought might particularly interest Power Line readers are his gradual turn towards conservatism and his relationship with George W. Bush. Cheney told me that at the outset of his political life, he "didn't have a political identity." Cheney was in his early 20s when he took his first job in politics, an internship in the Wyoming state legislature. Two students had been selected for the positions, one with each political party. The other applicant had been an active Democrat, so Cheney, whose own parents were FDR Democrats, worked for the Republicans. If the other intern had been a Republican, Cheney gladly would have worked for the Democrats. In a sense, he was an accidental Republican. Even after he came to Washington, Cheney viewed politics with the detachment of a political scientist -- a quality that might be explained by the fact that Cheney completed course work for a Ph.D. in political science (thought not his dissertation) before shifting his career to government and politics. As a congressional fellow, Cheney accepted a job that seems like the least likely position conceivable for the Dick Cheney we know now. He was to have been on the staff of a liberal senator from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy, as deputy press secretary. Eventually, Cheney switched jobs with one of his classmates and spent only part of one day with Kennedy. But this pillar of modern conservatism says that he had no ideological objections to working for the face of contemporary liberalism. (Cheney says Kennedy still has no idea that he once technically employed his future nemesis). In the fall of 1971, Richard Nixon asked Cheney and his mentor, Donald Rumsfeld, to oversee his wage and price control policies. The programs were among the most anti-market undertakings in recent U.S. history, with the federal government prohibiting pay raises for waitresses in Wichita and the price of Quarter Pounder in California. In its early stages, Cheney served as the typist for the group that wrote the regulations. Once the program were enacted, he was director of operations, and with 3,000 IRS agents working for him, he was the enforcer, making sure that businesses around the country complied with the smothering restrictions. Says Cheney: "The idea that you could write detailed regulations that were going to govern all aspects of an economy as big as the U.S. economy is loopy. But that's what we were trying to do...You know, all of a sudden the price of hamburger was our problem." The next question was obvious, for me anyway: Didn't you have any objections to the policy? "At the time, I didn't think much about it," he told me. "Nixon had done it so we were going to make it work." The experience, Cheney says, "created strong feelings that I have to this day about the government trying to interfere in the economy -- moved me pretty radically in the free-market-direction, the importance of limited government." President Bush would confirm this self-assessment after an interview on December 11, 2006. When he rose from his chair in front of the fireplace opposite his desk in the Oval Office, I thought the interview was over. A moment earlier, White House chief of staff Josh Bolten had interrupted to tell Bush that the interview should end shortly in order to keep him on schedule. The president thanked me for coming, I thanked him for his time, and I clicked off my tape recorder. I stood as he did and, to my surprise, he started talking again. "Dick Cheney is hard core free market," he said, apropos of nothing. He looked like he was going to keep going. I wasn't sure what to do. The participants for the president's next meeting -- retired generals and academics hoping to convince Bush to "surge" troops into Iraq -- were being ushered into the room. But the president was still talking. I looked around for some direction as to what I was to do next. Several very earnest looking aides were busily scurrying about doing what presidential aides seemingly spend much of their time doing -- busily scurrying about. I thought to myself: You don't walk out while the president is talking, right? So I clicked on my tape recorder just as he reiterated his point about Cheney's economic views. "Hard core free market." We both looked up as Cheney entered the Oval Office. I had already interviewed the vice president several times for the book. He saw us, smiled and shook his head with resignation. His face wore an expression that said: This cannot be good. I tried to explain Cheney's look for the president. "The poor guy. He must think that wherever he goes, I'm there. He goes to the Vice President's Residence and I show up. He finally gets a couple days to relax in Wyoming and I'm there. Just a couple weeks ago, he came back to his house on the Eastern Shore after hunting, and I'm waiting in his kitchen with my tape recorder." The president saw his opening. "Hunting?" he said, raising his voice with mock concern. "You'd better be careful. >>> powerlineblog.com amazon.com