He was the only one-term American president in the past three decades, but plenty happened on his watch: the collapse of communism, the first Gulf War and a recession that helped usher him out of office. Now, George H.W. Bush’s presidency is revealed in greater detail, as the University of Virginia’s Miller Center opens its archive of oral history interviews about the 41st president, including conversations with Dick Cheney, James Baker, Robert Gates and Dan Quayle. Read full article > >

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Clint Eastwood for veep in 1988? An oral history of George H.W. Bush’s presidency.

D ick Cheney ’s best-selling memoir, “ In My Time ,” has rekindled verbal jousting over the Iraq war, Guantanamo Bay and waterboarding — and with it the intense rancor seen whenever people debate those matters. The former vice president’s book — with its steadfast, no-apologies defense of invading Iraq to destroy all those weapons of mass destruction, his sharp criticisms of other top George W. Bush administration officials, and his reminders of the many Democrats who supported the war at the time — has doubtless ratcheted up the acrimony. Read full article > >

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An addendum, if you will, to the Cheney book

A key lesson of the 9/11 decade for presidents and other national security decision makers is the importance of rigorously testing intelligence evidence: poking holes in it, setting out contradictions, figuring out what may have been overlooked or left out. It is essential to distinguish between hard facts and what is an assessment or judgment. Read full article > >

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In Cheney’s memoir, it’s clear Iraq’s lessons didn’t sink in

Barack Obama was always vulnerable to charges that he would be weak on national security. He was a relative political newcomer with no history of military service. He opposed the war in Iraq and pledged to roll back many of the George W. Bush administration’s toughest anti-terrorism policies. At one politically perilous moment just months into Obama’s presidency, the young commander in chief appeared at the National Archives to declare a “new direction” in fighting terrorism, only to be scolded as “naive” by former vice president Dick Cheney, the graying architect of aggressive post-9/11 policies. Read full article > >

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National security emerges as Obama strong point

He’s been called Darth Vader, feared or derided as a trigger-happy, torture-loving puppet master who called the shots over the eight years of the George W. Bush White House. And now, with the publication of his memoir, “In My Time,” Dick Cheney has once again grabbed the media spotlight. But what about the former vice president is real, exaggerated, or outright myth? Read full article > >

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Five myths about Dick Cheney

If this book were read by an intelligent person who spent the last 10 years on, say, Mars, she would have no idea that Dick Cheney was the vice president in one of the most hapless American administrations of modern times. There are hints, to be sure, that things did not always go swimmingly under George W. Bush and Cheney, but these are surrounded by triumphalist accounts of events that many readers — and future historians — are unlikely to consider triumphs. This is not surprising. The genre of statesman’s memoir rarely produces self-criticism, or even much candor. Apparently, the point is to redeem your large advance from the publisher with a brisk, self-complimenting account of your life and times, with emphasis on your moment in the limelight. There should, of course, be a dash of “news” and a few frank passages about your true feelings — about others, not yourself. Read full article > >

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‘In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir’ by Dick Cheney

A new book by former vice president Dick Cheney levels “cheap shots” at colleagues and mischaracterizes events, former secretary of state Colin L. Powell said Sunday. Powell, whose disagreements with Cheney on issues such as Iraq have been well known for years, said that President George W. Bush’s national security team did not function smoothly and that he had advised Bush to try to resolve the problem. “We had different views,” Powell told CBS’s “Face the Nation,” adding that the views could not be reconciled. Read full article > >

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Powell disputes Cheney book passages

Former vice president Richard B. Cheney provides an unapologetic defense of the George W. Bush administration in his memoir to be released next week, including explanations of his own decisions on contested national security and domestic policies that often come at the expense of former Cabinet members and colleagues. Those include the justification to invade Iraq in 2003, a judgment he blames on CIA failures, and the lack of support for his urging that the United States strike a Syrian nuclear reactor site in 2007. Israel ended up doing so despite recommendations from then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that it “choose the path of diplomacy,” which Cheney correctly predicted the Israelis would reject. Read full article > >

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In memoir, Cheney defends decisions, Bush as president

Former vice president Richard B. Cheney provides an unapologetic defense of the George W. Bush administration in his memoir to be released next week, including explanations of his own decisions on contested national security and domestic policies that often come at the expense of former Cabinet members and colleagues. Those include the justification to invade Iraq in 2003, a judgment he blames on CIA failures, and the lack of support for his urging that the United States strike a Syrian nuclear reactor site in 2007. Israel ended up doing so despite recommendations from then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that it “choose the path of diplomacy,” which Cheney correctly predicted the Israelis would reject. Read full article > >

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In memoir, Cheney defends decisions, Bush as president

Just in time for the 10th anniversary of 9/11, former Vice President Dick Cheney has finished his memoir, said his daughter Liz Cheney, who helped write the book and is aiming for an August 30 release date. The book is titled In My Time: A Personal and…

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Cheney Memoir Due in August

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Dick Cheney says he hasn’t decided whether to seek a heart transplant. Cheney tells “Fox News Sunday” that his health has improved since last year, when he was diagnosed with end-stage heart failure. He had an operation last summer to fit his body with a battery-powered device that helps his heart pump blood. In his Fox appearance, Cheney spoke with a raspy voice and appeared less gaunt than he had in the months following the operation. Read full article > >

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Former Vice President Dick Cheney says he’s undecided on whether to seek a heart transplant

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and Donald Trump expressed their admiration for the president.

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Obama Finds Praise, Even From Republicans

With Julianne Moore recently cast as Sarah Palin in HBO’s adaptation of Game Change and former President George W. Bush’s life translated to the big screen in W, it’s time former Vice President Dick Cheney head to Hollywood. Deadline exclusively…

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HBO Green-Lights Cheney Miniseries

Some animals should be endangered. Consider the V-22 Osprey. The tilt-rotor aircraft, which takes off like a helicopter but flies like a plane, costs more than a $100 million apiece, killed 30 personnel in crashes during its development stage, and survived four attempts by none other than Dick Cheney to deep-six the program. Although it is no longer as crash-prone as it once was, the Osprey’s performance in Iraq was still sub-par and it remains a woefully expensive creature. Although canceling the program would save the U.S. government $10-12 billion over the next decade, the Osprey somehow avoided the budget axe in the latest round of cuts on Capitol Hill. read more

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One Creature That Deserves Extinction: The V-22 Osprey

Laura Rozen asks some pertinent questions about the Colonel’s lobbyists in America: One of the more unlikely image-mongers that has worked to burnish Qadhafi’s and Libya’s image never registered with the Justice Department. Prominent neoconservative Richard Perle, the former Reagan-era Defense Department official and George W. Bush-era chairman of the Defense Policy Board, traveled to Libya twice in 2006 to meet with Qadhafi, and afterward briefed Vice President Dick Cheney on his visits, according to documents released by a Libyan opposition group in 2009. Perle traveled to Libya as a paid adviser to the Monitor Group, a prestigious Boston-based consulting firm with close ties to leading professors at the Harvard Business School. The firm named Perle a senior adviser in 2006. The Monitor Group described Perle’s travel to Libya and the recruitment of several other prominent thinkers and former officials to burnish Libya’s and Qadhafi’s image in a series of documents obtained and released by a Libyan opposition group, the National Conference of the Libyan Opposition, in 2009.

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What Was Richard Perle Doing With Col. Qaddafi?