-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: July 1, 2007 11:19:36 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Cheney Described by Old (Ex-)Friend as a "Paranoid
Megalomaniac"
A longtime confidant of the Bush and Cheney families describes the
dangerous influence of the vice president
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek, June 29, 2007
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19507575/site/newsweek/page/0/
#storyContinued
... I had lunch with Vic Gold, an old friend of the Cheney’s, on
the third day of the Post series. I asked him how he felt reading
about Dick’s dark adventures. “A tremendous feeling of validation,”
he said. In a recent book, Gold described Cheney as a
“megalomaniacal paranoid” whose secret empire within the government
had captured the Bush presidency and helped bring the Republican
Party to the brink of ruin. Gold’s book, published in April, is
titled: “Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy-Rollers and
the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP.” (It was originally titled “How the
Neo-Cons Took Over the GOP,” but midway through the process, Gold
got so angry he changed the verb to “Destroyed.” )
This is a huge turnabout for Gold, 78, a veteran Republican
operative. Close to the Bushes and the Cheneys, he once shared
office space with Lynne Cheney and in 1996 was prepared to support
Dick Cheney for president. When he decided not to run, Cheney told
Gold, “I don’t want to spend three quarters of my time running
around raising money.” That sounded rational to Gold, who’d been
kicking around politics for a long time, having worked for a string
of Republicans from Barry Goldwater, his hero, to the disgraced
Spiro Agnew and finally “the old man,” George H.W. Bush. Unlike
others who’ve known Cheney for 30 years, Gold doesn’t think his
erstwhile friend has changed. “Men do not change, they unmask
themselves,” he says, quoting a Swiss writer.
What happened to Cheney is “opportunity,” says Gold. Pushed
forward by George and Barbara Bush, who had no confidence in their
eldest son, Cheney was supposed to serve as the ghost of Bush
Senior hovering around the White House. Cheney took on the job
and with, George W.’s acquiescence, made himself the locus of
power. What nobody anticipated is the extent to which the quiet man
with the lopsided mouth would insinuate himself into everything --
and the devastating consequences of his influence, particularly the
Iraq War.
Gold, a slight man with wispy white hair and a hair-trigger
temperament calls Bush “President Dodo.” He’s known Bush since the
’80 campaign, and while he doesn’t really think he’s dumb, he knows
he can be manipulated.
“He’s playing the role of president, strutting around,” says Gold.
“He’s the weakest president in my memory.”
The Bushes prize loyalty, but Gold reached a point where his
respect for the elder Bush, whose autobiography he had helped
write, was not enough for him to keep quiet. The administration in
his view had become a danger to the Constitution and what America
stands for in the world.
He wrote to tell 41 about the book he was writing, and he got a
letter back saying, “We’ve been friends a long time and we’ll
continue to be friends. I am sure I will not like what you say
about our son.” And then in a grace note typical of the old man,
“but I don’t think too much of the neocons myself.”
Cheney’s great selling point was that he did not plan to run for
president, setting him apart from most vice presidents who harbor
personal ambition. He didn’t have to worry about being popular. But
the idea was flawed. In the end, Cheney’s lack of viability as a
political figure became his license to do whatever he wants, an
outcome nobody foresaw, least of all his unsuspecting patron,
George H.W. Bush.
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