When the next issue of Vanity Fair hits the stands enemies of the current administration will be disappointed to learn that the caricature of Dick Cheney that they have conjured for the last five years is nothing at all like the reality, not that that revelation will make any difference to them. Drudge has this about the Vanity Fair article:
In her new memoir, Now It's My Turn, Mary Cheney writes that when she told her parents she was gay, the first words out of her father's mouth were exactly the ones that I wanted to hear: 'You're my daughter, and I love you, and I just want you to be happy.'
Vanity Fair editor Todd Purdum reports that Mary Cheney tells her story in a voice very much like her father's, and that she came out to her parents when she was a junior in high school, on a day when, after breaking up with her first girlfriend, she skipped school, ran a red light, and crashed the family car. Cheney writes that her mother hugged her, but then burst into tears, worried that she would face a life of pain and prejudice.
When Purdum asks the vice president whether he thinks gay people are born that way, Cheney scrunches up his mouth, fixes him with a look that says "Nice try," then says: "I'm not going to get into that. Those are deeply personal questions. You can ask."
Mary Cheney tells Purdum that her father "has very little tolerance for bull****, pardon my French." She also says that one common reaction from people who have read the manuscript of her book is 'Wow, you guys really have this close-knit, loving family,' and it always strikes me as 'Yeah, of course we do.' It was very surprising to me that people would think we didn't.
Purdum asks Cheney if, during his darkest night, he has even a little doubt about the administration's course. "No," he tells Purdum. "I think we've done what needed to be done." Of the debate over whether or not the administration hyped the pre-war intelligence, Cheney says, "In the end, you can argue about the quality of the intelligence and so forth, but ... I look at that whole spectrum of possibilities and options, and I think we did the right thing."
Cheney rejects the caricature of him as the power behind the throne, insisting, "I think we have created a system that works for this president and for me, in terms of my ability to be able to contribute and participate in the process." When Purdum says that the cartoon characterization of him must not be accurate, Cheney says, "My image might be better out there, this caricature you talk about might be avoided, if I spent more time as a public figure trying to improve my image, but that's not why I'm here."
Doesn't sound much like Darth Vader, does he?
