Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency | Barton Gellman

Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency | Barton Gellman | Dick Cheney: A Presidential Shield Gone Bad?

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Angler: The Cheney...

	Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency Barton Gellman Penguin Press HC, The, 2008 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 9 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Barton Gellman?s newsbreaking investigative journalism documents how Vice President Dick Cheney redefined the role of the American vice presidency, assuming unprecedented responsibilities and making it a post of historic power.

Dick Cheney changed history, defining his times and shaping a White House as no vice president has before? yet concealing most of his work from public view. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman parts the curtains of secrecy to show how Cheney operated, why, and what he wrought.

Angler, Gellman?s embargoed and highly explosive book, is a work of careful, concrete, and original reporting backed by hundreds of interviews with close Cheney allies as well as rivals, many speaking candidly on the record for the first time. On the signature issues of war and peace, Angler takes readers behind the scenes as Cheney maneuvers for dominance on what he calls the iron issues from Iraq, Iran, and North Korea to executive supremacy, interrogation of Al Qaeda suspects, and domestic espionage. Gellman explores the behind-the- scenes story of Cheney?s tremendous influence on foreign policy, exposing how he misled the four ranking members of Congress with faulty intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, how he derailed Bush from venturing into Israeli- Palestinian peace talks for nearly five years, and how his policy left North Korea and Iran free to make major advances in their nuclear programs.

Domestically, Gellman details Cheney?s role as ?super Chief of Staff ?, enforcer of conservative orthodoxy; gatekeeper of Supreme Court nominees; referee of Cabinet turf; editor of tax and budget laws; and regulator in chief of the administration?s environment policy. We watch as Cheney, the ultimate Washington insider, leverages his influence within the Bush administration in order to implement his policy goals. Gellman?s discoveries will surprise even the most astute students of political science.

Above all, Angler is a study of the inner workings of the Bush administration and the vice president?s central role as the administration?s canniest power player. Gellman exposes the mechanics of Cheney?s largely successful post-September 11 campaign to win unchecked power for the commander in chief, and reflects upon, and perhaps changes, the legacy that Cheney?and the Bush administration as a whole?will leave as they exit office.

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Angler

As a reader with advanced degrees in Political Science and Public Policy, and 20 years of employment in senior government service, this is the best expose with the required restraint and research that I have read in 30 years. A MASTERPIECE.

Dick Cheney: A Presidential Shield Gone Bad?

Dick Chaney, perhaps the most powerful man ever to hold the office of Vice President, began as President Bush's personal shield, confidant, mentor and ideological soul mate. However, this tidy arrangement, predictably, was to go horribly awry. As this timely book reports, Cheney's experience as a master wheeler-dealer of behind the scene backroom bureaucratic negotiations and Machiavellian manipulations, proved overtime to be more a liability than an asset to the Bush Presidency and appears especially likely to leave an indelible if not a very ugly stain on the 43rd president's legacy.

The book, well written and skilfully organized, began as a series of Washington Post Articles. It gives a careful account of Cheney's rise to power, and then captures in almost overly melodramatic terms the best and the worst of Cheney's role as VP: Undoubtedly the best of times was during the early days of the Bush's presidency when Cheney's role throughout the first campaign was heavily relied upon and was then both respectful and circumscribed; a time in which Bush relied on Cheney's political instincts as well as his policy advice. The crescendo of the book is when the worse came: toward the end of the Bush Presidency, in a series of vice presidential missteps best exemplified in the "shootout" at justice over the wireless wire taps, in which Cheney all but arrogated Presidential power unto himself, keeping the President in the dark and "single-handedly" precipitating a revolt by Justice Department lawyers.

The upshot of the book is that Cheney, remains a truly scary figure in the annals of American Presidential history, not just because of his Svengali like influence over our "not too bright President," but also because he was in his own right a devious spin-miester and die-heart ideologue who lacked no compunction are moral restraints about end-running the President, and then manufacturing "after-the-fact" rationalizations and justifications to cover his machinations and to cover-up even the most excessive and improper of his actions - such as his hidden hand in the Valery Plame incident. His utter lack of sensitivity to the meaning of the Constitution and the notion of a balance of powers among co-equal branches of the government is so aberrant as to border on being treasonous.

In the run up to the 2008 election, where questions about the current VP selections has caused the U.S. electorate to collectively hold its breathe, the Dick Cheney experience is a cautionary tale about the possible harm a weak selection of a VP can have in undermining the political process and American political institutions. Bart Gellman, in not taking sides, or completely "throwing Dick Cheney under the bus," when it would have been so easy to do so, has done this nation proud. Five Stars.

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Amazing detail on the Cheney (vice) presidency

As is evident from the other reviews here on Amazon, this book provides a history of Vice President Cheney's vice presidency into the start of 2008. Gellman has excellent sources, and was therefore able to get impressive detail of some events not previously told - - most notably the Alberto Gonzalez hospital bed confrontation over domestic surveillance.

The overarching theme of the book is that Cheney was too clever by half. He was too uncompromising, or "principled," early on, and smart enough to get what he wanted much of the time. As a result, Cheney created a backlash against himself. By 2008, he was worse off than he would have been had he been more compromising early on. That theme emerges only gradually, however, and I would have liked to see it presented more forcefully throughout the book.

The first part of the book, in which Cheney uses his knowledge of how bureaucracies work, is the most interesting and important. Gellman documents how a talented player can get his way, and how Cheney kept important decisions away from President Bush without Bush's knowledge. This part of the book should be required reading for presidents and other high officials - - how do you make sure that you're getting the information that you want? Bush clearly failed this task until about 2006 or so.

I found the middle part a bit uneven, with some stories focused on minor details instead of the bigger picture. Fortunately, the narrative picks up again as the backlash against Cheney begins to trim his sails.

Overall, this is an impressive "first draft of history," as some people call journalism. A little more time to reflect, and to strengthen the overall arch of the story, would have served Gellman well. But who am I to complain? He won the Pulitzer Prize for this book, after all.

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A very disturbing book about American leadership

Prior to 2002 I used to have a great deal of respect for Dick Cheney. He did a great job of running the 1991 war with Iraq. His 2001 energy plan was well researched and professional even thought some people (including myself) felt it should have been more oriented to renewable energy.

However, since September 11, 2001 Dick Cheney has strongly promoted some totally disastrous policies such as the decision to go to war with Iraq.

This book contains some truly stunning accusations. It suggests that Cheney's role in picking himself as Bush's running mate when he was in charge of finding a running mate for Bush in 2000 had serious ethical breaches. There is a suggestion that Cheney was less than candid about his health problems.

The author suggests that Cheney knowingly lied to Dick Armey (House Majority Leader) about intelligence concerning the (nonexistent) relationship between 9/11 terrorists and Saddam Hussein.

There is more disturbing material concerning Cheney's alleged role in encouraging the use of torture against terrorism suspects and the use of domestic wiretapping.

It is interesting that Gelman knocks down one of the most popular accusations against Cheney, the notion that he wanted to use his office for private financial gain or the benefit of the oil industry or his previous employer, Halliburton. In a recent interview with Harper's magazine, Gellman states, "There's no venality here. Cheney was not trying to aggrandize himself, to steer money to friends, or to set himself up for higher office. He simply believed that the stakes were high and he was more capable than others. He saw the world, he believed, as it truly is and was prepared to do the "unpleasant" things that had to be done to safeguard us. Cheney is a rare combination: a zealot in principle and a subtle, skillful tactician in practice."

I can't vouch for the accuracy of all that's in this book. It may be true. It may not be - although the reporter is a very professional journalist.

What I can say is that this is a serious book that should be read and considered by American citizens. This is a book that should be read and debated by Amazon readers.

This whole situation is very depressing story about a talented man who did a lot of good in the past but went in a truly disastrous direction since 9/11/2001.

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Solid, but curious

It may be the plethora of books about Cheney and the Bush administration in recent years that puts this book in the shadows, but author Barton Gellman at least has offered a good look at what the Cheney years have meant to the United States. That those years continue to this day, is left out in the analysis.

Gellman gives a decent picture of Cheney, but nothing much new emerges in his assessment which the avid reader doesn't already know. Cheney, true to form, is genuinely concerned about the American people after 9/11. It all goes downhill from there. One comes to understand Gellman's description of Cheney's determination and, indeed, the author's own description of the chapter entitled "U-turn on Constitution Avenue" is one of his best. But the final few pages in which Gellman mawkishly spews Cheney out as a feeling guy...well, that's too much to take.

"Angler" has some points but there are better books on this subject out there.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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