I first heard about Dick Cheney 44
years ago when he was named chief of staff for then-President Gerald Ford.
Some four and a
half decades later, he has retired from one of the most interesting and
influential political careers of any person in the country.
Today, the
Jackson-based author maintains a quiet existence as he travels Wyoming with his
granddaughter’s horse competition efforts. He also appears at events such as
Lander’s One Shot Antelope Hunt, where he competed in 2016.
Politically,
he helped his daughter Liz Cheney get elected to the state’s sole U. S. House
of Representatives seat last fall, a post that he ran for and won back in 1978.
But despite
his most recent attempts at obscurity, a movie about his life will soon burst
onto the national and international scene next fall that should be a
blockbuster.
Called Backseat, its creator Adam McKay says
Cheney is arguably “the single most powerful political figure in modern
American history.” Wow. Pretty big description for a young guy who
grew up in Casper.
McKay has
signed big movie stars to play people we all know. Christian Bale will play
Cheney and Amy Adams will play Lynne Cheney. Steve Carell will play former
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Tyler Perry is playing Colin Powell.
Actor Bill Pullman
plays Nelson Rockefeller. Sam Rockwell plays George W. Bush, Alison Pill plays
Mary Cheney and Lily Rabe plays Liz Cheney.
Some photos
from Variety Magazine show amazing transformations
as Bale and Adams modified their appearances into Dick and Lynne. It is always a challenge to play living
people who have been in the public light in recent years but going by what
these photos show, they are on the mark.
Director McKay
says he has always been interested in the former Veep.
“I’ve always found Cheney fascinating,” McKay told the
publication Deadline. “Questions of
what drove him, what his beliefs were, but once we started digging, I was
astounded at how much he had shaped modern America’s place in the world and how
shocking the methods were by which he gained his power.”
The Deadline article
continued: “While new Vice President Mike Pence has cited Cheney as a role
model, Cheney has always been a polarizing figure and a lightning rod for
controversy for his role in expanding the powers of the presidency while he
served eight years as No. 2 to President George W. Bush.
“Among his initiatives was to
press the war on global terrorism post-9/11, with tactics that ranged from
spying to invading Afghanistan and then Iraq – the latter based on Intel that
Saddam Hussein had procured weapons of mass destruction and was aligned to
al-Qaeda, assertions that were considered shaky at the time and were never
substantively proven — and the establishment of techniques including
waterboarding as part of an ‘enhanced interrogation program’ that many called
torture against suspected terrorists held in Guantanamo without access to due
process. Cheney previously served in the Nixon, Ford and George H.W. Bush
administrations, before he became Halliburton chairman and CEO, and then joined
the Republican ticket alongside Bush.”
The article concluded: “Cheney was a study in contradictions:
a war hawk who himself received five deferments that kept him from fighting in
Vietnam. And while the Bush administration did not support gay marriage, Cheney
personally went against the grain, perhaps swayed by the fact that his daughter
was openly gay. Cheney’s approval rating was down to 13 percent when he left
office, and he has long been a critic of the foreign policy of his former boss’
successor, President Barack Obama.”
An earlier movie called W. by director Oliver Stone also
showed Cheney in his role in the George W. Bush administration. Richard Dreyfuss played Cheney in that 2008
movie.
As a long-time Wyoming newspaper editor, I had a lot of
conversations with Cheney when he was our U. S. Representative. I always found
him personable, knowledgeable and well intentioned. I thought he did a
wonderful job of representing the state.
We were proud of his role in the U. S. House and very proud of
him as Secretary of Defense, especially during the first Iraq War.
And like most Wyomingites, we were beaming with pride when he
was elected Vice-President.
His role in getting the country involved in the Iraq and Afghanistan
wars has left him a checkered national legacy. I always felt that most elected
officials in his position during the 9/11 attacks would have pushed for such
wars.
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