A Vice President, by definition, will always receive less scrutiny than the fellow at the top of the ticket. Fortunately for Dick Cheney, that lower profile works out quite nicely since, according to author John Nichols, it affords him greater ease in secretly running the government. Nichols chronicles Cheney's many different incarnations: unsuccessful student flunking out of Yale twice, young political operative, Ford administration chief of staff, Wyoming congressman, Secretary of Defense, Halliburton CEO, and finally Vice President. What all these steps have in common, argues Nichols, is a nearly insatiable hunger for power satisfied by Cheney's knack for insinuating himself, Zelig-like, into important places in order to advance. The most compelling sections of Dick: The Man Who Is President deal with Cheney's heading of George W. Bush's vice-presidential search committee and declaring himself the best man for the job, a process Nichols claims was a complete sham from the start. Once in office, Cheney gained historically unprecedented access and power, Nichols claims, simply because no one could stop him. Though Cheney has a deeply conservative voting record and is credited with leading the "neoconservative" school of thought that guided the foreign policy of Bush's administration, Nichols points out that Cheney was known as a moderate in his time with Ford but with Ford's defeat and the rise of Ronald Reagan, shifting hard to the right was simply a more expedient path to power. Dick is more an examination of motives and methods than a strict biography. As such it doesn't move linearly through time, instead jumping around to demonstrate how past events inform current situations. And though Dick Cheney probably wouldn't appreciate Nichols' relentlessly critical approach, it's interesting to see a bright light shone on a man who does so much work in secret undisclosed locations. --John Moe

From Publishers Weekly
That George W. Bush is a bumbling "president in name only" and that Dick Cheney holds the real power in the administration is a familiar position, and Nichols, Washington correspondent for the Nation, takes it with an unsubtle, repetitive hammering of its main features. Righteousness colors otherwise compelling, in-depth considerations of matters such as Cheney's evasion of military service during the Vietnam War and his archconservative voting record as a congressman. Nichols has a lot of cogent and well-collated material about his subject's "hustling for power," both in Washington and as the CEO of Halliburton, but he occasionally overreaches, as when he suggests that then-secretary of defense Cheney's pressure to maintain military spending levels after the end of the Cold War shaped the rise in terrorist activities leading up to 9/11. In addition, overlong sidebars derail the main argument, at times adding little more to the debate than petty sniggering over the future vice-president's poor college record and his wife's lesbian romance novel. But at his best, Nichols asks tough questions that went largely unanswered during the last presidential election. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description
A scathing and irreverent portrait of the man who directs the government, by The Nation's Washington correspondent. When a lone gunman started shooting outside the White House on a weekday morning two years ago, Secret Service agents rushed to secure the leaders of the free world. They found Dick Cheney in his office talking on a speakerphone, reviewing material on a computer screen, and directing aides who were gathered around his desk. President Bush? He was in the gym. Dick Cheney, says John Nichols, runs the country. He sets energy policy. He guided the nation into war with Iraq, and, working closely with Karl Rove, he oversees the political infrastructure that allows corporate interests and the religious right to control lawmaking. Dick: The Man Who Is President draws on groundbreaking reporting —including exclusive interviews with Cheney himself, as well as with Nelson Mandela, Gore Vidal, members of Congress, and others who have tangled with Cheney. Timed for the fall election campaign, the book will open debate on a key, unasked question: Do Americans really want Dick Cheney running their country?

About the Author
John Nichols is The Nation's Washington correspondent. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C. and is a co-founder (with Robert McChesney) of the national media reform organization Free Press. He is the author of It's the Media, Stupid and Jews for Buchanan (The New Press).

FROM THE PUBLISHER

George Walker Bush may hold the title of Commander-in-Chief. But real power is in the hands of Richard Bruce Cheney, a remarkably unexamined and -- as this book reveals -- extremist politician. Dick Cheney runs the country. He staffed the White House. He sets energy policy. He guided the nation into war with Iraq and, working closely with Karl Rove, he oversees the political infrastructure that allows corporate interests and the religious right to control lawmaking, regulation, and the selection of judges. Here is the first biography of the most powerful vice president in American history. Drawing on groundbreaking reporting -- including interviews with members of Congress who have tangled with the vice president and who are now investigating him -- Dick: The Man Who Is President details Cheney's history of dodging the draft, his efforts to undermine investigations and prosecutions of the worst scandals of the Reagan era, his far-right congressional career, his (ongoing) relationship with corporate giant Halliburton, and his relentless promotion of the Iraq War. The book opens debate on a fundamental yet, until now, unasked question: Do Americans really want Dick Cheney to continue running their country?

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

That George W. Bush is a bumbling "president in name only" and that Dick Cheney holds the real power in the administration is a familiar position, and Nichols, Washington correspondent for the Nation, takes it with an unsubtle, repetitive hammering of its main features. Righteousness colors otherwise compelling, in-depth considerations of matters such as Cheney's evasion of military service during the Vietnam War and his archconservative voting record as a congressman. Nichols has a lot of cogent and well-collated material about his subject's "hustling for power," both in Washington and as the CEO of Halliburton, but he occasionally overreaches, as when he suggests that then-secretary of defense Cheney's pressure to maintain military spending levels after the end of the Cold War shaped the rise in terrorist activities leading up to 9/11. In addition, overlong sidebars derail the main argument, at times adding little more to the debate than petty sniggering over the future vice-president's poor college record and his wife's lesbian romance novel. But at his best, Nichols asks tough questions that went largely unanswered during the last presidential election. (Sept. 22) Forecast: This book is like a Fahrenheit 9/11 for Cheney, who barely appears in that movie; expect some sales on the title's lowbrow chutzpah alone. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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