The public story so often told about former Vice President Dick Cheney revolves around national security, his gruffness, his fevered work to increase the power of the executive branch and his promotion of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques.
But his comments this week signaling he has no argument with gay marriage, as long as the matter is left to states to decide, reminds us that Cheney possesses a more complex history than the stereotyped image.
Is it possible Cheney could actually prop up the GOP’s supposed big tent with his comments?
“I think, you know, freedom means freedom for everyone,” Cheney said in a speech at the National Press Club. “I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish, any kind of arrangement they wish.”
Add to those comments the former vice president’s admission this week that there “was never any evidence” that Saddam Hussein was in some way connected to the 9/11 attacks, and Cheney presents a side of himself that we wish we had seen more of the past eight years.
Cheney’s youngest daughter is gay, and she has a longtime partner. It seems his acceptance of gay issues, which he has only rarely voiced while serving a president who opposed gay marriage, is informed in part by his experience.
But what we forget about Cheney is that he hails from a more libertarian, keep-government-out-of-people’s-lives tradition that until not so long ago was the majority political mindset in Colorado.
Cheney was raised in Wyoming and served the state in the Congress for six terms, though in the final term he departed his role as Minority Whip to become Defense Secretary for the first President Bush.
Looking beyond the last eight years, Cheney at his core is that type of conservative most animated by attempts to reduce federal government and empower states to govern themselves. As Defense Secretary, even though his tenure included the first Iraq war and the invasion of Panama that led to the deposing of Manuel Noriega, Cheney reduced the size of the military personnel nearly 20 percent, and cut budgets from $291 billion to $270 billion.
Momentum existed for cutting back defense spending after the end of the long and costly Cold War, but it is also true that only rarely are government budgets ever pared.
It was as vice president, following 9/11, that Cheney transformed into a kind of shadow president in an administration that let spending (and executive power) get out of control.
A Republican Party that acted like Cheney did before his vice presidency, and that’s as accepting on some social issues as Cheney is acting now, might attract more of the independents and moderates who voted against the party last November.
His candor now doesn’t make up for some of his past mistakes — especially the claims of a 9/11-Iraq link — but it’s welcome nonetheless.
