Why Cheney changed.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Tilting at Windmills - Dick Cheney - Brief article

When Brent Scowcroft told the New Yorker's Jeffrey Goldberg that he used to admire Dick Cheney, but that Cheney had so changed that Scowcroft no longer felt he knew him, I recognized the feeling. I have known Cheney for 25 years or so, his wife even longer. I knew that we disagreed on most issues, but I always found him reasonable and respectful of facts. I was actually pleased when George W. Bush chose him as his running mate. Since 2001, however, the vice president has seemed increasingly rigid and so indifferent to the facts that he misrepresents them repeatedly. It was as if he were the Manchurian Candidate, in whose brain Osama bin Laden had implanted a chip designed to make Cheney do whatever would inflame relations between Islam and the West.

Cheney's change has had its impact on Dubya, who as governor of Texas was much more willing to listen to the other side than he is today. When Chris Matthews recently asked Paul Burka, the veteran Texas journalist, what had changed Bush, Burka replied: "Dick Cheney."

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