Book description
Dick Cheney is the most powerful yet most unpopular vice president in
American history. He has thrived alongside a president who, from day
one, had little interest in policy and limited experience in the ways
of Washington. Yet Cheney's relentless rise to prominence over three
decades has happened almost by stealth. Now veteran reporters Lou
Dubose and Jake Bernstein reveal the disturbing truth about the man
who has successfully co-opted executive control over the U. S.
government, serving as the de facto 'shadow president' of the
most dominant White House in a generation.
Cheney has always been an astute politician. He survived the
collapse of the Nixon presidency, finding a position of power in the
administration of Gerald Ford. He was then elected to the House of
Representatives and later served in the cabinet of the first Bush
presidency. But when he became George W. Bush's running mate, Cheney
reached a new level of influence. From the engineering of his own
selection as vice president to his support of policies allowing
torture as a permissible weapon in the 'war on terror', Cheney has
consistently steered America to the right.
With unique access to numerous first-hand sources, Vice
provides an unprecedented expose of Cheney's career. Its startling
revelations concern the war in Iraq, his relationship with the CIA and
with big business, his involvement with Enron, his attitude towards
Iran and his ruthless manoeuvering which today effectively puts him in
charge of American policy at home and abroad. In the tradition of Carl
Bernstein and Bob Woodward's All the President's Men,
this powerful work of investigative journalism takes us behind the
scenes in Washington, into hitherto secret meetings and deep into the
heart of political decision-making. Utterly gripping, Vice
chronicles and exposes the hijacking of the American presidency
and illustrates the arrogance of power as never before.
Lou Dubose has covered Texas politics for twenty-five years. He is
the co-author (with Molly Ivins) of two New York Times
bestsellers, Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W.
Bush and Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America. In
2003 he wrote (with Texas Monthly writer Jan Reid) The Hammer: Tom
DeLay, God, Money, and the Rise of the Republican Congress
(released in paperback as The Hammer Comes Down: The Nasty, Brutish
and Shortened Political Life of Tom DeLay). He has also written
a political biography of Karl Rove. He lives in Austin, Texas, with
his wife, Jeanne Goka.
Texas Observer executive editor Jake Bernstein has chronicled
stories from Washington, D. C., to the jungles of Central America. As
a weekly reporter in Miami, he covered the 2000 Florida recount and
the Elián González story. While working as a freelancer in Guatemala
and El Salvador, he wrote about the destruction of the rain forest and
the end of guerrilla insurgencies. In Texas, Bernstein's work on Tom
DeLay's campaign-finance scandals has won multiple journalism awards.
He lives in Austin.
