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Unimtimidated — that’s how Dick Cheney approached everything

The word that best describes how former Vice President Dick Cheney, who wielded the responsibilities he undertook in public affairs over a long career, began improbably early in life and extended into years of repudiation by his fellow partisans, is “unintimidated.” He was unintimidated by his rise to become White House chief of staff at age 34 in 1975, after flunking out of Yale University and not finishing his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin (while his wife, Lynne Cheney, earned hers.) Cheney, who died last month and was eulogized in a ceremony to which the current ...

There’s an awful lot we can be thankful for

In 2006, a few days before Christmas, doctors announced my wife had six months to live. She had, they said, a rare form of cancer that had spread to her lungs. There was really nothing that could be done. We had a one-year-old and I had been told my job was coming to an end the same day of the diagnosis. Thankfully, it was a misdiagnosis. Not only did I keep my job, but I kept my wife. Ten years later, doctors informed my wife they suspected she had a genetic form of lung cancer. Had my wife not been misdiagnosed in 2006, they would not have known about her lung cancer in 2016. My ...

The flying public continues to grow more surly

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is my new hero. Duffy is promoting a “civility” campaign that urges passengers to be polite and dress up rather than wear sweatpants and slippers when they fly. If everyone dresses better, everyone will behave better, Duffy offered. It’s an idea that could bring smiles to the friendly skies around the Thanksgiving holiday. During a press conference at Newark Liberty International Airport, Duffy was wearing a suit and red tie. This was an outfit that answered the question: What would President Donald Trump wear? The good news: Duffy did ...

So, Barack and Bubba decided they needed to hand out for awhile …

“So, Bill, check this out. You know Hillary was in deep voodoo — over the unsecured server in her basement, right? I mean, we’re talking slam dunk violation of the Espionage Act — maybe even jail time — because, you know, she sent and received classified documents. Who DOES that?! I know. I know. “You probably told her not to do it — and she did it anyway. I mean, I worked with her as my secretary of state, so you don’t need to tell me what the woman is like. “Now, I don’t need to tell you. She was in SERIOUS trouble. Some backbiters were going to the press ...

Cheney’s funeral serves as a reminder

In an America presently diseased by crudeness and cruelty, the scene at Washington’s National Cathedral for the funeral of former Vice President Dick Cheney was a welcome display of grace by leaders who embrace an ethos currently out of vogue. It’s an ethos of bipartisanship, of respect for public service. It’s an ethos of affirming human decency, of affirming democracy itself — regardless of sharp political differences. Fierce political enemies of Cheney’s and of one another came to church to pay homage not only to Cheney’s career spent trying to defend America as he ...

This plan would mean we lose and they win

In 1988, when President Ronald Reagan was asked by a reporter during the summit in Moscow what his goal was in the Cold War, he said: “We win, they lose.” When it comes to today’s Russia and its unprovoked war with Ukraine, President Trump’s goal at least in practice and outcome appears to be “we lose, they win.” The president had given Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy until Thanksgiving Day to accept his “peace proposal” which reads as if it could have been written by Vladimir Putin. In fact, according to news reports, it may have been. It seems to align ...