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Hardcover
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
ISBN13: 9781594201868
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Barton Gellman’s newsbreaking investigative journalism documents how Vice President Dick Cheney redefined the role of the American vice presidency, assuming unprecedented responsibilities and making it a post of historic power.
Dick Cheney changed history, defining his times and shaping a White House as no vice president has before— yet concealing most of his work from public view. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman parts the curtains of secrecy to show how Cheney operated, why, and what he wrought.
Angler, Gellman’s embargoed and highly explosive book, is a work of careful, concrete, and original reporting backed by hundreds of interviews with close Cheney allies as well as rivals, many speaking candidly on the record for the first time. On the signature issues of war and peace, Angler takes readers behind the scenes as Cheney maneuvers for dominance on what he calls the iron issues from Iraq, Iran, and North Korea to executive supremacy, interrogation of Al Qaeda suspects, and domestic espionage. Gellman explores the behind-the- scenes story of Cheney’s tremendous influence on foreign policy, exposing how he misled the four ranking members of Congress with faulty intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, how he derailed Bush from venturing into Israeli- Palestinian peace talks for nearly five years, and how his policy left North Korea and Iran free to make major advances in their nuclear programs.
Domestically, Gellman details Cheney’s role as “super Chief of Staff ”, enforcer of conservative orthodoxy; gatekeeper of Supreme Court nominees; referee of Cabinet turf; editor of tax and budget laws; and regulator in chief of the administration’s environment policy. We watch as Cheney, the ultimate Washington insider, leverages his influence within the Bush administration in order to implement his policy goals. Gellman’s discoveries will surprise even the most astute students of political science.
Above all, Angler is a study of the inner workings of the Bush administration and the vice president’s central role as the administration’s canniest power player. Gellman exposes the mechanics of Cheney’s largely successful post-September 11 campaign to win unchecked power for the commander in chief, and reflects upon, and perhaps changes, the legacy that Cheney—and the Bush administration as a whole—will leave as they exit office.
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| Disturbing and unnerving--kind of like Cheney himself. |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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A great book. Very well written and researched. Chilling. Now I'll indulge in a little commentary on the "man" (and I use that term loosely) himself:
Any attempt to relegate Cheney's actions to "the madness of the times" is absoulutely ludicrous. This is a man who methodically instituted himself and his agenda into a place of incredible power. Cheney was neither impulsive, nor emotional. He knew what his goals were and he pursued them ruthlessly, but with the utmost care for his image. You say that he "loved his country"- but that phrase can mean just about anything. To be clear, Cheney loved fossil fuels, tax cuts, and defense. That much is indisputable from the book. He also loved power almost as an end to itself. The amount of calories he burned consolidating and protecting his power boggles the mind. At some point most sane human beings would have just thrown in the towel and made compromises....and that would have been ultimately for the best in Cheney's case too. Does loving these things mean he "loved his country"? No. It doesn't.
What I really wonder about Cheney is at what point he conceded his basic humanity to the god of power and control? Was he ever silly? Did he ever goof around? Was there a time when his brain wasn't calculating the intricacies and machinations of power? Or was he just born this way?
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| Our First Deputy President: From Every Angle |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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If you've never read Barton Gellman before, you won't forget him very easily after you read about Dick Cheney in this book called "Angler," the codename given him by the Secret Service.
Angler is an apt name for more reasons than Cheney's enthusiam for fishing as the author describes how Dick Cheney knew and used all the angles of Washington politics to get his own agenda through the president, George W. Bush. The first thing Cheney did was to vet all the candidates that Governor Bush was considering for the number two position. Cheney created an application of such length that candidates who weren't discouraged by the number of questions, sent their answers in boxes to cover the volume. There were two reasons for this, the first was to ensure that no candidate would have anything potentially embarrassing or damaging to Bush's candidacy. The eight inch thick stack of paper in a three-ring binder also gave Cheney a voluminous amount of personal detail about the candidates that he could use in the future if he felt the need to. When Governor Frank Keating of Oklahoma made an inopportune remark that did not amuse Cheney, personal information about the governor was leaked that could have only come from his application for VP.
Cheney, on the other hand, managed to disclose nothing and hide everything, from his stance on issues, to his associations, to his medical history that only his personal physician knew about. The Bush campaign never learned of Cheney's heart until it stopped functioning. Keenly aware of how he would be seen by posterity, he classified, or got executive orders to conceal all his actions. The man who saw a future self-image in a better light than historians might see, gave them nothing to look at.
Gellman describes Cheney as a man who knew how to manipulate Bush by filtering the information given him, or by being the last person to talk to him on any issue. He nullified Clinton's final executive orders by simply ordering their publication stopped. (No one can follow what he can't read). Without dissemination, no orders existed. He set up a discrete office in the halls of Congress to meet with legislators who needed arm-twisting, and placed people in key posts to thwart or blunt the influence of others. He recommended cabinet officers and created a staff that were entirely there to do his bidding and carry out his agenda, even though he was not entirely successful with the former, thanks to the surprising resilience and honor of John Ashcroft and some strong-willed Justice Department attorneys who were prepared to carry a fight to resignation.
What is clear here is that Dick Cheney knew how the wheels of government operated and used them to full advantage. He used them to advance his idealistic agenda without regard for popular opinion, polls, or opposition. He believed that the executive branch of government should operate unmolested by congressional investigation or judicial review, and he reveled in his poll ratings which were lower than George Bush's. When Martha Raddatz of ABC reminded him, in March 2008 that two-thirds of Americans said they were against administration policies with regard to Iraq, Cheney's infamous response of, "So?" showed not just indifference to public opinion, but a response that bordered on contempt, according to the author. Cheney compared himself to Lincoln who was unpopular but never driven off course in his attempt to save the union. Such a comparison leaves out that Lincoln rallied the public rather than scorned them, and that when Lincoln was elected to office, he still felt accountable to them. Cheney felt no such obligation once he left office. He believed "in the virtues of a governing class remote from the passions of the crowd."
Mr Gellman has written a factual book about one of the most mysterious and secretive men in Washington. He describes Cheney as being so powerful that he is the only vice president who could have justified the title of deputy president. He writes about him without passion or rancor; he just presents the facts and gives us insight into a man who relished the title of Darth Vader.
If you read just the first few pages, you will find yourself just as hooked as I was.
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| Cheney loved his country, but he had a flaw |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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I was living in Chicago when 9/11 occurred, and there are two things I recall most of the time that followed: One was the temporary banishment of newspaper stands and trashcans from the street, in fear terrorists might hide bombs in them. The other were people I never imagined advocating the invasion of foreign countries and the slaughter of its people were now backing the idea of wiping out of Afghanistan altogether.
"They're barbarians," one friend told me at the time. He was a sculptor who two-years earlier was demonstrating against corporate power during the Battle of Seattle.
About two years later, the Bush administration used the memory of 9/11 to push the country into invading Iraq, promising it would make us safer. By taking the country we would keep weapons of mass destruction out of our enemies' hands, we would create a new democracy and enlist new friends in the fight against the jihadists.
At the time I happened to be reading Thucydides' "History of Peloponnesian War," a firsthand account of the long-running war between Athens and Sparta in Ancient Greece. After years of fighting, it dawns on the Athenians they could be overwhelmed by their enemy, so in a fit of panic and hubris, they set out to invade Sicily. There they expected to be greeted as liberators, and the Sicilians would then join Athens in its fight against Sparta. Instead the Sicilians routed her army, weakening the city's military and invigorating the confidence of her enemies, and eventually brought on the city's destruction.
It was a book I wished somebody in the Bush administration had taken the time to read. Wars are easy to begin, but they never end as you expect them to.
I think when historians look at the American period just after 9/11, they are going to see a nation that pretty much lost its mind. For the six years that followed, fear, fury and paranoia ruled our actions. We lashed out at Afghanistan first, bombing and invading with little consideration of how it would impact its neighbors. Then we bombed and invaded Iraq, again under the pretense of 9/11, and again with little insight into who it was we thought we were going to so bravely lead into democracy's warm light.
In a way, I think "Angler, the Cheney vice presidency," captures this period perfectly. Richard Cheney, of 46th vice president, did not have terrorism, torture or wiretapping on his mind when he began his term. But that changed after his boss' administration allowed the largest mass murder of U.S. citizens to occur because no one took the warning signs seriously. While the CIA and the NSA were screaming for attention, the Bush presidency was obsessed with rolling back left-wing policy on energy, the environment, missile defense, and taxes.
What followed 9/11 was as much as an intellectual response as an emotional one. Cheney was internally wrestling with the failure of losing so many American lives, while at the same time grasping for unlimited power to help stop a second attack. Already a neoconservative ideologue, increasing presidential powers and autonomy seemed a rational response to the emergency at hand. Those new powers were expressed in domestic wiretapping, the elimination of rights for detainees and the use of torture, but they all derive from the same political conviction: that the president has the power to interpret law and treaties as he sees fit, and to whatever he gives authority to -- even if it's the torture of American citizens -- it is legal.
It also allowed the White House to have single control of intelligence information, and Cheney used that to manipulate, lie, bully and cajole Congress and the Department of Justice to give the president whatever additional powers he thought were needed. Further, it allowed Cheney to control information around the rationale for invading Iraq, so he could cherry pick the data to back his interpretation of reality.
Ironically, this was the same attitude towards information that opened the door to 9/11, and it would come to haunt the Bush administration again as the war in Iraq escalated into the president's second term.
But Cheney thought the ends justified the means, and that by tapping every tool available, illegal or unethical, he was ensuring another 9/11 would never happen. More than 3,000 dead Americans were already on his conscious.
Of course, not everyone in Washington was as comfortable as Cheney over giving the president unchecked, monarch-like powers, and the "Angler" does a great job in telling the stories of some of these conflicts. The climax being the 2004 sickbed visit to Attorney General John Ashcroft by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andrew Card to encourage (to put it politely) his authorization of extending Bush's domestic wiretapping policy. What nearly followed would have made Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre look like a high school musical.
I never thought I'd like a book that makes Ashcroft out as a hero, but there here it is.
But this is a sympathetic look at Cheney. The author argues that Cheney truly believed that the actions and policies he helped established, no matter how unconstitutional or un-American they may appear to libertarians, liberals and conservatives, would help the U.S. avoid another 9/11. His flaw was that he couldn't see that by trying to save the country he was destroying its ethical spirit or its guiding mythos for the rest of the world. And he couldn't see the long-term impact of his actions on the character of the U.S. government, or its affects on our allies and our global reputation.
Or maybe if he did see it, he didn't care.
"So what," he might have said. "This isn't a popularity contest, it's about saving American lives and keeping our enemy in check. When you are as strong as we are, you don't need friends."
Such was the madness of that time.
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| Excellent Read |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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I was impressed with Gellman's well researched approach. This book was organized and very thorough. The author did a great job investigating the Vice Presidency's influence on the administration and is the best book to read on the policy makings of the Bush administration. It was not light reading though some parts of it did move pretty quickly.
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| Angler Review |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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For the most part I think Angeler was a good review of Dick Cheney's Vice-Presidency. This book puts you in Cheney's shoes and shows his path in decision making. It reinforced my belief that Cheney was the man for the job after September 11. The author showed how his career prepared him for the challenges that the war on terror brought to our leadership, and that Cheney very confidently stepped up to the plate and handled it.
I believe Cheney's career and service as Vice-President is an excellent example of leadership carried out. A true leader does not take his position lightly and does not take a poll on how to carry out his duties. A true leader also follows through on his beliefs and doesn't look back. The author was able to demonstrate how Cheney's career and tenure as Vice-President fullfills these qualities.
There was only one cheap shot at Cheney and that concerned his heart trouble. Other than that I enjoyed the book and learned a lot. This book will make you more appreciative of Cheney's efforts to protect you and all Americans from the thugs in this world who want us dead. This is more true now than ever.
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