Cheney

For four years, Vice President Dick Cheney has resisted routine oversight of his office's handling of classified information, and when the office in charge of overseeing classification in the executive branch objected, the vice president's office suggested that the oversight office be shut down, according to documents released yesterday by a Democratic congressman. The oversight office, a unit of the National Archives, appealed the issue to the Justice Department, which has not yet ruled on the matter.

The first question Dick Cheney is asked in "The World According to Dick Cheney" is: What's your favorite virtue? "Integrity," he answers. What do you value most in your friends?"

NEW YORK - Seldom if ever has a vice president been afforded the convention spotlight that Dick Cheney enjoyed here the other night in his dual role as the Republican Party's chief exponent of its conservative values and Democrat-basher. His appearance as cleanup hitter provided an ideological counter to the convention's earlier pointed effort, employing speakers such as John McCain, Rudolph Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger to show a more middle-road face to undecided voters. The convention prominence given to Mr. Cheney was one not assigned to earlier Republican running mates, going back even to Richard Nixon in 1952.

John Cheney Wood, a Baltimore artist who worked in a variety of media, died July 20 of advanced Parkinson's disease at his summer home and studio in Ithaca, N.Y. The Mount Washington resident was 90. The son of a master carpenter and an executive secretary, John Cheney Wood was born in Turlock, Calif., and raised in Concord, Mass., where he graduated from high school. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1943, and after completing flight training, was a pilot stationed in Marfa, Texas.

WASHINGTON -- In a way, Dick Cheney can probably thank not only George W. Bush for his selection to be George W. Bush's running mate. He can also thank Dan Quayle. The fiasco that resulted in 1988 when the Texas governor's father chose Mr. Quayle to run on the GOP ticket with him was one that Mr. Bush's strategists wanted no part of. George W. said it simply from the start in declaring that the individual he would choose had to be someone "who could be president." It was a description that Mr. Quayle in 1988 seemed not to fill from the memorable moment the senior George Bush picked him -- and got himself nearly hugged to death on a New Orleans dock by his ecstatic choice.

VICE PRESIDENT Dick Cheney was not arguing on Tuesday that a vote for John Kerry was a vote for terrorism, though if anyone came away with that impression after his remarks in Des Moines, Iowa, he probably wasn't too distraught about it. What he was saying was that if the "wrong" man is elected in November, and if there comes another big terrorist attack on America, the new Democratic administration won't know what to do, will try to pretend that it's...

WASHINGTON -- The story is that when Barry Goldwater delivered his acceptance speech at the 1964 convention, dispensing high-octane conservatism, a journalist exclaimed, "My God, he's going to run as Goldwater." Today many people are similarly thunderstruck that both nominees of the conservative party are conservatives. The Gore campaign is a jalopy with one gear -- fear overdrive. Hence the manic attempt to convince the country that Dick Cheney is Mussolini without the rhetorical flair.

WASHINGTON - Thomas Marshall, Woodrow Wilson's vice president, once said his job was "to ring the White House bell every morning and ask what is the state of the health of the president." Nobody cared about the health of the vice president. The first vice president, John Adams, called his position "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived." How times have changed. When Dick Cheney was hospitalized with a heart problem, the news hit this town with near the force it might have been had President Bush himself checked in. The obvious reason is the unprecedented role Cheney has played in the new administration, from the transition to the present.

When Dick Cheney blasted his pal with birdshot on the Quail Hunt from Hell, he became one of the latest public figures to screw up while trying to contain a scandal. In fact, the vice president's actions following the accidental shooting of poor old Harry Whittington should be studied by every high-profile politician, Hollywood celebrity, Fortune 500 CEO and superstar athlete as the way not to act after you're caught doing something incredibly stupid and embarrassing. Why, the veep blew it so badly he might be responsible for a new phrase entering the lexicon of scandal spinmeisters: Don't pull a Cheney.

WASHINGTON -- The Defense Department said yesterday that it would cancel the troubled new Navy attack aircraft unless the Navy proves the plane is worth buying.If the $57 billion A-12 warplane program, which is in the development stages, is canceled, it would be one of the the largest weapons systems ever eliminated by the Pentagon.The aircraft, known as the Avenger, is a carrier-based, radar-evading warplane that is at least 18 months behind schedule and more than $1 billion over cost."The A-12 program is in serious trouble," Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said in a memorandum to Navy Secretary H. Lawrence Garrett III released by the Pentagon yesterday.

Thank you for enunciating my thoughts exactly in your editorial "Death by drone" (March 9). I would think a vast majority of the people voted for Barack Obama as a repudiation of the disastrous Bush-Cheney administration. But President Obama, like his predecessor, is trying to usurp power I would argue rests with the legislative branch. I would never have guessed that Attorney General Eric Holder would make some convoluted but lame excuse for denying U.S. citizens due process. Mr. Holder at his press conference gave a great impersonation of Dick Cheney.

The images of the burning towers on Sept. 11 are seared into our collective memory. It seemed unthinkable that we could be attacked on our native soil. During our nation's founding, we were also attacked on our soil. And though the British who captured our fighters treated their prisoners brutally, Gen. George Washington instructed his troops to act with integrity. "Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren who have fallen into their hands," he told the Northern Expeditionary Force in September 1775.

We were told during the eight years of the previous administration that high gas prices were a result of evil, greedy oil companies and the Bush/Cheney ties to that industry. Now we are told that high gas prices are a result of evil, greedy oil companies and the Republican-led Congress. Now there's change we can believe in. Dave Reich, Perry Hall

"And finally, Dick Cheney removed all doubt by having an artificial pump installed where his heart should be." Susan Reimer ("A parade of people behaving badly," July 19) reached the peak of her periodic liberal snipes with this cheap shot comment. It really reflects badly on an otherwise not-bad and fairly perceptive column. George Creel, Davidsonville

Sorry for the delay in reacting to Susan Reimer's commentary in The Baltimore Sun ("A parade of people behaving badly," July 19) but our cable was down, thus no access to the Internet. We are so fortunate to have free speech in this wonderful country of ours; but why is it necessary for one your columnists to print such blatant personal attacks in her commentary? Ms. Reimer seems to be leading the parade of people behaving badly. Her rudeness is magnified by identifying Sarah Palin as "control-freak Mama Sarah" and saying the Dick Cheney has an "artificial pump where his heart should be."

It has been a busy few weeks for those of us in the Glass House Club who keep track of the bad behavior of others. Almost before we finished shaking our heads and tsk-tsking at Al Gore's purported bad massage table behavior, we had Lindsay Lohan's bad nail polish behavior and Mel Gibson's bad telephone behavior. Anyone concerned about the coarsening of the cultural conversation has got to admit that that horse has left the barn. We are now hip-deep in I-can't-believe-anyone-would-actually- do -that.

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said yesterday that he was "concerned about the prospects of major rearmament of Iraq" after the Persian Gulf war and might seek international accords to prevent that country from rebounding as a military threat.Mr. Cheney also reiterated that the administration would be prepared to consider a cease-fire only if President Saddam Hussein withdrew his occupation forces from Kuwait."We have no designs on Baghdad, no desire to damage unnecessarily the Iraqi nation," he said yesterday on Cable News Network's "Evans and Novak" show.

WASHINGTON -- A jury was selected yesterday to weigh the fate of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who has been charged with obstructing a federal probe into the disclosure of a CIA operative`s identity. Culminating four days of questioning by lawyers and a judge that often exposed biases against the Bush administration, 12 jurors and four alternates were chosen for the trial of Libby, 56, a former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton scheduled opening statements for today; the trial is expected to last up to six weeks.

For the second time in less than six years, David S. Cordish played host to the nation's vice president at a high-dollar fund-raising event Wednesday night, when Joe Biden headlined a Democratic reception at the developer's Lutherville home. It's not unusual at the loftiest levels of political fundraising for a major contributor to introduce the vice president at an event he is hosting. What is rare about Cordish's case, though, is that the last vice president he welcomed was Dick Cheney.

Vice President Joe Biden and former Vice President Dick Cheney sparred Sunday from the safe distance of separate talk shows, disagreeing on the greatest threat to the U.S., the use of torture and going to war in Iraq. The Democratic vice president - and the Republican he replaced - found little common ground in a spectacle that played out over three morning-TV programs. A rare zone of agreement was the administration's execution of the war in Afghanistan. But, even then, Cheney suggested President Barack Obama should have acted faster in deciding to send in more troops.