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Cheney was unquestionably the most influential vice president in American history, but that influence was in large part a function of his deference, as much as any overt exertion of power. Because he had no aspiration to ever run for president himself, he was able to focus on making Bush’s presidency successful — though on terms that he helped define.

When asked in 2002 how many times he had met privately with Bush, Cheney reached into his suit pocket and pulled out his schedule. “Let me see,” he said. “Three, four, five, six, seven — seven times.” Then he added: “Today.”

Cheney operated in tandem with Donald Rumsfeld, his longtime mentor who gave him his first White House job under Richard Nixon and was now serving as defense secretary. Together, they shared a vision of a world of threats that required a strong executive branch and an unapologetic assertion of American power. “He never came over to me and organized against some decision or said we have to marshal support for this or that,” Rumsfeld later told me. But he never had to. They were almost always on the same page, executing the same vision.

Bush moved away from Cheney and turned increasingly toward Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who supplanted Cheney as the president’s most influential lieutenant. No one in the White House had the relationship with Bush that Rice had. She worked out with him, talked sports with him, dined with him and Laura in the residence and spent weekends with them at Camp David.

Only by the end of his sixth year did Bush finally conclude that Rumsfeld had to go, a decision that represented the most fundamental break with Cheney, who was informed, not consulted. “It wasn’t open for discussion by the time he came to me,” Cheney told me. Cheney managed to preserve much of the national-security architecture he helped create, but he was now on defense more than offense, fending off changes that he thought would weaken the country or unravel the policies he had urged.

The passage of time has tempered some of the harsh judgments of Bush’s administration. By this past summer, 49 percent of Americans now viewed him favorably, compared with 46 percent who disapproved, the first positive balance in eight years.

Cheney defended her vote to impeach. "I won't apologize for the vote," she told the House Republican conference, a source with knowledge of the process told CNN.

Cheney told CNN on Wednesday evening that she does not regret her impeachment vote. "Absolutely not," she said when asked.

House Republicans are at a major crossroads as tensions simmer over Cheney and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and the conference faces pressure to chart a path forward in the aftermath of the Trump presidency.

Cheney also fielded several contentious questions and comments from Trump loyalists, a person in the room said, including Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, who bluntly said she "aided and comforted the enemy."

Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who had also voted in favor of impeachment, voiced criticism of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, during the meeting.

Cheney issued a scathing statement ahead of the House impeachment vote condemning Trump's conduct, saying that he "summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,"

She also told members that she wanted a vote to be called on her leadership status, which was interpreted by some in the room as an act of confidence in her standing with a broader cross-section of Republicans, the majority of which did not air their grievances toward her.

Shortly before the meeting began, McCarthy released a statement, in which he condemned Greene's comments, but did not include any new repercussions for Greene and spent more time criticizing Democrats than the Georgia congresswoman's past comments that have created the backlash.

"The House should do what the House chooses to do," freshman Sen. Cynthia Lummis told reporters, refusing to offer any support to fellow Wyoming Republican Cheney.

John Barrasso, the other Wyoming GOP senator, backs Cheney.

There was extraordinary national unity after the 2001 terrorist attacks. But George W. Bush’s strategists argued that Republicans should “go to the country” on the issue of terrorism and “focus on war” in the elections of 2002 and 2004, making the case that Democrats endangered Americans’ security. On the campaign trail, Dick Cheney warned that if people made “the wrong choice” and voted Democratic, “then the danger is that we’ll get hit again, that we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating.” As Bush said Democrats were “not interested in the security of the American people,” Cheney claimed electing Republicans was “vital” for “defending our homeland.”

In that same year, Republicans close to the administration ran an infamous ad juxtaposing an image of Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.), a triple amputee from his service in Vietnam, with images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein

Two years later, a group with ties to Bush did similarly to Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry, with flimsy accusations that he lied about his Vietnam service and betrayed comrades.

Cheney was also the primary force for distorting intelligence about Iraq to make the case for war. He falsely claimed in 2001 that it was “pretty well confirmed” that the 9/11 mastermind met with Iraqi intelligence. He falsely called evidence of a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda “overwhelming” and said Hussein had “long-established ties with al-Qaeda.” He falsely called Iraq “the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault … on 9/11.”

Those contagions — using disinformation and patriotism as political weapons — spread through the Republican Party and consumed it utterly with Trump’s triumph. Too late, Liz Cheney bravely stood against both, and is on the verge of political exile

All our Greek tragedy needs now is the catharsis: a glimmer of self-awareness from Dick Cheney about his role in causing this.

Despite all of that, as soon as I saw it happen, all I could think to myself was: Donald Trump (and his acolytes) are going to have a field day with this. Here’s why: We are a visual people. Which means videos have power in our society. And the video of Biden fist-bumping Cheney is going to be used by every Trumpist who wants Cheney to lose her seat next year as evidence that she is a Republican In Name Only (RINO) and a sellout of conservative principles.

In an interview with Punchbowl News on Tuesday – before the fist-bump – Cheney was both pragmatic and optimistic about her political future. She acknowledged that she is likely to face a “challenging primary” following her vote against Trump, but quickly added: “Anybody who wants to get in that race and who wants to do it on the basis of debating me about whether or not President Trump should have been impeached, I’ll have that debate every day of the week.”

“Liz Cheney is polling sooo low in Wyoming, and has sooo little support, even from the Wyoming Republican Party, that she is looking for a way out of her Congressional race,” said Trump in a statement released Tuesday. “Based on all polling, there is no way she can win.” (Sidebar: Yes, he really wrote “sooo,” not once but twice.)

If you don’t think a moment – caught on tape – matters, just ask former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) about his decision to embrace former President Barack Obama during a presidential visit in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.

The struggle for the future direction of the party exploded in a manic meeting of the House Republican Conference that ended when Cheney prevailed comfortably in a secret ballot

Greene had earlier learned that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy would not strip her committee assignments

Scared of repudiating Trump's base, the House GOP is racing at top speed towards its extremist fringe to validate millions of Americans living in an alternative reality even if Cheney's survival suggests that privately many GOP members don't believe the election was stolen.

The fact that Cheney has faced more criticism from her colleagues than Greene in recent days reflects how the GOP's traditional values are under siege and the vast power that extremists and conspiracy theories welcomed into the party by Trump are accumulating.

For weeks, and especially following the insurrection incited by Trump on January 6, the Republican Party has been locked in a prolonged duel between those swearing loyalty to their leader in exile

Cheney, who, until the Trump insurrection, was a reliable vote for the President save on some foreign policy issues, made a powerful statement by winning in a 145 to 61 vote to keep her leadership post

Wednesday's turmoil also underscored how McCarthy has capitulated to the extreme forces within his caucus and in the country.

Her victory was a sign that in private at least, there are some in the House Republican Party who are willing to stand up to extremism

But Cheney still faces the very real prospect of a primary challenge in her fervently pro-Trump state of Wyoming

Greene said in the meeting that her past social media posts did not represent who she was. But her sense of being impervious to the customs of her fast-shifting party shone through a defiant interview with the Washington Examiner that published as Wednesday's meeting went on.

"Kevin McCarthy and all these leaders, the leadership, and everyone is proving that they are all talk and not about action, and they're just all about doing business as usual in Washington," Greene said.

In many ways, Wednesday's meeting accelerated the direction the party has been heading at least since many parts of its traditional base became disillusioned with the establishment following years of war and the 2008 financial crisis.

This will all have profound consequences for the country. There have always been wide, and proper, ideological differences between Democrats and Republicans. They are, if anything, widening.

. One of America's great parties, by elevating unhinged radicals such as Greene, and by threatening those like Cheney who accept the truth of Biden's win last year, is implicitly rejecting the sacred values of the American political system itself and its essential underpinning of objective truth and fact.

The Democratic-led House is however expected to act where McCarthy failed in a floor vote on Thursday.

The spectacle of the leader being led around by a congresswoman who has been in Washington for four weeks either showed great political weakness or cynical calculation. He will leave it to House Democrats to rebuke Greene

his failure to deal with the Greene issue himself means that many of his members -- especially those from more vulnerable districts -- now face a choice between voting in the full House to punish a Trump supporter or to open themselves to accusations they are endorsing her crazed rhetoric.

"The voters decided that she can come and serve," McCarthy said after the meeting, adding that Greene had denounced her own social media activity.In her comments to the Examiner, in which she again alluded to lies that Trump won the election and insulted Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell, Greene showed she has no incentive to reform her behavior.

"Now, we have Joe Biden in the White House and Nancy Pelosi at 80 million years old as speaker, and we've got a Senate that we don't control anymore, with, you know, Mr. Big Turtle in charge up there just, just losing gracefully, losing gracefully," Greene said

Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger might argue that all is not lost for the GOP and that the reckoning will take many months, as memories fade of the Trump presidency.

But many of those state Republican officials who stood firm in the face of the ex-President's attempt to overturn election results are facing the similar kind of assaults and likely primary challenges as Cheney and the other nine House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump.

And Republican senators, such as McConnell, who called Greene a "cancer," and others who condemned her remarks would insist that they are standing up for the institutional values of the party

the vast majority of GOP senators are expected to vote to acquit Trump in his Senate impeachment trial

heir motivation is the same as those who are appeasing Greene -- a desire to avoid antagonizing the party base and to avoid primary challenges in order to retain their hold on power.

People don’t realize how fragile our system is,” Cheney told me. “We just get accustomed to thinking, you know, we’ll survive anything.”

it exposes the Biggest Lie of the Bush-Cheney administration: that Abu Ghraib was an exception, and not the rule. What was done to suspects in Abu Ghraib was actually less grotesque, less horrifying, and less shocking than what Bush and Cheney ordered the CIA to do to human beings directly.

It shows the horror of terrorism and then the horror of the torture that Cheney illegally used to respond to it.

The movie also depicts waterboarding in a way that destroys the pathetic defense that this wasn't torture, because the tortured were not asked direct questions during it. They were, of course. Torture was followed by interrogation which was followed by more grisly torture. There is no doubt here that what the US did was almost a text-book definition of war crimes.

the simple juxtaposition of terror with torture in the film does not force an obvious conclusion. In some ways, like Spencer, I think it reveals the core truth behind Cheney's armchair warrior mindset. The torture was not for intelligence (and it provided nothing reliable as well as countless leads that were dead ends). It was for revenge.

What the movie also shows - importantly - is the evil of Jihadism, and its fanatical religious roots. It shows the terrorism as well as the torture. The easy view that all of this torture was based on hallucinatory threats is rebutted.

this movie echoes what we are told the Senate Intelligence Committee report concludes. We got bin Laden when we stuck to Western values. When we acted like the Nazis or the Communists, we failed.

It may be that many people watching this movie will actually believe the torture was integral to the end-result. But that will be because they want to see that or because they are as dumb as Owen Gleiberman. It isn't there. And if they want to see that, they will also be forced, at least, to own the barbarism depicted on screen in a way that euphemisms like "sleep deprivation", "stress positions" and "enhanced interrogation" were designed to obscure.

But my view is that Americans were shielded by their government and, disgracefully, their press, into living with barbarism - because Orwellian language was used and propagated to disguise the true evil that was at the heart of the Cheney mindset.

Anthony Bouchard, a Wyoming state senator who is also running against Cheney, said he's been "flooded" with messages encouraging a primary run.

"Each and every one of those 10, when they made that vote, they knew in their heads and in their hearts it was probably a political death sentence. They knew that," said former Rep. Joe Walsh, the conservative Illinois Republican whose 2020 primary against Trump did not gain traction.

"I wouldn't be surprised to see a number of them not even run again, depending on how their districts shake out" after redistricting, Walsh said.

It's also too early to tell how willing Trump and his family members will be to insert themselves in intra-party battles -- especially after social media bans limited Trump's ability to reach wide audiences easily -- and whether Trump's ire will be focused narrowly on Republicans he believes wronged him, such as Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who rebuffed Trump's efforts to overturn the state's election result, or if he will cast a wider net. The New York Times reported that Trump is most focused on ousting Kemp, potentially through a primary challenge by former Rep. Doug Collins, and that Cheney is the former President's next focus.

"It's time to have a change at the top. It's time to have people that are going to start representing the people -- not their own agendas, not their own nonsense, but their constituency," he said. "And since the people of Wyoming are clearly not thrilled w

th Liz Cheney, let's find someone who can replace her and actually do that job well."

In Washington, the state's Republican Central Committee passed a resolution condemning Trump's impeachment "without question or exception" and expressing disappointment at Reps. Dan Newhouse and Jaime Herrera Beutler, two of the 10 Republicans who voted in favor of impeachment.

"We will do everything in our power as the largest Republican Women's organization in Washington state to recruit and elect a conservative candidate who will represent our values," the group said in the January 13 letter.

Gene Koprowski -- who launched a primary bid against Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of the GOP's most outspoken Trump critics -- named the campaign committee he created on January 14 "Impeach Adam Kinzinger 2022."

"President Trump has fought in our behalf to protect our conservative republican values. It is unbelievable that congressman David Valadao would for the impeachment of President Donald Trump. I will do everything to restore our conservative values as a conservative republican."

"I didn't know that Tom was going to shoot himself in the foot. But he's done that," Richardson said. "To say I'm getting calls would be an understatement."

"But the county that we live in right now -- 71% of the people voted for Donald Trump. And if you're the congressman for this area, you've got to understand, that's not Tom Rice's seat and it's not Ken Richardson's seat. That seat belongs to the people," Richardson said. Those considering primary runs said they have already heard from major Republican donors -- and are convinced that GOP primary voters' anger toward those who voted to impeach Trump will ease before the 2022 primaries.

George W. Bush, by contrast, was determined to be a “game changer.” Even as a candidate, notes former speechwriter Michael Gerson, “[T]he governor consistently pushed his policy team to ‘think big’; his most damning characterization of any proposal was, ‘This is small ball.’”

After 9/11, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz pushed for an attack on Iraq, arguing that the true terrorist threat lay not with Al Qaeda but with terrorism’s alleged state sponsors. But Bush could have overruled them. Secretary of State Colin Powell opposed war with Iraq, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice expressed no strong position. Counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke considered the idea insane.

The reason Bush sided with Cheney and company, I suspect, is because attacking Iraq rather than stopping with the invasion of Afghanistan was the bigger, bolder move. During post-9/11 discussions, Bush often said he didn’t want to “pound sand,” as he believed Bill Clinton had done in response to previous terrorist attacks or “swat flies.” He repeatedly described the “war on terror” as a struggle on the magnitude of the Cold War and World War II.

Bush never tempered this grandiosity with a serious inquiry into the risks. “I’m not a textbook player. I’m a gut player,” he told his National Security Council two weeks after the attacks. According to Condoleezza Rice, there was little Bush disliked more than being told that a foreign policy issue was “complex.” And he didn’t see invading Iraq as particularly complex, in part, according to Iraqi exiles who met the President in January 2003, because he seemed unaware that Iraq was divided between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

But these two different styles have some unifying traits: Both believe in the optics of power, and that the projection of fearlessness creates its own reality.

Both Dick Cheney and Trump resisted public acknowledgements of uncertainty or even complexity in their thinking. Both were loath to admit error or issue apologies.

Allies of Mr. Trump were infuriated by Ms. Cheney’s decision last month to vote to impeach him.

“Isolationism was wrong and dangerous then and it is wrong and dangerous now,” she said.

Her comments were in sharp contrast to those made by her fellow House Republican leaders.

Many of the most influential figures in Republican politics have decided that breaking with Mr. Trump would so alienate the base of the party that it would make election victories impossible, at least for the foreseeable future. That’s essentially what Senator Graham was saying when he recently went on Fox News and posed this question to his Republican colleagues: “Can we move forward without President Trump? The answer is no.”

This means that the new Republican establishment will accede to pretty much anything Mr. Trump demands in order to keep good relations with him. And we know what the former president’s main demand is — insisting he was cheated out of a second term.

Today the Republican Party is less a political party than a political freak show. It is being sustained by insidious lies. And people who love America, starting with conservatives, should say so

therwise, if the Republican Party’s downward spiral isn’t reversed, it will descend even further into a frightening world of illusion.

The House on Wednesday voted for a historic second impeachment of President Trump, approving 232 to 197 a single article citing his role in whipping up a mob that stormed the Capitol last week. But as his fellow Democrats denounced the assault and Mr. Trump’s incitement of the rioters, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has maintained a studied cool, staying largely removed from the proceedings and keeping his focus on battling the coronavirus pandemic, reviving a faltering economy and lowering the political temperature.

A man who was photographed holding a Confederate battle flag inside the U.S. Capitol last week during the riot was arrested Thursday in Delaware, two law enforcement officials said. The man, Kevin Seefried, was wanted by the F.B.I., which had sought help from the public to identify him and had widely circulated a dispatch plastered with images of him.

A retired firefighter from Chester, Pa., was also arrested on Thursday after he was identified as the man seen in a video throwing a fire extinguisher at police officers during the riot. The man, Robert Sanford, is charged with assaulting a law enforcement officer engaged in the performance of official duties and civil disorder among other crimes.

"There is no doubt in my mind that the President of the United States broke his oath of office and incited this insurrection. He used his position in the Executive to attack the Legislative."

'll say to anybody that thinks my vote was for politics, they don't know me. And I would say now they don't know politics because, you know, you have to get through a primary,"

Concerns over his future within the party aren't without merit. Several House Republicans have hammered Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the party's third-ranking House leader, calling for her to step down from her leadership position over her vote to impeach Trump. She's also facing a primary challenge from a prominent conservative state legislator.

"I'm more passionate about this country than I think I was January 5, even," he continued. "I know my passion is the restoration of the Republican Party. I know I may go down fighting like that."

"I think this is one of those votes that that transcends any kind of political implication of the moment," Kinzinger said at the time. "This is one of those that you're going to look back on when you're 80 and this will be the one you talk about."

Kinzinger also said at the time that he didn't feel pressure from the party but that his constituents were all over the place

Greene quickly shot back on Twitter, asserting that "the real cancer for the Republican Party is weak Republicans who only know how to lose gracefully. This is why we are losing our country."

Greene has faced backlash since a CNN KFile report last week found that she had repeatedly indicated support for executing prominent Democratic politicians in 2018 and 2019 before being elected to Congress.

The freshman congresswoman has a track record of incendiary rhetoric, including past comments using Islamophobic and anti-Semitic tropes, as well as ties to the baseless and thoroughly debunked QAnon conspiracy theory.

Greene now faces potentially serious consequences in light of her prior comments, with House Democrats moving expeditiously to remove her from her committee assignments.

CNN previously reported that McCarthy is slated to meet with Greene this week, as many House Republicans have been silent about her newly resurfaced incendiary comments.

McConnell's short but pointed rebuke Monday night came the same day the Kentucky Republican waded publicly into another controversy threatening party unity.

In a separate statement to CNN, he expressed support for Republican Rep. Liz Cheney's vote to impeach President Donald Trump as some Trump loyalists seek to remove her from leadership.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Monday issued a tacit rebuke of controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, slamming the Georgia Republican's "loony lies and conspiracy theories" as a "cancer" for the party.

Young people are more optimistic than their rueful elders, especially those in the technology world. They are the anti-Cheneys, competitive but not triumphalist. They think of themselves as global citizens, not interested in exalting America above all other countries.“The 23-year-olds I work with are a little over the conversation about how we were the superpower brought low,” said Ben Smith, the editor in chief of Buzzfeed. “They think that’s an ‘older person conversation.’ They’re more interested in this moment of crazy opportunity, with the massive economic and cultural transformation driven by Silicon Valley. And kids feel capable of seizing it. Technology isn’t a section in the newspaper any more. It’s the culture.”

many millennials are paralyzed by all their choices. He quoted Walker Percy’s “The Last Gentleman”: “Lucky is the man who does not secretly believe that every possibility is open to him.

He also noted that, given their image-conscious online life in the public eye, millennials worry about attaching themselves with a click to the wrong clique or hashtag: “It heightens the level of uncertainty, anxiety and risk aversion, to know that you’re only a bad day and half a dozen tweets from being fired.”

the biggest change in America is that “technology’s never had to shoulder the burden of optimism all by itself.”