Dick Cheney funeral: Ex-Vice President remembered for transforming national security & standing against Trump

An unlikely mix of Republicans and Democrats came together Thursday to pay tribute to former Vice President Dick Cheney, who helped shape the nation’s aggressive response to terrorism after September 11, 2001, and transformed his office into a powerful platform to drive policy.

Led by former President George W Bush, the mourners who gathered in the grand and cavernous Washington National Cathedral included an array of veterans of their administration as well as a number of Democrats who once despised Cheney but came to admire him late in life for his outspoken opposition to President Donald Trump.

In a sign of how much politics has changed in recent years, Mr Trump and Vice President JD Vance, the stewards of the current Republican administration, were not invited, but Rachel Maddow, the liberal television host who used to skewer Cheney for his support of the Iraq War, was on hand as a guest of the family.

Others in attendance included former President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, and former Vice Presidents Kamala Harris, Mike Pence, Al Gore and Dan Quayle.

A number of lawmakers from different parts of the political spectrum showed up as well, including former Speakers John Boehner, a reliable Republican ally of the Bush-Cheney White House, and Nancy Pelosi, one of its staunchest Democratic opponents.

A clutch of Republican senators attended, including John Thune of South Dakota, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Barrasso of Wyoming, as did a number of Democrats who served with his daughter, former Representative Liz Cheney, on the House committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including Senator Adam Schiff of California and Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland.

Dick Cheney, who died earlier this month at 84, was in his time a hero to Republicans for his tough-minded approach to national security and a villain to many Democrats who thought he went too far.

But his decision to join his daughter in speaking out against Mr Trump when many other Republicans of his stature did not left him isolated from his own party and re-examined by some of his most vocal critics.

Mr Trump ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff after Cheney’s death, as required by law, but issued no statement and has refrained from commenting publicly. Mr Vance offered words during a Breitbart event on Thursday.

“My condolences go to Dick Cheney and his family,” Mr Vance said, adding that “obviously there’s some political disagreements there.” But Mr Vance said Cheney “served his country” and he was wishing his family “all the best.”

In a tribute at the cathedral, Mr Bush praised his partner in power for his unstinting devotion to the country.

“This was a vice president totally devoted to protecting the United States and its interests,” he said.

“There was never any agenda or angle beyond that. You did not know Dick Cheney unless you understood his greatest concerns and ambitions were for his country.”

None of the speakers mentioned the absent Mr Trump explicitly, but in her tribute, Cheney’s daughter alluded to his decision to break with the Republicans.

“He knew the bonds of party must always yield to the single bond we share as Americans,” she said.

“For him, a choice between defence of the Constitution and defence of your political party was no choice at all.”

Cheney’s passing prompted mixed feelings among many.

Some of those in the cathedral said they never would have imagined honouring Cheney but appreciated what they considered his principled stance on Mr Trump.

Some liberals in recent days, however, have said that they do not mourn the former vice president. Regardless of his position on the current president, they still hold Cheney responsible for death and destruction in the Middle East, the torture of detained terrorism suspects and the expansion of executive authority that some say led to Mr Trump’s even more aggressive assertions of power.

In addition to Mr Bush and Liz Cheney, three of the former vice president’s grandchildren offered tributes at the cathedral. Also addressing the service was Dr Jonathan Reiner, Cheney’s longtime cardiologist, and Pete Williams, who worked for Cheney in Congress and at the Pentagon before becoming a correspondent at NBC.

Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did not attend, although both released respectful statements after Cheney’s death praising his service and patriotism.

Cheney was a towering figure of his time. At 34, he became the youngest White House chief of staff in US history, helping President Gerald Ford steer the country out of the debacles of Vietnam and Watergate in the 1970s.

Representing his home state of Wyoming as a member of the House in the 1980s, he vaulted into leadership. As defence secretary for President George HW Bush, he oversaw the successful prosecution of two wars: one ousting the drug-running leader of Panama and the other evicting Iraqi invaders from Kuwait.

But it was during his time as the second-in-command to the younger Bush from 2001 to 2009 that he made his most indelible mark on history. Through force of will and mastery of Washington’s curious ways, Cheney turned a second-tier office into a first-tier platform to drive policy at home and abroad.

He was often described as the real mastermind of the administration, an assertion that nettled Mr Bush. But insiders said the puppeteer image was overblown and noted that the two, in fact, drifted apart on many issues by the end of their time in office.

Cheney overcame five heart attacks and had a heart transplant before writing a book with Dr Reiner about his medical odyssey. Unlike other Republicans who went into opposition against Mr Trump, Cheney remained a staunch conservative through the end of his life but viewed Mr Trump as a betrayal of those values.

He saw Mr Trump as a buffoonish figure in a serious job and a danger to the constitutional order, particularly after his effort to overturn the 2020 election by spreading lies about vote fraud.

His daughter, who also represented Wyoming in the House, became perhaps Mr Trump’s most prominent Republican critic after the January 6 attack, and helped lead the resulting House investigation. After she disclosed last year that she would vote for Ms Harris, her father followed suit.

“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Dick Cheney said.

Citing Mr Trump’s “lies and violence,” he said the former president could “never be trusted with power again.”

He added, “We have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.”

Mr Trump fired back on social media, calling Cheney “an irrelevant RINO,” meaning Republican in Name Only. “He’s the King of Endless, Nonsensical Wars, wasting Lives and Trillions of Dollars, just like Comrade Kamala Harris,” MrTrump said then.

In addition to Liz Cheney, Cheney is survived by his wife, Lynne Cheney, and daughter, Mary Cheney. The family has not disclosed details about burial, but the former vice president wrote in his 2013 book with Dr Reiner that when he came close to death in 2010, he instructed his relatives to have his body cremated and the ashes returned to Wyoming.

He said he did not fear death. “I was pain free and at peace,” he wrote, “and I had led a remarkable life.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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