Nick some. Good afternoon everybody. Can everybody hear me. Im very short. Good afternoon. Welcome to politics and prose, i am travis cohen a bookseller here and also in charge of the on cyprus Traditions Club at the store. This to quick housekeeping and they will jump right in. Between politics and prose there is three location at the wharf, union market, we host around 1000 authors a year. So if you need help tracking that as we do if you want the full last we have flyers at the info desk in an updated calendar on our website which we highly encourage people to check out. Please remind everyone to silence your cell phones, thats always not fun, as we open the floor to questions and we have two standing microphones here just that one. And we are both recording audio and video today. So thats good incentives to one silence your cell phone and also asked sissy into question so we can get to as many people as possible. And also a good reminder after were done here if you want to pick up a book we have them all up at the front registers. You can pick up a book coming back over here for the signing. You. Other than that please leave your cheers in place we have another talk after this one. Today we are here to hear from james man of international studies, a prolific writer of u. S. Policy james work appeared in the olanta income of the new york review of books, the american prospect, and has many previous books under his belt, the rise of the balkans, china fantasy, and to name a few. His new book focuses on the friendship and dick cheney and former National Security adviser colin paul and we look at how it served as a force in american politics for an erosion of political identity and internal debate regarding global security. Its also an intellectual biography of two complicated men, one that emphasizes the Human Element of Human Affairs and how it is the predisposition of people that drive the broward broader powers that be. Thats get into it. Welcoming to james to politics and prose. Appmac to make thank you. And before i start, just a word or two of things to politics and prose because the store opened in the fall of 1989, my first book came out a few weeks later in my opening events was at politics and prose. This is my eighth event here and, i am deeply grateful not just for hosting me, but for being such a great bookstore over the years. This book is about the two men who were really among the leading figures in americas relationship with the world, at the time of the end of the cold war and the two decades that followed. If you take the period from 1988 from Mikael Gorbachev was making clear that he wanted to end the cold war, to 2008, and you look at the National Security office i mean the body that meets to decide American Foreign policy at least in non autocratic presidencies, that is the cabinet level officials of the various agencies. Any say, who is there . Even the twoterm president s, bill clinton, george w. Bush were there for only eight years, colin powell was there for nine, he served for american president s as chairman of the joint chiefs for two of those president s and secretary of state. And, cheney surfer 12, for secretary of defense and then ate as Vice President. No one had the kind of longevity they did. And they are also strong personalities to look at there was a time some of you remember when colin powell was so popular many people thought he could have been president. And on the other hand, dick cheney was so powerful there is a time when many people thought he was the president. And they are great ironies i find as i delve into this and looking at them, powell thought of cheney and chaneys partner, Donald Rumsfeld as politicians where he was not. I was coal and pollens concept of himself. Yet, it was powell who is a charismatic figure who is great with pick people and crowds. I have the reminiscence of someone who worked with both of them during the operation desert storm, the gulf war that was paul who said he traveled around the golf the area of the golf during the gulf war and in the lead up to its and he did so with cheney and there would be troops and people lined up at the chain fences as the plane with millions and he would have to say, mr. Secretary, would you like to go say hello to people and cheney would not have thought of it on his own. But to go in would seem to be happy to meet people. Powell wouldve been there in a nanosecond. That is just too he was. He really was a people person. And meanwhile, cheney, it takes very little time to talk to the people around cheney to realize he thought of colin powell as a politician because powell and his mind wasnt a policymaker. And chaneys own definition of policymaker was something he believed that the more unpopular his policies were the more important his policies were in the more they should count. So, cheney thinks of powell is a politician. The book covers the full span of their careers. Both individually and with one another. Isnt just about the invasion of iraq, its not just about the two wars with the rack. It starts with vietnam because vietnam is fundamental to both of them in the very different reactions to it, really they are motivating forces. Powell did two tours in the war, and he came away from vietnam with a passionate dislike for this is his phrase, slide rule bureaucrats and sliderule bureaucrats was another name i think for robert mcnamara, the secretary of defense who always have ideas that did not seem to translates on the ground of what could be done in vietnam. In the post vietnam era was crucial to powells rise because in powell acknowledges, vietnam had shown a deep divide racially between the older white generals and africanamerican troops and powell was the guy who could really talk across this divide and help bridget. Cheney did not serve at all in vietnam come i think you all know the stories there is one quote in which he said that he had other priorities during those years. But in a way, powell cheney, vietnam was a driving force in chaneys career because he served in the white house in the immediate aftermath of vietnam, especially in the Gerald Ford Administration when congress was passing a wave of new laws the war powers act is the best known of them but there was a series limiting the power of the presidency and the executive branch and cheney, then in the ford years and even when he became a member of congress was motivated by an intense desire to reduce and eliminate congressional restrictions on the power of the presidency. So one aspect of the book is to look at the history as it was and to explore the many myth mythsshiver a list that has arisen between these two guys. We all have a tendency to reorder history so it fits more neatly into what is happening now to our current preoccupations. To take one example, and i heard this several times since i was reporting the record in the book. These two guys hated each other. Now, that may be an understandable impression that people got after the two thousands and after the george w. Bush administration, when they really did dislike each other. But, you can extrapolate backwards as many even friends of cold powell have said that. When you look at the appointment of cold powell in 1989 when cheney was defense secretary, had he been some of powells closest friends say, cheney could not have done that. It must have been the white house. Mustve been george bush sr. Well, this is not what the record shows. First of all, these two guys meant once in germany in 1986 when cheney was in congress it was a congressional delegation and the delegation stops and powell is a core commander there. And they meet and talk and before very long powell is pulled back by his old friend and mentor, Frank Carlucci who is becoming the National Security advisor in the wake of irancontra. He pulls powell back to be the deputy National Security advisor and then powell goes on to be reagans final National Security advisor. And in those years chaneys and congress cannot record shows he confided in the archives and the reagan library, cheney was called school today he needed some conduct required cheney was intensely involved in was the guy he was secretly go to task for favors. They became very Close Friends at the end of the Reagan Administration has powell as he thinks leaving to go back to the uniform military, he exchanges notes with cheney, wishing you good luck for your career and vice versa, these notes are signed, your buddy colon, the idea that these guys didnt like each other just doesnt square with the record and then, the appointment of powell as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the record shows and cheney himself has admitted this in memoirs, cheney became secretary of defense in march of the year that george bush senior takes office because the first nomination john tower goes down and they bring cheney and from the start cheney is pushing to a. Powell is chairman of the joint chiefs. Powell is much more junior me hes not 35 but in military terms, he is much more junior than all of the other officers, cheney wants him. And there is reluctance at the white house. Hes too young, does he have enough experience, even bush senior says, maybe we should give him a couple more appointments first and cheney pushes and then even then in order to appease bush he goes down and pretense he is not interviewing him but talks to them about to see whether he is ready to be chairman of the joint chiefs and comes back and says that he is. Theres a whole charade, but not only is bush opposed, but brent in the white house is another reason that he doesnt want powell as part of the team which is powell has just been the National Security advisor and reagans last year which is to say that he was brents predecessor as National Security adviser. And i think many of you grasp that people dont like to have their predecessors in the job around a high level position. So was openly opposed. So its an example of the way people take the iraq politics, they agreed with powell on iraq sort of, will get to that, bush senior agreed with powell so it mustve been them and not cheney. History doesnt work that way. So, has defense secretary and chairman of the joint chiefs they go on to run not one, but two wars together, panama on the goal for. They are the first serious military operations that are successful since world war ii, i think we can dispense with the invasion of grenada a serious, and outcome of these guys they ride in a victory parade together through new york, they get their tickertape parade, they become national heroes, they are both mentioned as Vice President ial candidates. You wont believe this now but the young marine down will roll one piece in the New York Times in 1992 reporting that powell and cheney were being hailed on capitol hill as the most effective combination we have seen in this country since babe ruth and lou gehrig area now you might say, what are these two guys doing together with such very different beliefs and backgrounds and personalities, because they see him again looking backwards so different on the issues. And, that is understandable, but you are understandably forgetting with the issues were in the late 80s. That brought them together and the issue one of the main issues can be summed up in the word peace dividend. The democrats on capitol hill were pushing for large reductions in the Defense Budget, the cold war is coming to an end, and powell and cheney were day in and day out one testimony after another along with the third guy, paul wolfowitz. Theyre all on the same Team Fighting the democrats in congress to not cut the Defense Budget too much. So, not only did they Work Together in two wars, but on what was then the issue of the day what we now tend to forget, an issue that is understandably forgotten, they were aligned on that issue as well. And its true, they did not see i tie all the time, powell was more reluctant than cheney or bush or schoolcraft to go to war in response to the invasion of iraq. Im sorry, the invasion of kuwait. And you know, is true cheney leaves the pentagon without saying goodbye to powell and powell was miffed at that, but that is basically cheney is powell himself said on the whole, these guys they are not at each others houses every day but they are up at night in the pentagon sitting in one officer or another schmoozing is powell records and powell rights as cheney is leaving, we could finish one another sentences. Thats how close they were. In this amicable relationship continues until right before george w. Bush takes office and then thanksgiving of 2000 while the election is still undecided, cheney has his fourth heart attack and he is going to be in the hospital for thanksgiving and so, someone brings him and his family thanksgiving dinner in the hospital and that someone is a elmo powell, chaneys wife. So, now as i talk about the Second Bush Administration i need to debunk another big myth, one which is commonly held by all kinds of people which is that cheney changed. Cheney was transformed, that cheney was this nice moderate guy in the Ford Administration and worked well inside well, he did work well but he was a nice, moderate guy in the george h. W. Bush administration. And, this is not just street myth, this is a myth that is propagated by people like Brent Scowcroft in the iraq war words he said i dont know cheney anymore. Cheney has changed. And there is also what i call the cardiology theory. Everybody in this room know someone at a dinner party who knows a cardiologist jordan is a cardiologist or wants to be a cardiologist to says chaneys heart attack and again, he had had three before we ever get to the beginning of the Bush Administration, for by the time you took office, that somehow they changed him and they transformed him from moderate. Not true. And what i found really the closer you look, cheney was conservative. He was always conservative. And it tells us something about ourselves i think that we think you change. So lets look at the reasons that people think you change. One reason is that cheney subscribed to what i called the hired gun theory. He served as white house chief of staff and the next year he went out to wyoming to run for congress, 1977. And a Washington Post reporter goes out to wyoming to cover or do a piece on him running for congress and he asked a very washington question. He says, after you have been the white house chief of staff wouldnt it be a comedown to come back as a freshman congressman . Thats the pecking order of washington has some see it in chaneys answer was very revealing of his entire approach to things. He said you know, when you are in a staff job youre never yourself. You are just someones hired gun. And to actually if you look at his service in the Ford Administration, you find that for example, on form policy there was a soviet issue, should we admit alexander to the white house . Should we meet with him . Kissinger was opposed to might mess up relations. Cheney quietly sought to bring kissinger and sought to admit to the white house. So, he was taken in a sense a more hawkish and antisoviet boot view than the white house. When he was in the Ford White House he supported one of fords ventures which was the panama canal treaty. In the next year as a freshman, as he is running for congress, he opposes the treaty. So he doesnt treat what he is doing in the white house as white house chief of staff as his own deep beliefs. He is a hired gun rated and actually when this carries forward in the george hw Bush Administration, when he is secretary of defense he does work well with bush senior, baker, scowcroft, but he is also more conservative on the issues. So, there is country at ukraine cheney was the precise opposite of donald trump, the issue was do we push for the breakup of the soviet union, or do we hold closely to gorbachev and not try to push them on the soviet republics they would stick with gorbachev and cheney was at the pentagon and the words of of his aides, the breakup of the soviet union was devoutly to be wished. He was more antisoviet than the bush white house. So once again, you see cheney there is a view of himself, his own views and then there is hired gun, ultimately i have got to sign onto the policy of the guy im working for. And what happens finally in the george w. Bush administration is cheney has now risen to a level where he is not hired gun anymore. In fact, his position as Vice President he is being encouraged to guide the new president who is unschooled in policy and to help him run the white house. He is not a hired gun, he is supposed to be the tutor and effectively in charge. Now, the other reason we think cheney would get the idea cheney has changed is our preoccupation with style over substance. Style over issues. China chaneys style, cheney has as you all remember the deep voice. I call it a voice that is almost seductive to ceos. Everything is under control. Everything is taken care of. We have weighed all the possibilities and this is the best option. As we learned finally in 2003 and on, that was not true. But it was something he managed to pull off for a long time. And so, he became a favorite of the columnists. And i mean nice, moderate, serious columnists but david broder went to cheney over and over again for wisdom and cheney would give him the deep voice answer and on the other hand, so, he wasnt lets put it this way, lets compare him to newt gingrich. The two entered congress the same year, gingrich was a screamer, cheney was not a screamer. But, they had their voting records were very much the same. And actually cheney got so frustrated, we think that someone with a deep voice, we sound so reasonable it must be moderate, cheney actually instructed one of his aides on the hill, will you call the Washington Post and stop calling me a moderate. Im a conservative. I have a conservative voting record. How did they get me wrong . Well, you cheney didnt change, and he didnt, the times and the issues did. One of the main things that change between the two Bush Administration is the times and the issues in ways that create distance between cheney and powell. In that i have explored in the book. In that decade of the 90s, overseas america seems allpowerful. China is not yet a rising power, soviet, rush of the former soviet union as a decline in power, there is no competitor for the United States to worry about and you really get to different mentalities that take hold. One is, the United States should keep on dealing with the world much is it has with its alliances. And not try to change much, just preserve the status quo, the existing order and the other was okay, we have the power now, if we want to reorder things we can, we should. And powell represents the first, cheney represents the second. During that decade, sometimes multilateralism seems like a pain even the United States kind of sort of was more multilateral in the clinton years. Remember clinton in the end did not go to the un for permission for military action in xhosa vote. But, as they carried out military action in the balkans they had to keep on asking the french, the germans and italians and so on to coordinate the military action and have a debate about each one. In the military people would kind of grumble that it was a pain. So, the United States is allpowerful, but multilateralism becomes more irritating and meanwhile also in the 90s there are events in israel, the assassination of brings in netanyahu and israeli politics moves to the right. And cheney is very close to the israelis and in particular that the military and intelligence of the israelis. So, as israel moves to the right, that is another factor changing the equations for cheney. And at home finally, our domestic politics changes, as the rise of gingrich to be speaker of the house indicates, the Republican Party is moving steadily to the right. Colon powell goes to the 1996 Republican Convention and he delivers a plea for immigrants, the relevant quote was, the hispanic immigrant becomes a citizen yesterday must be as precious as the mayflower defendant. And he got greeted by a smattering of booze. That is something that would not have happened at a Republican Convention eight years ago but it is emotions that are coming to the surface really for the first time in the 90s. Now, finally, in the george w. Bush administration let me get to cheney has a theory, his own theory of what changed when schoolcraft is saying cheney change, scowcroft im sorry, chaneys responses, what change was september 11, september 11 changed everything. Schoolcraft was in an office when the United States was attacked and thats his self image of himself, the record shows that is not true, things changed and the conflicts between cheney and powell began really in the first weeks of the administration. They took different positions on north korea, they took different positions on Climate Change in the kyoto accord, the United States started moving to pull out of International Treaties that powell really did not want to pull out of, so commented and start with september 11 and what developed was a battle between what i call in the book the two tribes. These guys there wasnt just two people, these guys each had tribes of officials that developed an intense dislike of each other. There is one commentator who called the bureaucratic tribalism and i think thats right. Cheney, the people behind cheney have personal and old work ties to him and yes, it is neoconservatives but its more than that, the people who worked with him in the pentagon, the hawks, and they had personal ties and they did see each other a lot outside of work, powell didnt have the same Close Network of personal network, but his ties were to the professionals at the state department, cia, he and the career military and if that sounds like a description of currently the description of the deep state thats not far from the truth. None of. You go through president ial bureaucrats and libraries. There was no one detail directed to the question or military intervention against iraq. I know that sounds stunning but the way it played out, the heat built up in 2002, the two sides to tribes formed and theres a huge debate, public debate that summer and inside the Bush Administration, powell deflects the debate, he deflects the debate by saying we need to take this case to the un. If we are going to launch military action it has to be un approval, we need to take the case to you and and a discussion that they do. Power case to the un. The un, through the fall finally passes resolution which doesnt explicitly authorize the use of force. Powell, with great difficulty, a unanimous vote for a Un Resolution on iraq with requires Saddam Hussein to provide information about the programs. If you look back to november 2002, you find big headlines in the post, powells client therapy. Thats the way it was perceived. He fought off the hawks and succeeded in getting United Nations resolution. The problem with that is that while that was happening, the troops were looking. The troops were sent to the region, this goes on all the way through until january february march, finally the u. S. , i forget the exact figures but 120,000 people, troops lined up in the gulf. He cant turn around. I had an interview with powell, he admitted once all the troops were there, there wasnt much he could do. There is no meeting, should we do it, should we not . The focus is on another resolution, should we vote for it, should we not . But should we intervene in iraq, you cant find it. The other thing that surprised me is this it came from one of the people working for cheney, who i interviewed, it doesnt matter for this purpose whether was cheney or powell. I would say okay, lets go through this at the beginning of 2002, afghanistan is over and you are ready for the next phase on the war on terror, take me through it. He started through and he stopped and said this isnt the way it went down. Youre doing it, as everyone does by focusing on, we have to warn iraq. But the two tribes, the two factions were fighting two battles at once. It wasnt just iraq. The other one was israel and palestinians. The Bush Administration was trying to decide whether they were through arafat, push for peace settlement, there is a much larger debate because it goes back even heres further, the way the settlement with a struggle force in iraq, the way in the iraq settlement to get peace between israel and the palestinians and the hawks definitely on that debate but thats the way they saw. It wasnt just iraq, it was iraq and israel and palestine. As it played out at the time. And finally, powell posted the human and once again, and irony here, powells people and himself, they get asked by bush to give the speech explaining why we are going to work. He takes a job, he takes it on himself, heres what hes afraid of. Bush is looking for the rationale, theres one time six months earlier where cheney sa says, what is our reason . This is a problem for the Bush Administration all the way through, should be a problem now. But by the end of december, the cia comes to him with evidence and they have the Deputy Director give a presentation and it falls flat. He says is lousy. He assigned to people on his staff, one is cheneys to draft a memo explaining why to go to work. That sitting there and bush decide powell should get this presentation so what comes to him with this memo and thats the main thing he supposed to work from and he says hes obsessed with not wanting to take that so thats his entire focus, hes got six days to prepare for this speech. He goes out to the cia and goes over the evidence and he throws out from the start, the memo we are going to start fresh. Hes really working with the cia and the irony, his focus is on cheney which is understandable but he didnt think the cia would be as unreliable as it was so in the years after that speech, powell ended up at the cia and predictably at cheney overall but the cia gave him a bump steer with that speech. I think im going to wrap up there just to say one last thing because we are in the era of trump and as soon and the question of war with iran broke out, this came up not too long ago, i began hearing the analogies, this is cheney is a all over again, its like cheney. Honestly, cheney and trump were to very different figures. I think cheney was no populist. The example of the ukraine shows they were in different places on the issues, i think cheney actually has complained about trumps desire for personal diplomacy with iraq. I could go on at length but really, i think to be honest, the era of bush and cheney has now passed into history and we are now with trump in a completely different era. Let me take your questions now. [applause] it sounds like a wonderful book, especially since we lived through the whole thing. They have one thing in common that i think is very important. All the way through the vietnam war, and some of the others. I wonder, including bush, george w. And bill clinton. Yes but at least he thought about it. Bill clinton. Well, whatever. We are off the same age. You think the fact that all of these people never went to vietnam, you think thats the way they fought . Powell did. There were people who got deferments about they were in school, bill clinton tried to worked with him to avoid going to vietnam. I dont think its a determining factor, the hawks, some of them did serve, many did not. I dont think thats the determining factor. It was a factor, however in some of the tribals so the intent iraq debate, the issue came up of chickenpox. Hawks were very, very touchy about that issue and defensive. It became an issue in the 2000, for sure. My question is about the invasion in iraq. At no time with her consequences on that work, people went to be killed in Iraq International organizations, american casualties, they committed violence, even starting with vietnam and all the other wars, nobody things about that. We go and promote and destroy and kill people. Then we come back and it gets worse than when we went. What kind of country are we . I will disagree with the first part of your list of consequences. Concern about american casualties, yes. Intensely so. It shows up throughout this history. On both sides of the debate, one of the huge, one of the biggest issues in the gulf war, there are going to be thousands of people who came back and fed because the casualties were so light and so concerned with casualties, it became a factor in thinking there wouldnt be casualties the next time. On the consequences, the reason they didnt think there were consequences in the second, the war against iraq, its simply that they thought iraq was going to be like hungary or something. It wasnt going to be resistant. The error to me is a conceptual one, they just didnt see iraq as different from Eastern European countries. We would be greeted as liberators. Therefore, there wont be casualties. They almost lured them away. The others, the other casualties in other countries, i tend to agree with you, theres very little thought given to casualties in other countries. The last. You made or something i was going to say, were there any thoughts ahead of time if we win, how do we do it . People must have known iraq was not like germany or japan, they had all of these, they were all different groups, initiates and so on. Did anybody think about that . With powell and cheney, did they have different thoughts on that . It seems to me absolutely. Its not truth they didnt think about, they had battles over it. It became, it was one of among the tribal battles, invasion, wn charge of iraq after the war . The pentagon fell and was cheneys support. They wanted toerytng. The state department had its own future of iraq project. There were intent disagreements about governing iraq. The bottom line, none of them, they were too busy fighting each other to come up with a plan that worked. Would you talk a little bit about cheney and powells interview subjects and how they get into their past careers and what they do . I was starting to think this wasnt a washington audience because no one raised their hand and said, how about jackson . [laughter] ill give you my answer to that and then the answer to your question. My answer on how much access you have is, the biographer had full and complete an unbelievable access to Ronald Reagan and wrote one of the biographies and he had zero access to Theodore Roosevelt and wrote one of the best biographies around. In my case, i did have access to powell. I interviewed powell into previous books. He was at first, a little reluctant. I can tell you the story of wife. He didnt like, in my previous book about this team, he was on the cover along with five other people. Two years after, i was interviewing for another book and he said very goodnaturedly, pointed to the cover, what am i doing on their . I had to hold my tongue, meaning i wasnt part of them. I had to hold my tongue from saying thats really a good question. [laughter] what were you doing on their . But this was goodnatured. By 2000 2015, it had been a sense of irritation. The book had gotten around and he was mad. We could get into definitions on how i define it and how he was defining it but he thought vulcan meant that. For a couple of years, he was reluctant to be interviewed and then he did. Hes a goodnatured guy and he was willing to answer questions even though he said he wouldnt. With cheney, who i also interviewed before, negotiations went on and on and on. All the way until the book closed. I thought in the last week that he was going to decide to interview and he did not. As i say with my example, i dont think hurt the book, i talk to several of the closest people in and around cheney and i dont think im missing anything. Ive met him, i have a sense of him personally, i dont think im missing anything by not having interviewed him but i would like to have. What are your thoughts on the price and you think it was accurate . No, i dont. I did a piece from the post at the time it came out but you can not be faulted by what i think but what i think, i dont think it is accurate because it misseo things. The main thing, it misses cheney. It portrays cheney as interested only in power. It has a scene at the beginning where cheney was together with him and they are talking to each other, what do we believe . They decided it wasnt going to matter what they believe. My view is that hes a guy with deep beliefs that, in some cases, it was wrong. The problem in cheney wasnt that he was interested in power, its that he was wrong. So i thought the movie missed that and when you talk about accuracy and another think thats consequential for these two guys, they had steve carol and don, i thought one of the greatest of all time, it could have been played by george raft rather than some smiling, chuckling lightweight, it is not cheney. You never got into torture at all as far as cheneys involved. Im sorry. [laughter] i do want to read the book, i just wonder where his devotion, im not sure what to call it, to torture and how he continued with it despite everybody sang no, stop. I dont understand it so i thought maybe psychologically you did, or something. Two things. First, he believed wrong that it works, he dismissed, he didnt think of the argument at all so once he believed it worked, he stuck to it and wasnt going to change his mind later on. He became the defender of torture, other than donald trump, became the defender of torture. Actually, to say the least, he is not against torture or as they called it, prescient irrigation. At the time. At all. On that one, i would think that number two on the post 9 11 issues on which he played a role. The first one was surveillance, that was his baby. On the torture, it did go to bush. So yes, cheney but really, and powell turned out, this was to all the senior people. Powell was briefed as well, he didnt tell anybody including his close friend and deputy, so cheney stands out, because he became a defender for all of them were involved at the beginning. Wonderful book. You mentioned an adult about powell delivering thanks giving dinner, im wondering if you write more about powell and cheney in the book. Id be curious about how they deal with each other and how they deal with each other. If you talk to either of them from the book. I will admit, theres not that much about the spouses, or the kids with the exception of mary cheney because cheney is thinking of running for president in 96 and changes his mind and one factor was mary cheney was not out as gay at the time but basically, i admit this is a focus on their careers more than their families. I recall a time during the obama years when cheney went on National Television and took a swipe at powell and doubted, he didnt know he was were publican anymore. The connie you talked about that existed with two men, why do you think cheney felt the need after these legitimate differences of opinions in respect of policy, why do you think he felt the need to convey that toward powell so many years after they had been together in the white house . Thats a good question. The animosity that developed lingered and i cant remember what powell said or had done that made that comment timely or whether cheney went out of his way. I guess i could see it either way. For him to say i dont know if its true that he still republican anymore, this is during the obama years. By that time, powell himself is saying that. [laughter] powell goes through, theres a time in the 90s when people like george will or howard baker are mentioning powell should be on. People are promoting him as republican candidate and he goes through this public agonized bit, he says no, im not a politician. Then starting with that 96 convention, he begins to see they arent acceptable. I had an interview with him and he still saying people understand im a moderate republican, i believe in the right to choice and permit of action went down the list and he said, comforting himself, people understand that. Well, some people did but not the base of the Republican Party as we know it now and it was then. One more. I was sitting next to powell at a dinner in the late 90s and somebody abandoned the tab table, they shifted over and said are you woozy . 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