Grand Vizier Cheney

(Newser) - Popular beliefs about the Bush presidency are way off the mark, a pair of top advisers who served throughout the administration tell the Washington Post . The idea that Vice President Dick Cheney wielded unprecedented power and pulled the strings on Bush's foreign policy is "just hooey," said Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten. More »

(Newser) - The election is over, a political era is ending, and a number of this year's frequent headline-makers will step out of the spotlight in 2009. Politico gets misty-eyed about its favorites: Dick Cheney: Who else would tell a senior senator to “go f*** himself”? Who else, when asked about the public’s disapproval of his foreign policy, would respond, “So what?” More »

(Newser) - George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are displaying strikingly different attitudes toward their time in power as its end looms, the New York Times reports. Bush is reflective, acknowledging regrets and speaking graciously of his successor. Cheney, meanwhile, is defiant to the end, defending policies like waterboarding and letting slip scathing comments about the incoming administration. More »

(Newser) - Joe Biden and wife Jill paid a pleasant social call this evening on the man Biden once called the "most dangerous vice president" in the nation's history. Dick Cheney and wife Lynne invited the Bidens for a meeting and a tour of the VP's official residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington, AFP reports. "It was a good visit," said a Cheney spokeswoman, and a Biden spokeswoman agreed. More »

(AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney canceled a campaign event in Illinois today after experiencing an abnormal heart rhythm. Cheney's press secretary Megan Mitchell said that during a doctor's visit this morning, it was discovered that the vice president was having a recurrence of atrial fibrillation—an abnormal rhythm involving the upper chambers of his heart. Cheney will visit George Washington University Hospital later for an outpatient procedure to restore his normal rhythm. More »

(Newser) - Dick Cheney held court on Capitol Hill yesterday, hoping to convince House Republicans to support the Treasury’s $700-billion bailout plan. But the VP's once-considerable clout in Congress has dissipated, Politico reports; Republicans emerged from the two-hour, closed-door meeting calling it “a bloodbath” and “an unmitigated disaster.” More »