One was Liz Cheney, currently a US representative for Wyoming; the other was her father, Dick Cheney (as a former member of Congress, Cheney has lifetime congressional floor privileges).
Numerous Democrats reportedly walked over to Cheney to shake his hand.
All this was predicated on a shocking legal theory that gave the president sweeping wartime powers that neither Congress nor the courts could check.
These are not the actions of a “defender of democracy” but of someone who constantly attacked and undermined and disregarded it.
While Nixon’s name is synonymous with the abuses of power of the imperial presidency, Cheney believed Nixon had gotten a raw deal.
At the time, Democrats rightfully described Iran-Contra as a constitutional crisis and an attack on the rule of law and democracy itself.
Cheney’s theory of government was echoed by the legal defenses of Bush’s warrantless surveillance program, which Cheney enthusiastically defended as legal. »