Crack NYT investigative reporting: Shrub chewed gum in Oval Office!1 Oh, the Shrub-CHEENEE divorce!1
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/magazine/the-final-insult-in-the-bush-cheney-marriage.html?_r=0
[font size=5]The Final Insult in the Bush-Cheney Marriage[/font]
In the final days of his presidency, George W. Bush sat behind his desk in the Oval Office, chewing gum and staring into the distance as two White House lawyers briefed him on the possible last-minute pardon of I. Lewis Libby.
“Do you think he did it?” Bush asked.
“Yeah,” one of the lawyers said. “I think he did it.” ....
...“I think he still thinks he was protecting Cheney,” the president said. If that was the case, then Cheney was seeking forgiveness for the man who had sacrificed himself on his behalf. ....
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. “Perhaps my clout was diminished,” Cheney said in a 2011 television interview. ... ....
Now it was time to deliver bad news to Cheney. Bush invited the vice president into the small private dining room off the Oval Office for their final lunch on Jan. 15. There would be no pardon for Libby, Bush said. It was a hard choice, but that was his decision.
“You are leaving a good man wounded on the field of battle,” Cheney snapped. ....
Cheney’s public battle with Obama, though, seemed like a proxy for his private battle with Bush. Out of his deep respect for protocol, he could say only so much as he watched Bush compromise in their final years. But now he could lash out at a Democrat. ... ....
Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent for The Times and a contributing writer for the magazine. This article is adapted from his new book, “Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House.”
Editor: Joel Lovell
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