Dick Cheney, the man who turned the vice presidency into a shadow cabinet of one—complete with undisclosed bunkers and a fondness for shotguns—has finally met his match, succumbing to complications from a heart that beat on borrowed time, at age 84, on November 3, 2025. One suspects the Grim Reaper approached with caution, perhaps mistaking him for the architect of his own near-misses.
Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1941, Cheney grew up in the flatlands where ambition is the only elevation, dodging the draft five times with deferments that read like a choose-your-own-adventure in bureaucratic jujitsu. His career trajectory was a masterclass in ascent by attrition: Wyoming congressman, defence secretary under the first Bush, CEO of Halliburton during the '90s oil boom—where he helped drill deeper than most consciences—and then, improbably, the veep who whispered Iraq's weapons of mass destruction into existence like a genie from a depleted well. Under George W. Bush, Cheney was the id to the president's ego, greenlighting waterboarding and warrantless wiretaps with the casual efficiency of a man signing off on his own expense reports. "Deficits don't matter," he once quipped, a line that aged like milk in the desert sun, presiding over wars that cost trillions and trust in equal measure.
Personal life? A cipher wrapped in enigma, married to Lynne since 1964, father to Liz and Mary, the latter a footnote in culture wars he preferred to lead from the Situation Room. His five heart attacks were less medical milestones than metaphors for a polity under siege—transplants, pacemakers, the works—yet he outlasted two presidents and a pepper spray incident at a KFC. That 2006 hunting 'accident', peppering Harry Whittington with birdshot, was peak Cheney: collateral damage as Tuesday's hobby.
Legacy? The Darth Vader of American politics, he normalized the unipolar moment's dark side, leaving a trail of enhanced interrogations and enhanced contracts. But credit where due: in an era of performative piety, Cheney was authentically unrepentant, a neocon Lear raging against the dying of the light—or was it the oil?