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Former Vice President Richard B. “Dick” Cheney died on November 3, 2025, at the age of 84 after complications from pneumonia and chronic cardiac and vascular disease, his family said. His passing closes a long and often stormy chapter in modern American conservatism, leaving behind a legacy that will be debated for generations.
Cheney’s resume reads like a catalog of Washington power: White House chief of staff, congressman from Wyoming, secretary of defense under George H.W. Bush, and vice president under George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009. He survived decades of health struggles, including multiple heart events and a 2012 transplant, yet remained an influential figure in policy and behind-the-scenes strategy until the end.
To his defenders, Cheney was the embodiment of seriousness about national security—someone who treated threats to the homeland as existential and acted with decisive force after 9/11. Critics rightly point to his central role in expanding executive power, championing sweeping surveillance measures like the PATRIOT Act, and supporting the Iraq War, choices that spawned both security gains and profound moral and strategic controversies.
Those controversies mattered because they were not abstract legal theories; they shaped how the republic fights enemies and protects citizens. Cheney’s tenure forced hard questions about secrecy, interrogation, and the balance between liberty and safety—questions conservatives should answer honestly rather than dodge. His approach left a blueprint for a security-first presidency that future leaders will either emulate or reject.
In a final twist that exposed the fractures within the right, Cheney in recent years broke with party orthodoxy, endorsing the Democratic presidential nominee in a bitter intra-party dispute that cast him and his daughter, Liz, as pariahs to some and principled dissenters to others. That decision underscored a larger generational and ideological rift: fidelity to institutions and a certain foreign-policy realism versus the raw populist energy that has reshaped the GOP.
Reactions to Cheney’s death were predictably mixed, from solemn tributes about a life of service to outright condemnation from those who blame him for costly wars and overreach. The debate over his record will outlive him, and the way journalists and historians parse his decisions will determine whether he is remembered primarily as a guardian of the nation or as an architect of costly mistakes.
The practical lesson from Cheney’s life is twofold: national security requires resolve and clear-eyed leadership, but unchecked power corrodes trust and invites blowback. Future leaders would do well to study both the strengths and the failures of his approach—honoring the duty to protect while restoring the restraints and transparency that keep liberty intact.
