Cheney addresses Bush ‘41’ criticism, admits he was ‘iron ass’ as vice president 
 
 CLOSE The former president died Friday at the age 94. He leaves behind a decorated legacy. USA TODAY 
 
 Former Vice President Dick Cheney addressed Sunday the "notion that there was some kind of fundamental break" between himself and the late President George H.W. Bush after Bush criticized Cheney's role in his son's administration. 
 
 The elder Bush, who died at 94 in his Houston home on Friday night, made several comments to presidential biographer Jon Meacham in his 2015 book, "Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush," that were critical of Cheney's militaristic policy prescriptions after the 9/11 attacks. 
 
 "I don't know he just became very hard-line and very different from the Dick Cheney I knew and worked with," Bush said of Cheney, who served as his secretary of defense for his entire administration. 
 
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 "Just iron ass," Bush said of Cheney's attitude after the attacks. He decried Cheney's "seeming knuckling under to the real hard-charging guys who want to fight about everything, use force to get our way in the Middle East." 
 
 Bush was also critical of Cheney's autonomy as his son's vice president and the degree to which he expressed his views publicly. 
 
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 "He had his own empire there and marched to his own drummer," Bush said. 
 
 "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace asked Cheney about Bush's remarks to Meacham during a discussion of the 41st president's legacy. 
 
 “I was more, I guess, of an ‘iron ass’ when I was vice president," Cheney conceded. "The thing that had intervened between my time at defense for 41 and my time as vice president was 9/11. We’d had 3,000 of our people killed on 9/11, more people than we lost at Pearl Harbor and we moved, I think legitimately, into a war-time setting rather than simple law enforcement." 
 
 Cheney said Bush reached out to smooth things over after his critical comments became public and sent him a note that said, “Dear Dick, I did it.” 
 
 "And then he went on at great length to tell me what a great American I was," Cheney said. 
 
 Cheney said Bush also invited him to sit at the head table at that year's Alfalfa Club dinner, one of the most exclusive annual events in Washington. 
 
 "That sort of dampened down the notion that there was some kind of fundamental break between Bush and Cheney," the former vice president said. 
 
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 Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/12/02/bush-criticism-cheney/2183449002/ ||||| As an ex-president, George H.W. Bush has generally maintained a respectful silence regarding later administrations. But now he's speaking out, criticizing some big names, and not in ways you might expect. 
 
 As revealed in the new Jon Meacham biography, "Destiny And Power: The American Odyssey Of George Herbert Walker Bush," the 41st president has some harsh words for the actions of his son's administration. 
 
 In particular, he objects to how Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld reacted to 9/11. He feels they were too hawkish, taking a harsh, inflexible stance that tarnished America's reputation around the world. 
 
 "I don't know, he just became very hard-line and very different from the Dick Cheney I knew and worked with," Bush told Meacham. "The reaction [to 9/11], what to do about the Middle East. Just iron-ass. His seeming knuckling under to the real hard-charging guys who want to fight about everything, use force to get our way in the Middle East ..." 
 
 The elder Bush believes Cheney -- who had been his own defense secretary back when he held the White House -- acted too independently of his son. "The big mistake that was made was letting Cheney bring in kind of his own State Department," Bush said, apparently referring to the national security team that the vice president assembled in his office. 
 
 The 41st president suggested to Meacham that Cheney may even have been pushed toward a harder line by his conservative wife and daughter, Liz and Lynne. "You know, I've concluded that Lynne Cheney is a lot of the eminence grise here ... tough as nails, driving," Bush is quoted as saying. 
 
 Cheney laughs off that last claim, taking full responsibility for his actions. "We smile about it, we laugh about it," Cheney told Fox News. "Same with my daughter, with Liz. It's his view, perhaps, of what happened, but my family was not conspiring to somehow turn me into a tougher, more hardnosed individual. I got there all by myself." 
 
 Regarding the former president's "iron-ass" remark, Cheney says he takes that as a compliment. "I took it as a mark of pride," he says. "The attack on 9/11 was worse than Pearl Harbor, in terms of the number people killed, and the amount of damage done. I think a lot of people believed then, and still believe to this day that I was aggressive in defending, in carrying out what I thought were the right policies." 
 
 Despite the criticism, Cheney says he still respects his former boss and enjoyed Meacham's book, which draws partly from audio diaries that Bush recorded during his presidency. 
 
 "The diary's fascinating, because you can see how he felt at various key moments of his life," Cheney said. "So I'm enjoying the book. I recommend it to my friends. And proud to be a part of it." 
 
 The elder Bush is even harder on Rumsfeld, saying, "I don't like what he did, and I think it hurt the President" -- his son, that is. "I've never been that close to him anyway. There's a lack of humility, a lack of seeing what the other guy thinks. He's more kick ass and take names, take numbers. I think he paid a price for that. Rumsfeld was an arrogant fellow ..." 
 
 Rumsfeld has declined to comment on the book. 
 
 Another recent revelation -- so recent it's not included in the Meacham biography. While Bush still believes in traditional marriage, he claims to have "mellowed" on same-sex marriage, stating people have a right to be happy without discrimination. It's a stance that will no doubt please many Republicans but have others wishing he'd continue to maintain his respectful silence. 
 
 For more on the private thoughts and the presidency of the 41st president, watch Fox News Reporting -- Destiny and Power -- The Private Diaries of George Herbert Walker Bush. The new special airs Friday Nov. 6 at 10 p.m. ET on Fox News. ||||| The biography, “Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush,” is coming out as the country is focused once again on the Bush family and its place in the American firmament. With Jeb Bush, Mr. Bush’s second son, struggling in his campaign for the White House, the family that has held the White House the longest in the modern age now faces the possibility that its time has passed. 
 
 But the first George Bush, now 91 and frail from a form of Parkinson’s disease, has seen his reputation rise again with the passage of time, and Mr. Meacham’s largely admiring biography offers the most definitive account to date about the nation’s 41st president. Mr. Meacham, a former editor of Newsweek and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, spent years doing research for the book, which is based in part on interviews with the former president and diaries he and his wife, Barbara, kept. 
 
 The book left both sons facing questions about their father’s judgments, one on the campaign trail and the other from retirement. From his office in Dallas, George W. Bush issued a statement on Thursday defending both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld. 
 
 “I am proud to have served with Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld,” the younger Mr. Bush said. “Dick Cheney did a superb job as vice president and I was fortunate to have him by my side throughout my presidency. Don Rumsfeld ably led the Pentagon and was an effective Secretary of Defense. I am grateful to both men for their good advice, selfless service to our country, and friendship.” 
 
 In addition to the reviews of Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld, the book reveals that the older Mr. Bush suffered from a post-victory despondency after the Persian Gulf war of 1991 — a “letdown” over no longer being involved in such a huge endeavor — that led him to consider not running for a second term. It also reports that Donald J. Trump, now a leading Republican candidate for president, wanted to be Mr. Bush’s running mate in 1988, and that Jeb Bush privately urged him to drop Dan Quayle from the ticket in 1992. 
 
 On March 13, 1991, just two weeks after Iraq capitulated in the gulf war, Mr. Bush fantasized in his diary about calling it quits after a single term. He would “call a press conference in about November and just turn it loose,” he said in the audio diary. “You need someone in this job” who could give his “total last ounce of energy, and I’ve had” that “up until now, but now I don’t seem to have the drive.” 
 
 “Maybe it’s the letdown after the day-to-day” 5 a.m. calls “to the Situation Room; conferences every single day with Defense and State; moving things, nudging things, worrying about things, phone calls to foreign leaders, trying to keep things moving forward, managing a massive project,” he said in the diary. “Now it’s different, sniping, carping, bitching, predictable editorial complaints.” 
 
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 The book includes diary entries about the tensions between Mrs. Bush and Nancy Reagan (“Nancy does not like Barbara”) and his private comments about Michael S. Dukakis, his 1988 opponent (“midget nerd”). It reports that as defense secretary for the elder Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney commissioned a study of how many tactical nuclear weapons would be needed to take out an Iraqi Republican Guard division, if necessary. (The answer: 17.) 
 
 It also describes Mr. Bush’s evolution on issues like same-sex marriage. While gearing up for his 1988 campaign, Mr. Bush said in his audio diary that Americans “don’t want homosexual marriages codified.” 
 
 In retirement, he attended a same-sex marriage and in September of this year sent Mr. Meacham a note to clarify his position. 
 
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 “Personally, I still believe in traditional marriage,” Mr. Bush wrote. “But people should be able to do what they want to do, without discrimination. People have a right to be happy. I guess you could say I have mellowed.” 
 
 But it may be Mr. Bush’s views of his son’s administration and advisers that will draw the most attention. In his interviews with Mr. Meacham, the former president returned several times to the topic of Mr. Cheney, who handled the role of vice president very differently from the way the first Mr. Bush did under Ronald Reagan. 
 
 “He had his own empire there and marched to his own drummer,” Mr. Bush said. “It just showed me that you cannot do it that way. The president should not have that worry.” 
 
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 He said he thought Mr. Cheney had changed since serving in his cabinet. “He just became very hard-line and very different from the Dick Cheney I knew and worked with,” Mr. Bush said. He attributed that to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “Just iron-ass. His seeming knuckling under to the real hard-charging guys who want to fight about everything, use force to get our way in the Middle East.” 
 
 He speculated that Mr. Cheney was influenced by his wife, Lynne, and his daughter Liz, both strong conservatives. “I’ve concluded that Lynne Cheney is a lot of the éminence grise here – iron-ass, tough as nails, driving,” he said. 
 
 Still, he called Mr. Cheney “a good man” who pushed boundaries too far. “The big mistake that was made was letting Cheney bring in kind of his own State Department,” Mr. Bush said. “I think they overdid that. But it’s not Cheney’s fault. It’s the president’s fault.” 
 
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 By that, he meant his son. “The buck stops there,” the elder Mr. Bush said. 
 
 He was even harsher about Mr. Rumsfeld, who had been a rival of his since the 1970s, when both served in Gerald R. Ford’s administration. “I think he served the president badly,” Mr. Bush said. “I don’t like what he did, and I think it hurt the president having his iron-ass view of everything. I’ve never been that close to him anyway. There’s a lack of humility, a lack of seeing what the other guy thinks. He’s more kick ass and take names, take numbers. I think he paid a price for that.” 
 
 He added, “Rumsfeld was an arrogant fellow and self-assured, swagger.” 
 
 In a statement on Thursday, Mr. Rumsfeld fired back at the former president. “Bush 41 is getting up in years and misjudges Bush 43, who I found made his own decisions,” Mr. Rumsfeld said. 
 
 The elder Mr. Bush’s comments did not mean that he disagreed with his son about the Iraq war, as many have assumed. Toppling and capturing Saddam Hussein were “proud moments” in American history, he said, and he did not like comparing his son’s war with his. “Different wars, different reasons,” he said. He denied that he shook his head in disapproval at his son’s decisions. “Saddam’s gone, and with him went a lot of brutality and nastiness and awfulness,” he said. 
 
 He would not be drawn into a blow-by-blow discussion of his son’s presidency. “He’s my son, he did his best and I’m for him,” Mr. Bush said. “It’s that simple an equation.” 
 
 In the course of researching the book, Mr. Meacham showed transcripts of the former president’s remarks to Mr. Cheney, who read them, smiled and said, “Fascinating.” 
 
 “I never heard any of this from 41,” Mr. Cheney told Mr. Meacham. “He would sometimes stick his head in and we’d talk, but he never indicated anything like this.” 
 
 Mr. Cheney did not argue with the notion that he had changed. “No question I was much harder-line after 9/11 than I was before, especially when we got into this whole area of terrorism, nukes and W.M.D.,” he said, meaning weapons of mass destruction. He added: “We were dealing with a completely different kind of threat after 9/11. We lost 3,000 people. It was worse than Pearl Harbor, here at home.” And so “we were justified in taking extraordinary measures to defend the country.” 
 
 He agreed that his arrangement with the younger Mr. Bush was different, but said “that’s what President Bush 43 wanted.” He added, “I do disagree with putting it on Lynne and Liz.” 
 
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 The younger Mr. Bush was also shown a transcript of his father’s remarks. “He certainly never expressed that opinion to me, either during the presidency or after,” Mr. Bush told Mr. Meacham. “I valued Dick’s advice, but he was one of a number of my advisers I consulted, depending on the issue.” 
 
 His father, he added, “would never say to me: ‘Hey, you need to rein in Cheney. He’s ruining your administration.’ It would be out of character for him to do that. And in any event, I disagree with his characterization of what was going on. I made the decisions. This was my philosophy.” 
 
 As for his “hot rhetoric,” the younger Mr. Bush said: “It is true that my rhetoric could get pretty strong and that may have bothered some people — obviously it did, including Dad, though he never mentioned it.”
– Dick Cheney, an "iron ass"? Yep, he admits he was. On Fox News Sunday, the former vice president addressed the notion of "a fundamental break" between him and the late George HW Bush after Bush accused him of being "just iron ass," USA Today reports. Quoted in the 2015 John Meacham book Destiny and Power, Bush criticized Cheney's "seeming knuckling under to the real hard-charging guys who want to fight about everything" and said Cheney "had his own empire." Cheney's response: "I was more, I guess, of an 'iron ass' when I was vice president. ... [But] we'd had 3,000 of our people killed on 9/11, more people than we lost at Pearl Harbor and we moved, I think legitimately, into a war-time setting rather than simple law enforcement." For more Sunday talk: GM Plants: "And clearly General Motors' decisions are in part based upon the tariff issue, so yes it has an impact, and it costs us jobs here in America," says Sen. Ben Cardin on Fox News Sunday about tariffs pushing GM to shutter five facilities, per Fox News.