Dick Cheney is the most powerful yet most unpopular vice president in American history. He has thrived alongside a president who, from day one, had little interest in policy and limited experience in the ways of Washington. Yet Cheney's relentless rise to prominence over three decades has happened almost by stealth. Now veteran reporters Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein reveal the disturbing truth about the man who has successfully co-opted executive control over the U.S. government, serving as the de facto 'shadow president' of the most dominant White House in a generation. Cheney has always been an astute politician. He survived the collapse of the Nixon presidency, finding a position of power in the administration of Gerald Ford. He was then elected to the House of Representatives and later served in the cabinet of the first Bush presidency. But when he became George W. Bush's running mate, Cheney reached a new level of influence. From the engineering of his own selection as vice president to his support of policies allowing torture as a permissible weapon in the 'war on terror', Cheney has consistently steered America to the right. With unique access to numerous first-hand sources, Vice provides an unprecedented expose of Cheney's career. Its startling revelations concern the war in Iraq, his relationship with the CIA and with big business, his involvement with Enron, and his ruthlessly manipulative attitude towards Iran. This powerful work of investigative journalism takes us behind the scenes in Washington, into hitherto secret meetings and deep into the heart of political decision-making. Utterly gripping, Vice chronicles and exposes the hijacking of the American presidency and illustrates the arrogance of power as never before.

Author Biography

Lou Dubose has covered Texas politics for twenty-five years. He is the co-author (with Molly Ivins) of two New York Times bestsellers, Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush and Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America. In 2003 he wrote (with Texas Monthly writer Jan Reid) The Hammer: Tom DeLay, God, Money, and the Rise of the Republican Congress (released in paperback as The Hammer Comes Down: The Nasty, Brutish and Shortened Political Life of Tom DeLay). He has also written a political biography of Karl Rove. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Jeanne Goka. Texas Observer executive editor Jake Bernstein has chronicled stories from Washington, D.C., to the jungles of Central America. As a weekly reporter in Miami, he covered the 2000 Florida recount and the Elian Gonzalez story. While working as a freelancer in Guatemala and El Salvador, he wrote about the destruction of the rain forest and the end of guerrilla insurgencies. In Texas, Bernstein's work on Tom DeLay's campaign-finance scandals has won multiple journalism awards. He lives in Austin.