Will It Be 'Lord of the Lies'? Or 'Undisclosed Location: A Personal Journey'? Cheney Signs Book Deal With Mary Matalin

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Christine Bowman

As Molly Ivins used to like to say, dripping with irony, "Isn't that nice?" Dick Cheney has found a publisher for his memoirs. Now all he needs is some #2 pencils and a good title.

A recent contest at BuzzFlash should certainly help with the latter. Our readers were brimming with creative ideas for titling Cheney's memoir, and the winning entries are in this article's headline, above.

As a progresssive political watchdog site on the Internet, BuzzFlash has kept an eager watch on former Vice President Dick Cheney's retirement activities. And, honestly? There's been much less hunting and fishing than we had hoped. Instead, the Veep has settled into his residence in Virginia, evidently in close proximity to a Fox News studio. He could have headed for the Wyoming hills or helped out daughter Liz by babysitting the grandkids, but Cheney instead has focused on trashing the Democratic president publicly and 'splainin' anew his take on American foreign policy.

But once again, he has a real project to sink his teeth into. His pal and former employee Mary Matalin has agreed to pay Cheney millions (that's the speculation) to spill his guts.

Or, will Editor Matalin, who also signed Glenn Beck and Mark Levin to the CBS-owned Simon & Schuster Threshold imprint, make sure that he doesn't? After all, she, too, was one of the insiders in the 2002 lead-up to the Iraq War -- one of the White House Iraq Study Group (WHIG) gang who brainstormed the marketing of the war, eventually settling on the WMDs and mushroom cloud story.

"I’m persuaded there are a lot of interesting stories that ought to be told," Cheney told the AP this week. On that point, we would heartily agree. "I want my grandkids, 20 or 30 years from now, to be able to read it and understand what I did, and why I did it." It remains a mystery just how the reported $2 million contract will enhance Grandpa's ability to just tell the family his side of things.

Writers at The New York Times seem to have explained Cheney's motivations a bit more realistically when they reported back in May that he was shopping the upcoming memoir to publishers. They observed that his memoir ...

... would add to what is already an unusually dense collection of post-Bush-presidency memoirs that will offer a collective rebuttal to the many harshly critical works released while the writers were in office and beyond.

Yep. There are stories to be told, all right, and they should be told in perfect harmony:

Already working hard to meet publishers’ deadlines is an informal writers’ workshop of historic proportions: President George W. Bush; Laura Bush, the former first lady; former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.; former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; and Karl Rove, the former presidential political mastermind.

Members of the Bush group are in regular contact as they seek to jog their memories, compare notes and trade stylistic tips in their new lives as authors, according to friends and current and former aides.

The coming crush of books reflects what former Bush officials describe as a desire to produce their own drafts of history ...

Mr. Cheney is writing out his thoughts longhand in an office above his garage in Virginia and is in frequent contact with the other newly minted Bush administration authors, right on up to Mr. Bush.

A report by U.S. News & World Report about a visit by Mr. Cheney to Mr. Rumsfeld’s Washington office in March prompted speculation that they were trying to match up their stories, which a Rumsfeld spokesman, Keith Urbahn, denied.

Dick Cheney and his eager assistant, daughter Liz, sure have their work cut out for them. But they had better get cracking if they want to shape the eventual tale and beat others to the book tour circuit. Whatever would they do if a Colin Powell, for instance, were to jump in and write their history first? And suppose Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson were to lend Powell a helping hand ...?

Unlike a Cheney memoir, that alternative, indeed, would soar to the top and become a bestseller for us at The BuzzFlash Progressive Marketplace.

^{Washington Post Photo: "In a bunker under the White House on Sept. 11, 2001, Cheney speaks to administration officials, including from far left, Joshua B. Bolten, Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin (standing), Condoleezza Rice and I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby (behind Rice)"}

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

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