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As Vice President Dick Cheney prepared to answer questions at a National Press Club luncheon Monday, the question on everyone’s mind was what he thought of former White House press secretary Scott McClellan’s tell-all book, “What Happened,” which caused a firestorm in Washington last week with its scathing critique of the Bush administration.
Turns out he’s not in a hurry to find out. “I have not read Scott McClellan’s book,” he said. “I do not plan to read Scott McClellan’s book — anytime soon.”
So what does he think of tell-all books in general? “I think Bob Dole got it about right,” he said. Dole recently made waves by telling McClellan in an e-mail that he was a “miserable creature” who is “spurred on by greed.”
As for the vice president writing his own tell-all, don’t hold your breath. “I’ve never written a book,” Cheney said. “And I always said I got this job because I didn’t write about the last one.”
Speaking after the annual presentation of the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Awards, Cheney addressed a crowd that included Ford’s brother Dick, son Jack and several other family members.
Recalling his time as Ford’s chief of staff, Cheney said, “I worked too hard, slept too little and smoked too many cigarettes.” Just like his eighth cousin, Barack Obama, who’s wrestled with the nicotine himself.
Answering a question about his and Obama’s previously disclosed common ancestry, Cheney went back a little further in his family tree. He said going back to the 17th century, he discovered a Cheney from Massachusetts on his father’s side and a Cheney from Maryland on his mother’s side. “We had Cheneys on both sides of the family,” he quipped, “and we didn’t even come from West Virginia. You can say things like that when you’re not running for office.”
