By Michael Corcoran, Emerson College
from Campus Project.org

These days it is not an easy task to write a 500-page biography on Dick Cheney and make him look good. The man is the least popular vice president in recent history; the war in Iraq, which he will always be remembered for, is viewed as an unambiguous failure in the eyes of most Americans; and the administration he serves in has been mired in scandals: warrantless wiretapping, the politicization of the Department of Justice, the leaking of the name of an undercover CIA agent, and on and on. Cheney even managed to shoot an old man in the face, but at least that was merely a reckless accident, in contrast to all the harm he has caused intentionally. So it is only natural that when Dick Cheney needed an official biographer to put something pro-Cheney into the annals of history he would look for someone who has shown an ability to portray falsehoods as truths’someone who could make “non-fiction” out of nonsense.

Enter Stephen F. Hayes.

Hayes is a senior writer for The Weekly Standard, the country’s most vociferously pro-war magazine. Cheney has always been a fan. According to The New York Times, Cheney sends someone to pick up 30 copies of the magazine each week. “Reader for reader, it may be the most influential publication in America,” said Eric Alterman of the Standard, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. “Anybody who wants to know what this administration is thinking and what they plan to do has to read this magazine.”

Hayes played a crucial role in the Standard’s notorious cheerleading for the war in Iraq, writing two high-profile articles asserting the now-discredited claim that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. The first of these, 2003’s “Case Closed,” earned public praise from Cheney himself, who called the article the “best source of information” detailing a relationship between Hussein and Al Qaeda. Hayes even extended these falsehoods into a 2004 book called The Connection: How Al Qaeda’s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America. Clearly, if your goal is to present a truly distorted perception of the post-911 world, Hayes is the right man for the job.

read more HERE if you can stomach it