by Mark Silva
Dick Cheney, home from a 10-day tour that ranged from Iraq and Afghanistan to Turkey and Saudi Arabia, “is not your regular road warrior.”
So writes Deb Reichmann, of the Associated Press, who accompanied the vice president who travels with “a green duffel bag stuffed with nonfiction books about military campaigns and political affairs… an iPod and noise-canceling earphones to listen to oldies and some country-western.”
The vice president managed to squeeze some tourism into this last trip. He and his wife, Lynne, and daughter Liz saw Topkapi Palace, seat of the Ottoman sultans for almost 400 years. “For all his globe-trotting,” Reichmann writes, “Cheney had never been to Istanbul, home of the Bosphorus Bridge that links Europe and Asia.
“More often, Cheney’s days on the road are spent holed up on planes, helicopters, hotel rooms and stuffy government buildings,” she notes in an AP dispatch from Washington. “They are long, grueling days.
“His staffers say they have to run fast to keep up with a schedule that seems especially rigorous for a 67-year-old man who has had four heart attacks,” she notes. “Like the gadget inside his chest that makes sure his heart is beating in sync, Cheney paces himself.
“Pack the Diet Sprite — a Cheney favorite,” Reichmann notes. “Keep the decaffeinated lattes flowing and tune the tube to Fox News.”Liz Cheney, a mother of five, says of her father: “Because he’s been doing it for so long, he has a pretty good sense of what’s important and what’s not important. He keeps his perspective, doesn’t let the little things get to him, you know. They sort of roll off, and he keeps his sense of humor.”
Cheney had traveled extensively as a member of Congress, visiting some 30 countries — some more than once — and probably will take more trips abroad before he leaves office in January.
On overseas trips, including this one in the Middle East, Cheney and newspapers, listen to music and spend time with his wife.
On this trip, the vice president was reading Rick Atkinson’s The Day of Battle, about the U.S. Army’s campaign to capture Sicily and mainland Italy during World War II. He also carried a collection of essays about that way and a book about the Revolutionary War.
Lynne Cheney spent time working on a new book proposal and editing a children’s book coming out in the fall about the Constitution.
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As he does at home, Cheney is known to unwind with a scotch, and he and Lynne Cheney sometimes sip white wine with dinner.
Cheney, wearing his iPod earphones, was busy reading paperwork when Air Force Two stopped in Shannon, Ireland, to refuel for the last leg of the trip. When the plane touched down at Andrews Air Force Base, Cheney boarded a helicopter that disappeared into the dark sky for the short hop to the vice presidential home at the U.S. Naval Observatory.
With thanks to Deb Reichmann, of the Assoicated Press, for the dispatch.