George W Bush honors Dick Cheney as a 'faithful' and 'consistent' public servant in emotional eulogy

WASHINGTON, DC: Former President George W Bush remembered Dick Cheney on Thursday, November 20, as a former vice president totally devoted to protecting the United States and its interests. He paid tribute to a man he said was driven by a singular loyalty to the country. 

“You did not know Dick Cheney unless you understood his greatest concerns and ambitions were for his country,” Bush said. “Across 40 years, his service was consistent, faithful and noble.”

He added that Cheney’s long record in public life was even more remarkable given his “sheer physical endurance.”

George W Bush reflects on the 2000 election campaign with Dick Cheney 

Bush reflected on the 2000 campaign and his search for a running mate, recalling that he ultimately realized that the best choice was "the man sitting right in front of me."

He noted that Cheney had insisted on walking him through “all the reasons I should not choose him,” demonstrating the analytical detachment Bush said defined his approach to service.

The former president said that he wished more Americans could have known Cheney the way Wyoming did, “smart and polished ... courteous and approachable.” Bush commented that Cheney was a gentleman of the West whose public image never captured his humor and easygoing nature.

Liz Cheney recalls her father’s commitment to duty 

In her eulogy, former Rep Liz Cheney spoke of her father’s lifelong devotion to the country and to understanding its past.

“My dad’s devotion to America was deep and substantive,” she said, describing a childhood spent touring Civil War battlefields, where her father would insist on reading every marker and absorbing every detail.

She recalled how, as a student at the University of Wyoming, Cheney attended a speech by President John F Kennedy, urging young people to serve the nation, a moment she believes set the course for his future.

Though inspired initially by Kennedy, she said, Cheney chose a Republican path, but always held that party loyalty must never outrank allegiance to the Constitution.

“For him, a choice between defense of the Constitution and defense of your political party was no choice at all,” she said. 

Liz Cheney, a reportedly prominent critic of President Donald Trump, also noted that her father believed deeply in constitutional guardrails, a principle she has repeatedly invoked in warning that Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election violated the very system her father spent his life defending.

Dick Cheney served under changing and difficult times 

Cheney died earlier this month at 84, concluding a lifelong career in public service that placed him at the center of some of America’s most consequential national-security decisions.

He shaped the defense strategy by helping oversee the invasion of Panama and the Gulf War as George HW Bush's defense secretary, and later served as the driving force behind the global war on terror as vice president under George W Bush, including the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

He remained a staunch defender of the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, as well as the administration’s surveillance and enhanced interrogation programs. 

In later years, Cheney endorsed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.